Does Parental Praise Foster Children’s Exploration? A Virtual Reality Experiment

• In Event: To Persist or not: The Powerful Influence of Outcomes on Persistence Across Development

Abstract

Children are born curious and often spontaneously practice new skills. When they practice a new skill and fail, it is critical for them to explore new strategies to succeed. Such exploration is necessary for learning (Sutton & Barto, 2018) and the acquisition of new skills (e.g., motor skills; Thelen, 1995).

How can parents foster exploration in children? Intuitively, parents are inclined to encourage exploration through praise, especially with children with low self-esteem (Brummelman & Dweck, 2020). These children are often hypersensitive to other people’s opinions of them (Baldwin, 1992). One perspective suggests that praise gives these children the self-confidence they need to explore (Bandura, 1977). Another perspective suggests that praise informs these children that they are performing better than expected, thwarting their desire for exploration (for indirect evidence in adults, see Pekny et al., 2015; van der Kooij & Smeets, 2019). We suggest that praise can foster exploration in children with low self-esteem, but only when it is phrased in modest ways (e.g., “You did well!”), rather than in inflated ways (e.g., “You did incredibly well!”). Unlike inflated praise, modest praise simply acknowledges and values children’s performance without suggesting that they exceeded a high standard (Brummelman et al., 2014). As such, modest praise may encourage children with low self-esteem to explore. We tested this hypothesis in a virtual reality (VR) experiment.

Children (N = 202, ages 8-12) reported their self-esteem (Harris et al., 2018). Then, in a VR trajectory-matching task, they copied a 3D trajectory using a handheld controller (van der Kooij et al., 2019). After each trial, children received feedback on success or failure. After 30 trials, parents were randomly assigned to give children modest praise (“You did well!”), inflated praise (“You did incredibly well!”), or no praise. Children then completed the final 30 trials. We defined exploration as children’s movement variability after failure (i.e., the difference in drawn trajectory between the post-failure trial and the failure trial).

We ran a mixed model on children’s post-manipulation exploration, controlling for pre-manipulation exploration and including a random intercept per individual. The predicted modest praise × self-esteem interaction was significant. Self-esteem was not significantly related to exploration after inflated praise, B = 0.08, SE = .20, t = 0.40, p = .689, and no praise, B = 0.25, SE = 0.14, t = 1.77, p = .079, but self-esteem was significantly negatively related to exploration after modest praise, B = -.39, SE = 0.18, t = -2.14, p = .033. Modest praise, compared to inflated praise and no praise, increased exploration in children with low self-esteem (> 0.72 SD below the mean) but decreased exploration in children with high self-esteem (> 1.07 SD above the mean).

Our VR experiment shows, for the first time, that children’s exploration can be encouraged through praise. Extending earlier work (Henderlong & Lepper, 2002), our findings show that praise is not invariably beneficial: While modest praise discourages exploration in children with high self-esteem, it encourages exploration in children with low self-esteem.

Authors

• Eddie Brummelman, Universiteit van Amsterdam (UvA)
  Presenting Author

• Stathis Grapsas, Tilburg University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Katinka van der Kooij, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
  Non-Presenting Author