Telling a young child they are ‘smart’ seems like a good idea. New research shows how it could encourage them to cheat

Parents and teachers might think telling kids “they’re smart” is a helpful way to build self-confidence and support positive development. But according to new research, these kinds of statements might shape how kids approach academic tasks in ways we did not intend or expect. In some cases, it might even courage a child to cheat. What adults say matters When children experience success or failure, parents and teachers will often provide feedback about why the success or failure occurred. This can help kids make sense of the world, feel good about themselves or know how to improve for next time. Researchers refer to these explanations as “attributions”. According to longstanding research, the explanation we make for success or failure typically focus on one of four attributes: ability (“you are so smart”) effort (“you tried so hard”) luck (“you must have guessed correctly”) or task difficulty (“it was an easy test”). Whether they are accurate or not, research tells us these attributions can have a significant impact. They can shape how kids feel about the outcome of a test or task and how they might respond to challenges in the future. This is particularly true when the attributions come from people kids trust. How adult feedback might promote cheating In new research conducted in China and published in the Journal of Educational Psychology, researchers considered how children aged 5–6 years would respond when given different attributions about their performance. Specifically, they wanted to see whether different explanations would influence whether children cheated in future tests. Across two experiments, 210 children from urban middle-class backgrounds were given a test designed for them to experience success (an easy counting task). After the test, children in one of the experiments were variously told by the experimenter they succeeded because they were smart, they worked hard, they got lucky, or because the task was easy. Children in the second experiment were given no explanation for their success. After receiving feedback, all children were then given a temptation task. They were asked to complete a short test and to try and get as many answers right as possible. The task was designed with an opportunity for them to cheat when the adult left the room. Interestingly, children who were told they were smart immediately before the temptation task were almost twice as likely to cheat (64.3%), as children who were told they were lucky (38.1%), had worked hard (35.7%), had easy questions (21.4%) or who received no explanation at all (35.7%). This suggests the “smart” group felt a pressure to succeed the other groups did not. Why do little kids cheat? Cheating behaviours among young children are often attributed to poor impulse control or self-regulation. In research involving different kinds of temptation tasks, more than 90% of children aged 3–5 have been shown to cheat. For example, in one classic task, young children are told there is a toy in a box. They are then asked not to peek while the adult leaves the room. Yet there is also evidence primary-aged children make strategic decisions around cheating too. For example, children might weigh up the benefits of cheating versus the risk. They also increasingly make moral judgements about when it is OK to cheat and when it is not. The most recent findings encourage us to consider how feedback from adults might contribute to this behaviour. Praise is not always helpful To better understand how adults saying things like “you’re smart” might increase the risk of cheating, we can consider research around the effects of praise on children’s motivation and behaviour. Attributing success to a child’s natural ability serves as a type of praise. Adults are not just acknowledging the child’s performance, but making a general statement about their intelligence. While in the immediate term, praising intelligence might serve to boost children’s confidence, it can also mean children feel pressure to continue doing well. Children may be motivated to preserve this image and avoid shame. If a task feels too difficult, children can be motivated to turn away from the task completely. This might mean quitting or, if the task is compulsory, putting reduced effort in. What can parents and teacher do? This new research has some important implications for parents and teachers. Praising young children for being smart can feel supportive, but research suggests there may also be some unintended consequences – especially if it serves to increase pressure on a child. To boost children’s confidence we can instead talk to kids about what is important and why. An alternative option is to focus on children’s effort (for example, “you worked really hard on that, great job!”). This is helpful because effort is controllable, and we know practice is important for developing expertise. Admittedly, research tells us praising children’s effort is only sometimes effective at enhancing learning outcomes. Yet, we also know it is easy to implement with no known downsides. Research also tells us directly encouraging young children to be honest (“I want you to promise you’re not going to peek”) and praise for being good (“I know kids in your class and they told me you’re a good kid”) are both shown to reduce cheating behaviour. This is because children are still in the process of working out whether cheating is or is not advantageous. While winning feels good, so too does praise for doing the right thing.