Clear Thinking Out Loud

This podcast is the narrated version of my article Why Telling People How Wonderful They Are Isn’t Always A Good Idea. The habit of praising people has got out of hand in recent decades and little attention has been paid to its unintended side-effects. There is a way to praise children that will encourage them and increase their self belief, and a way that is more likely to inhibit them and cause anxiety. The self esteem movement has not tended to distinguish between the two. In this episode I talk about: Praise and self esteem The unintended consequences of excessive praise The dangers of exceptionalism Counterproductive results from poorly directed praise How positive labels can do as much damage as negative ones How to handle praise elegantly Or watch this episode of the podcast on video below: References/Notes: Can the promise of reward increase creativity? Eisenberger, Robert; Armeli, Stephen; Pretz, Jean. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol 74(3), Mar 1998, 704-714. The Perils an