(In)effective praise and the way we think about our thinkers: we're pretty fantastic, but watch how you say it*

Research over the last decade has changed the way teachers, parents, coaches and other professionals give praise. Telling students they are smart or gifted seems to negatively affect their performance, whereas praising their efforts and the processes they used to produce results seems to support achievement and create a mindset that promotes academic engagement.

However, I think applying this technique is most effective when integrated with its underlying principles, rather than as a singular trick of language to use in a mechanical sort of way. Before I get into that deeper nuance and my personal take on intelligence and development in this context, let me explain the overall distinction being made by this set of research.

"Many educators have hoped to maximize students' confidence in their abilities, their enjoyment of learning, and their ability to thrive in school by praising their intelligence. We've studied the effects of this kind of praise in children as young as 4 years old and as old as adolescence, in students in inner-city and rural settings, and in students of different ethnicities—and we've consistently found the same thing (Cimpian, Arce, Markman, & Dweck, 2007; Kamins & Dweck, 1999; Mueller & Dweck, 1998): Praising students' intelligence gives them a short burst of pride, followed by a long string of negative consequences." ("The Perils and Promises of Praise," Dweck)

This finding (largely championed by Carol S. Dweck) makes perfect sense to me when I look at my own fear- and ego-based experience as a "smart/gifted" kid, and when I look at my adult development toward a more useful mind-set. With my identity and worth connected to my intelligence, I developed bad habits to protect that identity. For example, I masked my ignorance in a number of ways, often by not asking questions. That habit developed into having difficulty developing questions or even recognizing when I had questions, masking my ignorance even from myself. (That piece of character is a hard one to shake to this day.) This combined with other related habits also outlined in the studies (e.g. avoidance of challenge) to produce academic decline and general maladjustment for quite some time.

What we are to do when praising others (and ourselves) is to focus our praise and evaluation on observable things rather than on some abstracted intrinsic nature. It's important to do so in a way that connects the results (e.g. a piano recital) to the person's process/effort, "It sounded like you worked hard on that piece." Simply praising the work leaves the connection to the individual open to interpretation. "That's a fine piece of work," could just as easily be received with a subtext of "because you're smart" as it could get the subtext "because you worked hard."

Giving praise in such a way frees people's identities, lowering the stakes. And, by connecting what they did to what they produced in the world and within themselves**, it demonstrates that they can substantially affect their learning and the world around them. It empowers people to engage in learning and practice -- to get behind the wheel of their own development.

This is the essence of the approach, a change in "mind-set" from thinking of intelligence/talent as something "fixed" which reveals itself, to thinking of intelligence/talent as something that grows and can be built by the individual. That message gets conveyed in the way we speak, and it can also be taught directly.

Dweck and others did a study demonstrating the effectiveness of directly teaching students this mind-set. They carried out an intervention in 7th-grade classes. The control group received instruction in study skills, time management and memory skills. The experimental group also learned about how their brains work and what they can do to make their brains grow. It worked. 

"The idea that their intellectual growth was largely in their hands fascinated them. In fact, even the most disruptive students suddenly sat still and took notice, with the most unruly boy of the lot looking up at us and saying, 'You mean I don't have to be dumb?'" ("The Perils and Promises of Praise," Carol S. Dweck)

Here's the nuance

Yes, when I talk about learning, skills, abilities, knowledge and so on, I try to use that approach -- to speak in terms of doing the work to gain and build what you want in life, rather than in fixed terms of being good or bad at something. It's not that I'm an educator or anything like that, but I think it is important to do for myself and others, to promote a healthy mind-set in the world. I see and hear people sort of stuck in themselves, with a rigid mind-set that has practically beaten them down. So, I try to use that way of speaking and praising.

However, the power of that "growth" mind-set is very much in the affirmation of how inherently amazing we actually are. So, I also speak and think in terms of the awesome gifts and capacities that we all have as human beings.

Consider everything that makes up a human infant (i.e. a body). We all start out mostly the same; those that are particularly different from the norm are still mostly like everyone else. As we grow up, we continue to be mostly the same as those within similar cultural contexts, and to a lesser degree, we are still mostly the same as those in different contexts. As a pithy teacher friend once said, we like to think we're all special snowflakes, but we aren't. That means, in a certain light, we might be about as amazing as our heroes/idols.

I don't mean to downplay the significance and value of diversity and opportunity, or to celebrate mediocrity -- at all. Some people are clearly better at certain things than others, gifted so to speak. But, the vast majority of what we think of as "natural" talents were in fact built over time through individual choices and efforts and through social/environmental factors, by strengthening muscles, reinforcing some neural pathways over others and so on.

In fact, the way our DNA works was once thought to be fixed and determined in the same way that intelligence and talent were thought of, but we now know that even the way our DNA expresses itself can be shaped by behavioral and environmental factors.

On the face of it, this sort of emphasis on social/environmental factors can seem deterministic, setting up a mindset of powerlessness in the same way as does praising an individual's inherent character. And, while social inequities are very real and worth addressing (and, redressing), what I am talking about here is individual mind-set, which is both socialized and self-directed. I find it excitingly empowering when the reality of "external" factors and our own efforts shaping us is framed in support of the reality that we humans are quite wonderful creatures capable of impressive changes, developments and diversities.

