A recent study demonstrates that children with low self-esteem do not benefit from hearing high praise from adults and may actually suffer from it in certain situations, Medical News Today reported.
The study, soon to be published in the journal Psychological Science, was performed at the Ohio State University and led by Eddie Brummelman, a visiting scholar from Utrecht University in The Netherlands.
Brummelman mentioned that while this study is not the first one to study the effect of praise on children, it is the first one to analyze the effect of inflated praise.
"Inflated praise can backfire with those kids who seem to need it the most - kids with low self-esteem," the lead author said.
Brummelman broadly defines "inflated praise" as compliments given to children with extra words. For example, instead of saying "you're good at drawing," a compliment with inflated praise would be "you're incredibly good at drawing."
In order to test inflated praise, Brummelman and his colleagues created three studies, including children with adults or parents.
One study showed that children with low self-esteem receive twice as much inflated praise compared to children with high self-esteem.
A second study involving children taking a math test demonstrated that parents praised the children about six times on average, 25 percent of which was inflated.
Lastly, the third study had the children draw a picture that would be critiqued. All of them received inflated praise, non-inflated praise, or none at all. Afterward, they were asked to draw one of two pictures -- one that would not teach them much, or another that would be difficult but might teach them a lot.
In the end, the researchers found that the kids who received inflated praise were more likely to choose the easier picture to draw, which might not teach them much.
Brummelman explained a possible answer to their reactions.
"If you tell a child with low self-esteem that they did incredibly well," Brummelman said, "they may think they always need to do incredibly well."
He added that children "may worry about meeting those high standards and decide not to take on any new challenges."
