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Jose Torres

Judith McCann

English 1302

10 February 2023

Praising Infants

Introduction

When it comes to doing tasks, many individuals appreciate an appraisal. Furthermore,

praise also makes others feel as if they did a great job, which improves their mood. Not only that,

but a good job could improve someone's overall pace and how effectively they complete tasks.

While others might not think it, the benefits of praise can be seen all the way back into

someone's infancy. By analyzing an infant getting praised while doing certain tasks one can see

signs of greater speed, efficiency, and overall mood.

Background

Studying the effects of praise isn’t a new topic of discussion. Furthermore, this form of

psychology has been studied for many years, with one of the most recent studies called,

“Parental praise and children’s exploration: a virtual reality experiment” taking the methods of

the past and giving it a modern twist. (Blummerman et al.) The researchers took great inspiration

from this article and its methods like analyzing an infant's self-esteem. The researchers also took

into part the opposing takes by other journals such as the journal “Praise for Intelligence Can

Undermine Children's Motivation and Performance”. (Mueller et al.) These articles gave the

team a greater understanding of the subject at hand and served as the foundation of the study

itself.
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Methodology

The experimenters will assign a certain task to a 1-year-old toddler. They will then

measure the time it takes for the child to complete these tasks. We will then measure the methods

the child will use, the overall mood of the child, and the average time it takes for the child to

finish the tasks that will be assigned.

Speed

While conducting the experiment, the first thing one could noticed was the change of

pace when it came to problem-solving. We decided to go for a problem solving course similar to

the journal "Parental praise and children’s exploration: a virtual reality experiment.", but instead

of virtual reality we choose are more hands on approach. (Blummerman et al.) On the first day of

the experiment, the first exercise of the study was to have three cups with a ball inside of one of

them. The ball would be mixed around and we would have the child figure out where the ball

was. The child did not understand what was happening or where the ball was. Unfortunately, the

researchers did not consider that the infant was too adolescent, therefore their sense of object

permanence wasn't all that present. While the first idea failed we developed a new idea when the

infant started to stack the cups together. The researchers arranged the cups into a tower and

began to measure how fast the child would stack them while giving said child praise. The first

time try took 12.30 seconds for the child to stack up the cups. Once the child got a grasp of what

was happening we commenced the trial again. During this trial, he stacked the cups in 7.21

seconds. After this, the infant was very eager to stack the cups himself without the timer running.

During the activities, he would clap his hands. A third test was done, and with no hesitation, the

child stacked up the cups within 5.52 seconds. Unsurprisingly during the 4th trial, the child
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stacked it up in under 4.25 seconds. The child had improved his speed in a record amount of

time. These trials were all recorded in a time frame of 10 minutes with almost no breaks in

between.

Efficiency

Efficiency is one of the most notable characteristics shown within the test. Although the

original study involved cup mixing it was best to accommodate the child's abilities by stacking

the cups instead. When the researchers put the ball in the cup and mixed the child ignored that

and made their own form of entertainment in a matter of seconds. Once the researchers agreed to

do the cup stacking we were all amazed at what we saw. In the beginning, there was a lot of

hesitancy due to there being many researchers analyzing the child. The cups were arranged into a

small structure and at first, the child would knock over cups. It was when the researchers added

praise that the toddler began to act more efficiently. After praise instead of knocking the cups

over they would grab the cups individually and begin to stack them up. We did this 4 times and

noticed the same movements being done but at a faster pace than usual each time. During the last

trial instead of putting aside a cup and putting it on top of another, the child would grab the cup

that was on top and put it on top of the other cup. These types of efficient movements cut the

time by 2.68 seconds for every trail. This shows that not only does praise make a child more

efficient, but it makes them come up with better ways of problem-solving. This overall efficiency

was the same in all the trials that were conducted during the 3-day period.

Mood

Throughout the whole experiment, one characteristic always changed. This was the

subject's overall mood. During the first experiment, the child was very stubborn. It did not want

to conform to the original test and began to knock over cups. Once the praising began the subject
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became visibly happier. Not only that but it boosted the child's ego and self-esteem. Furthermore,

when the subject knew they did a good job they anticipated their own praise and clapped with the

researchers. This was seen in most of the studies revolving around different tests. In one instance

the child grabbed the researcher's hand and urged them to clap with them after completing the

job. Although these are very positive effect, the lack of time could contradict this fact. As said in

the journal by Claudia Mueller, “kindergartenage children who received person- or trait-related

feedback did display more negative responses after setbacks.”. (Mueller et al. 3) Nonetheless, the

research that was presented was crucial in finding out the short-lived effects of praise.

Results

After analyzing what praise does to efficiency, speed, and mood the researchers have

concluded that praise does have some sort of effect on a child's performance. The child showed

great potential in problem-solving and creativity. Not only that, but it also shows how much a

child's self-esteem is altered by an appraisal from someone who is older than them.

Conclusion

Overall, our study showed great results when it comes to the effective use of appraisal

when it comes to infants. Although the results do favor the idea that appraisal positively effects a

child, there is not enough evidence to prove it definitevely, and futher research should done in

regards to our research team. Nevertheless, there are many other studies similar to ours that

provide more ample evidence regarding this topic. Unfortunately, there is very little studies that

study the effects of appraisal when it comes to adults, which is why we inquire that more studies

should be done.
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Works Cited

Eddie, Brummelman, Grapsas Stathis, and Kooij K. van der. "Parental praise and children’s

exploration: a virtual reality experiment." Scientific Reports (Nature Publisher Group),

vol. 12, no. 1, 2022.

Mueller, & Dweck, C. S. (1998). Praise for Intelligence Can Undermine Children’s Motivation

and Performance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75(1), 33–52.