Perhaps how we use three overlapping concepts associated with what fashions an individual might be particularly salient here: nature, character and identity. Nature seems a fairly fixed mystique, as extrinsically thrust upon us as it is intrinsically rooted. Character is built, stable but malleable; identities can be fluid, rigid, unstable, overlapping, tricky -- quicksilver. I think these and other concepts play significant and valid roles in shaping our humanity. To which are we assigning different aspects of the self and experience? To what are we consigning ourselves and others?

Whether I am carving paths catered to my built-up strengths or working on improving my areas of weakness, I find comfort in the fact that I can choose to be what brings me joy rather than do what protects my ego, freeing up a lot of energy. In that spirit, I am neither compelled to shine nor afraid to shine, and, I can't say that I don't fear failure, but that fear is more healthy than not. We each probably have what it takes to get where we want; we just make choices about what we think is worth the work and sacrifice to get there from where we are, and about which paths are worth taking for their own sakes.

*This post was triggered by this post by Donald Miller. Reading his post brought me back to the excitement of my studies of pedagogy at The Evergreen State College.

**This is the basis of the scientific method, no? Science, having developed as the most adaptive way for our organism to understand the world thus far, is not surprisingly modeled on our biology, also having developed as the most adaptive way for our organism to be in the world thus far. So, it only follows that we should model our thinking and education on the scientific method. But, that is for another blog post.

New cyberscam a spin on old scam: two tips to avoid it

I started seeing a new style of phish over the last few weeks at my job where I scour the Internet for these types of threats. It is a slightly more sophisticated fake Google login page designed to steal your credentials. Gizmodo recently published an article about it, reiterating a Symantec blog post, but they may have slightly overstated the threat while missing some helpful hints to avoid falling for the scam.

For the average person, this new phish is a little more graphically convincing and tricky in the URL. But, it is essentially the same as those that came before it. Don't worry; just keep in mind two things that apply to all phish.

1) WHO. A link to the fraudulent page is usually sent in a lure email. The Gizmodo article makes a good point: if someone you don't know unexpectedly sends you a link, it's probably not legit.

The email may say you need to log in to your account to change settings, or to view a shared document (as in the case of the Google phish), or something along those lines. The sender's email address may appear legit because they spoofed it, but they were probably too lazy for that, I've noticed, so it's probably something dumb like accountverify@yahoo.com. (Most of the scammers who make these pages and stuff seem super lazy and sloppy; it's probably why they do what they do.)

Sometimes a company may actually use third-party services for shared documents, so you may need to verify with that company. This is rare, especially if you weren't expecting it.

One variation is that, instead of receiving an email, you may find links to login pages from other pages, pages where you wouldn't expect to find a link like that. Usually, these are just blogs trying to get traffic by offering links to legit login pages in a post on how to log in to your bank. While they are perhaps less-than-honorable sites, in that they offer no real value and muddy search engine results for ad revenue ("content farms"), they are not criminal. But, they could be, which leads us to the next point.

2) WHERE. Does the link go where it should? Just because the text you click looks legit, doesn't mean it actually goes to that address. Look at the URL.

The URL may be long and unclear on first glance, and it may contain the name of your bank or relevant key words somewhere in it. That can be sneaky, but it's a tip-off once you're savvy. Your bank's login page is not going to be at www.alpacasoncrack.com/herephishyphishyphishy/fake-login/secure.yourbank.com.php, nor will it be at login.yourbank.com.hobbitlovers.org. (The domains alpacasoncrack.com and hobbitlovers.org are surprisingly available at the time of this writing.)

If you hover over a link before clicking it, the real URL it points to will appear in the bottom of your screen. (Most, if not all, browsers will show the URL like this, but if your browser doesn't do this for you, get a new browser, or change your settings, or update it, or get an add-on or something.) If you do happen to click on it (which is a low risk if you have an antivirus program, so no worries, but do clear your cookies afterward), look in the address bar at the URL where you ended up. Some browsers will make it easier to spot the domain name by making its text black while the rest of the URL is greyed out in the address bar up top.

Also, the domain may even be your-bank.com, whereas your bank's domain is yourbank.com, but those variations have probably already been bought or blocked by your bank. UK banks actually use the hyphens on legit domains sometimes. I digress.

In the case of this newish Google phish (aka "parasite," depending on whom you ask and how you are lured to it), the fake login URL looks legit. Since it is actually a public document on Google docs, it is on docs.google.com. However, your Google account login is on accounts.google.com. That's a little trickier, but it still follows the same principle: the login page is not in the right place on the Internet.

If you're still unsure about whether you're on the right page, here is the simplest and only trick you really need: go find the real login page. Make sure it's on the same hostname (e.g. login.yourbank.com). Just for fun, you could enter fake credentials and see if it accepts, but remember that rejection is not proof it's legit.

There are all kinds of other things to check, such as where the form sends your login info, checking the whois etc. But, a lot of that stuff is mainly to help put together a case for taking the page down. If all you are concerned about is avoiding a scam, just remember what I told you. Do you trust the source? Is the login page where it should be? (Where is the login page?)

If you think you have found a fraudulent login page or email, alert the company it poses as (e.g. your bank). Forward the actual email to them with the full headers (see how here). Chances are they have hired a team dedicated to taking care of this sort of thing, like the awesome team I'm on: shameless IID plug.