Praise Further Revisited

This semester, we’ve been exploring aspects of augmented feedback (augmented meaning the feedback that comes from an external source like a teacher or a peer, as opposed to inherent feedback which is what you notice internally when you sing). Specifically, we've identified the differences between praise (“That was so good!” “You’re a great singer!”) and encouragement (“Your belt has really improved!” “I can really see the attention you have given to your expressive choices.”). 

In this blog, I want to dig in a bit more on praise. In The Musician’s Mind, author and pedagogue Lynn Helding presents some of the ideas of education scholar Alfie Kohn. In educational settings, Kohn criticizes the use of "goodies" like candy, praise, and financial rewards, to incentivize behavior. In his opinion, this practice has given rise to a generation of children who have never learned the joy of discovery or taken delight in learning for learning's sake. He believes it's partly because the use of incentives has made them addicted to the reward (including praise) rather than truly seeking to learn something new. As a result, he finds these individuals are less likely to take on an endeavor or pursue a goal unless there is some sort of reward—and usually a reward that can be earned fairly quickly (Helding, 6). 

As a Gen X kid, I don’t think that is necessarily how I was raised (it was before the era of participation trophies), but I know it played some part in my life. I was lucky to have parents who were incredibly supportive of all the activities my siblings and I participated in. They were a fixture in the stands at every game, meet, match, concert, and competition—home or away, 90 degrees and humid or nine degrees and snowy. I appreciated having them there and enjoyed the post-game-breakdown conversations we would have after each event, reliving both the highs and lows. 

When I decided to go to college in a different state, however, that changed. Since I still had a little brother at home, they were busy going to all of his events, supporting him as they had me. It took a lot more effort and planning to get to my events. I think that’s when I really had to decide who I was doing these things for. Was it just for the praise I received from them after the events or was it out of my own desire to pursue excellence and enjoyment in the activity? 

You may remember the growth mindset and fixed mindset ideas from psychologist Carol Dweck that I have brought up in blogs and in pedagogy class. Essentially, when you have a fixed mindset, you believe that people are born with “talent” and that you just are or are not good at something. If you don’t believe you are talented as a singer, it feels worthless to practice because you don't believe you would actually get better. But a growth mindset accepts that we are all capable of learning many skills. If you don’t feel particularly good at singing, you recognize that you can improve if you commit to working at it. 

Dweck believes that the feedback we offer to others (as peers, teachers, and even as parents) can either reinforce someone’s fixed mindset or lead them to take on more of a growth mindset. As she notes (once again, as described in The Musician’s Mind), when we offer feedback that emphasizes someone’s innate abilities or “talent” (“That was so good!” “You’re a great singer!”), it can reinforce a fixed mindset. In a way, it says, “You didn't have to work for this, it's just who you are.” If someone starts to believe that, it can have the strange effect of causing them not to work at building those skills. They tend to settle in and actually avoid challenges. Even though challenges ("desirable difficulties") are what help us to grow, someone in a fixed mindset just sees them as ways to potentially expose what they aren't already good at, which can then threaten their identities as "good" singers. As Helding states, 

"Children who have been stoked by tales of their natural talent and fed big dollops of praise tend to clutch that talent as a talisman, which wards off both effort (unnecessary anyway, due to the magic of their natural gifts) as well as failure. Nothing ventured, nothing gained—and neither pride nor face is lost. This kind of behavior leads to a double whammy for the fixed-mindset kid: unexposed to failure, he neither progresses very much nor develops any strategies to respond to inevitable failures in the future. And it seems that those who have been stroked the most often fall the hardest, even to the point of complete psychological collapse. This vicious cycle has been fittingly dubbed 'the inverse power of praise.'" (The Musician's Mind, 190-91)

Conversely, when we compliment someone's effort (“Your belt has really improved!” “I can really see the attention you have given to your expressive choices.”), it tends to reinforce the fact that conscious effort leads to results. It reminds them that they control their own vocal-skill destiny, which leads them to embrace challenges as a way to grow, instead of avoiding them as exposers of deficiencies. 

Once again, consider the augmented feedback you provide. Do you tend to compliment talent or effort? Do you reinforce that someone is good or do you acknowledge their progress on the journey? Consider also how you respond to feedback. When someone offers you a positive comment, does it inspire you to work harder or does it lull you into inaction? Maybe the type of feedback is a factor. 

Spring break is here! (Or almost here, depending on when you're reading this.) How have you been doing on the goals you set at the start of the semester or the start of the school year? What adjustments can you make to keep working toward progress?

Now go practice.