Young Children use Third-Party Praise to Infer Competence

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

Abstract

Providing praise on children’s own performance can shape their sense of efficacy (e.g., Brummelman & Thomaes, 2017). For example, praising children for their traits (e.g., “You are a good drawer!”) rather than their efforts (e.g., “You did a good job drawing”) leads to low self-worth when they encounter setbacks (Cimpian et al., 2007). To our knowledge, few studies have examined the contexts in which children’s peers, but not children themselves, receive praise (third-party praise). Here, we investigate (1) whether children use third-party praise to make inferences about others’ vs. their own competence, and (2) whether the content of praise affects these evaluations.

In Study 1, 4- to 6-year-old American children (N = 60, 50% girls) played a drawing game. Next, an experimenter told the participant that another child, Jimmy/Susie (gender-matched with the child), drew the same picture that day. While examining the peer’s drawing, the experimenter said “Wow, Jimmy/Susie is a great drawer!” (Trait-praise condition), “Wow, Jimmy/Susie did a great job drawing!” (Effort-praise condition) or provided no feedback (Baseline condition). Then, she looked at the participant’s drawing again and provided no feedback. Children received four questions assessing their evaluations of the peer’s drawing ability (e.g., “Do you think Jimmy/Susie did well in this game?”), followed by four questions assessing their self-evaluations (e.g., “Do you think you did well in this game?”). Children evaluated themselves to be better at drawing than their peers in the baseline condition (p = 0.01), but not in the trait-praise (p = 0.35) or effort-praise condition (p = 0.16, Figure 1 left). Thus, the two types of third-party praise exhibit similar effects on undermining children’s evaluations of their own abilities relative to others’.

To explore the effect of culture on children’s evaluations of competence, Study 2 tested 4- to 6-year-old Chinese children (N = 60, 50% girls) with an identical procedure. Different from their American counterparts, Chinese children evaluated themselves to be worse at drawing than their peers in the baseline (p = 0.02) and trait-praise conditions (p < 0.001). They perceived themselves as good as their peers in the effort-praise condition (p = 0.35, Figure 1 right). These cross-cultural variations will be discussed.

Study 3 examined the development of children’s tendency to consider third-party praise in their self-evaluations. Four- to nine-year-old American children (N = 120, 50% girls) received an identical procedure as Study 1, except that they only received the four self-evaluation questions. Consistent with past literature, 4- to 6-year-old children in general had more positive evaluations of themselves than 7- to 9-year-olds (p < 0.001; see Figure 2). There was also a main effect of condition: children in the trait-praise (p = 0.02), but not effort-praise condition (p = 0.20), evaluated their drawing ability lower than children in the baseline condition, suggesting that praising a third-party’s stable traits, but not their efforts, undermines listeners’ self-efficacy.

In sum, children as young as 4 are sensitive to third-party praise and they use it to make inferences about their own and others’ competence.

Authors

• Minghui Wang, Cornell University
  Presenting Author

• Lindsay Tuttle, Cornell University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Michelle Wang, New York University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Lining Sun
  Non-Presenting Author

• Steven Othello Roberts, Stanford University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Lin Bian, University of Chicago
  Non-Presenting Author