Parental praise and children’s exploration: a virtual reality experiment

Brummelman, Eddie; Grapsas, Stathis; Kooij, Katinka van der

doi:10.1038/s41598-022-08226-9

Cited by 11 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 68 publications

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“…By providing only information about students' external socioeconomic conditions (e.g., their house), we might have made teachers more aware of structural barriers faced by low-SES students, encouraging them to attribute low-SES students' successes to effort. Future studies should investigate inflated praise in teacher-student interactions in real-life classrooms or simulated classrooms in virtual reality 78 . Second, in Study 1, the inter-rater reliabilities of praise and attributions were satisfactory but not excellent.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“You did incredibly well!”: teachers’ inflated praise can make children from low-SES backgrounds seem less smart (but more hardworking)

Schoneveld,

Brummelman

2023

npj Sci. Learn.

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Can teachers’ inflated praise make children from low socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds seem less smart? We conducted two preregistered experiments to address this question. We used hypothetical scenarios to ensure experimental control. An experiment with primary school teachers (N = 106, ages 21–63) showed that when a child from a low-SES (vs. high-SES) background succeeded in school, teachers attributed this success more to hard work and delivered more inflated praise (e.g., “You did incredibly well!”) but less modest praise (e.g., “You did well!”). An experiment with primary school children (N = 63, ages 10–13) showed that when children learned that another child received inflated praise (while an equally performing classmate received modest praise or no praise), they perceived this child as less smart but more hardworking. These studies provide converging evidence that teachers’ inflated praise, although well-intentioned, can make children from low-SES backgrounds seem less smart, thereby reinforcing negative stereotypes about these children’s academic abilities.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“You did incredibly well!”: teachers’ inflated praise can make children from low-SES backgrounds seem less smart (but more hardworking)

Schoneveld,

Brummelman

2023

npj Sci. Learn.

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“…Inflated praise can harm children’s self-views (Brummelman & Dweck, 2020; Brummelman, Crocker, & Bushman, 2016). When children with low self-esteem (ages 8–12) receive inflated praise, they avoid challenges and limit their exploration, presumably because they are afraid of not being able to live up to the praiser’s expectations of them (Brummelman et al, 2014, 2022). In a longitudinal study of 120 children (ages 7–11) in the Netherlands, children who received more inflated praise developed lower self-esteem.…”

Section: Origins Of Socioeconomic Disparities In Children’s Self-viewsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Unequal selves in the classroom: Nature, origins, and consequences of socioeconomic disparities in children’s self-views.

Brummelman,

Sedikides

2023

Developmental Psychology

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Children from low socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds often have more negative self-views than their peers. How are these self-views shaped by teacher-student interactions in the classroom, and what are the consequences of these self-views for achievement inequality? We present a developmental framework addressing these questions by bridging insights from the psychological, educational, and sociological literatures. We show that children from low-SES backgrounds perceive themselves as less intelligent, less able to grow their intelligence, less deserving, and less worthy, independent of their actual abilities and achievements. We demonstrate how negative intellectual stereotypes-expressed through daily interactions with teachers in classrooms, such as teachers' expectations, feedback, and attention-undercut the self-views of children from low-SES backgrounds. We also show how this process can be exacerbated by institutional and cultural values reflecting a belief in meritocracy (e.g., schools that encourage competition, emphasize raw ability, and attribute achievement inequality to intrinsic factors), which are common in countries with high income inequality and rigid between-school tracking. The ensuing more negative self-views introduce psychological barriers that undermine the academic achievement of children from low-SES backgrounds, thereby reinforcing achievement inequality. This represents an enormous loss of potential and perpetuates harm into adulthood. Socioeconomic disparities in self-views can emerge early in life and widen with age, underlining the need for developmental research and timely intervention. We discuss implications for studying the nature, origins, and consequences of socioeconomic disparities in self-views, and for designing interventions to reduce achievement inequality. Public Significance StatementChildren from low socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds often have more negative self-views than their peers. How are these self-views shaped by teacher-student interactions, and how do these selfviews affect academic achievement? We show that these self-views emerge, in part, because children from low-SES backgrounds are exposed to denigrating messages about their ability, even when their achievements and abilities are equal to those of their peers. Their self-views, in turn, undermine academic achievement, reinforcing achievement inequality.

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“…Our goal was to identify the age point at which the intercept reached statistical significance, indicating children's pain perceptions began to deviate from chance (0.5). This method has been used in recent developmental studies (e.g., Brummelman et al, 2022;Zhao & Yang, 2023). The analysis showed that, starting at the age of 7.2, the probability of choosing the poor White individuals as feeling more pain became significantly higher than chance.…”

Section: Left)mentioning

confidence: 99%

The impact of sufferers’ wealth status on pain perceptions: Its development and relation to allocation of healthcare resources

Shu,

Li,

et al. 2023

Preprint

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Wealth-based disparities in health care wherein the poor receive undertreatment in painful conditions are a prominent issue that requires immediate attention. Research with adults suggests that these disparities are partly rooted in stereotypes associating poor individuals with pain insentivity. However, whether and how children consider a sufferer’s wealth status in their pain perceptions remains unknown. The present work addressed this question by testing 4- to 9-year-olds from the US and China. In Study 1 (N = 108, 56 girls, 79% White), US participants saw rich and poor White children experiencing identical injuries and indicated who they thought felt more pain. Although 4- to 6-year-olds responded at chance, children aged seven and above attributed more pain to the poor than to the rich. Study 2 with a new sample of US children (N = 111, 56 girls, 69% White) extended this effect to judgments of White adults’ pain. Pain judgments also informed children’s prosocial behaviors, leading them to provide medical resources to the poor. Studies 3 (N = 118, 59 girls, 100% Asian) and 4 (N = 80, 40 girls, 100% Asian) found that, when evaluating White and Asian people’s suffering, Chinese children began to attribute more pain to the poor than to the rich earlier than US children. Thus, unlike US adults, US children and Chinese children recognize the poor’s pain from early on. These findings add to our knowledge of group-based beliefs about pain sensitivity and have broad implications on ways to promote equitable health care.

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Parental praise and children’s exploration: a virtual reality experiment

Cited by 11 publications

References 68 publications

“You did incredibly well!”: teachers’ inflated praise can make children from low-SES backgrounds seem less smart (but more hardworking)

“You did incredibly well!”: teachers’ inflated praise can make children from low-SES backgrounds seem less smart (but more hardworking)

Unequal selves in the classroom: Nature, origins, and consequences of socioeconomic disparities in children’s self-views.

The impact of sufferers’ wealth status on pain perceptions: Its development and relation to allocation of healthcare resources

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