Praise the Process, Criticise the Behaviour
Praise directed at effort and strategy holds up under later failure. Praise directed at the person collapses.
- Evidence
- solid
- Topic
- People
- Things to do
- 3
- Read
- 1 min
solidHow strong is the evidence?
Good evidence behind it, but fewer people have checked it independently.
- Mueller & Dweck, JPSP, 1998
- see also the contested scale of mindset interventions
Why it works
“You're brilliant” makes the next hard task a threat to an identity. “You found a good approach there” makes it an invitation to find another.
What to do about it
- Name the specific thing they did: the choice, the preparation, the persistence. Vague praise reads as polite noise.
- In criticism, keep it to the behaviour and its effect: what happened, what it cost, what to do differently.
- Never sandwich. Everyone has decoded it, and it devalues the praise on both sides.
Where people go wrong
Assuming this makes ability praise forbidden. It is about what you attach the outcome to, not about never saying someone is good.
Read next
- Small Wins Run the DayThe strongest driver of a good working day is visible progress in meaningful work — ahead of recognition, incentives and clear goals.solid
- Relationships Are the Whole FindingAcross 85 years of following the same men, relationship satisfaction at 50 predicted health at 80 better than cholesterol did.proven
- Five to OneStable relationships run about five positive interactions for every negative one during conflict. Below that, they fail.solid
- Turn Toward the Small BidsCouples who stayed together turned toward each other's small bids for attention 86% of the time. Those who split, 33%.solid