Found this interesting article today on what motivates kids.
Carol Dweck, a Stanford psychologist, researches on the role of making mistakes in learning. In her classic research, she gave groups of school children puzzle tests that were relatively simple for them. All of the kids did well. Two groups, selected at random (the total population was over 1000) were alternatively praised for their intelligence (“You must be very smart”) or their effort (“You must have worked really hard.”)
To cut to the chase, in follow-up tests, the group that was initially praised for their intelligence avoided subsequent challenges, gave up on tough puzzles more easily, and sought out opportunities to see that they had done better than others.
The group that was praised for their effort, on the other hand, sought out tougher challenges, worked harder on those tougher puzzles, and sought out opportunities to understand why others had done better than they had. In other words, they were driven to learn.
To be clear, the only difference between the groups was the initial praise. Throughout the remainder of the experiment, each group sought to self-validate the single compliment they had been given – one group by selecting tasks that allowed them to look smart, the other group by selecting tasks that allowed them to work hard.
At the end, they were all given a final set of puzzles. Guess which group had learned more about how to tackle them? In short, the kids who were praised for their efforts got better results because they worked hard to learn how to learn.
Now, this is with little kids. But what we all learn as kids are the things which drive us throughout our lives. Each of us seeks to renew the conditions that got us the most acceptance and praise.
To read more about Carol Dweck’s studies on children’s psychology and their motivating factors, wiki her or read this article. http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2007/february7/dweck-020707.html
-Raghu
