Gunderson et al 2013 study

Parent Praise to 1-3 Year-Olds Predicts Children’s Motivational Frameworks 5 Years Later study.

As we are all well aware, the environment we grow up in influences our later behaviour, and our role models play a special part in this. Gunderson et al. (2013) suggested that the type of praise a child receives affects how a child combats setbacks and reacts to challenging tasks. Before we look at the study, let's discuss the different types of praise and how they relate to motivational frameworks.

Person versus processes praise

The two different types of praise are person praise and process praise.

Person praise may lead a child to believe that they have or lack some essential abilities and can affect later behaviour.

Process praise focuses on complimenting the individual based on the effort they make during the process rather than the end result. It acknowledges that anyone can do a good job if they put in the effort.

Given that some factors, such as how much effort has been put in, tend to be better predictors of how well a task is performed, this can encourage a healthy motivational framework and lead to more effort being put into things such as schoolwork. This is called an incremental motivational framework, an adaptable mindset.

Aim of the Gunderson et al. 2013 study

The Gunderson et al. (2013) study aimed to identify if different types of praise affect children's motivational framework years later, and to identify if parents were more likely to give a specific kind of praise based on their child's gender.

Gunderson et al. 2013 study procedure

The study recruited 53 children and their primary caregivers to participate; 29 of these were boys, and 24 were girls. Participants were located in Chicago, and the researchers attempted to collect an ethnically diverse participant pool from various backgrounds.

• From 14 months every four months, the researchers visited the children at their homes.
• The researchers analysed praise when children were 14, 26 and 38 months old.
• The interactions between parents and their children were recorded for 90 minutes, and they were asked to continue doing their usual daily tasks. These recordings were transcribed.

Naturalistic observations are carried out to see how participants behave in their usual environment, created by TanushkaBu- freepik.com

When the children reached the age of seven to eight, they completed a questionnaire that measured their motivational frameworks regarding morality and intelligence. Two questionnaires were completed three months apart.

The type of praise and how frequent the participants received them were measured using the transcripts from the recordings.

Gunderson et al. 2013 study results

It was found that, of all the communication recorded between parent and child:

• About 3% was praise of any kind.
• 18% of this praise was process praise, and 16% was person praise.
• Boys also received significantly more process praise(24.4%) than girls (10.3%).
• There was no significant difference between genders and frequency of person praise.

Moreover, when the type of praise participants received over the years was analysed, it was revealed that from the age of 14 to 38, participants significantly received less person praise. But, from 14 to 26, the number of process praise increased, which then plateaued.

A correlation was found between how much a child was praised and the motivational frameworks. When the recordings were compared to the results of the questionnaire taken by the children, it was found children who received more process praise in their early years were more likely to develop an incremental motivational framework. This suggests that these individuals were more likely to believe that ability is a result of effort and time put into skills or abilities.

However, the results did not show a link between receiving person praise and developing an entity motivational framework.

Gunderson et al. (2013) Study Conclusion

The results indicated a relationship between children receiving process praise in their early years and developing an incremental motivational framework. This suggests that the more process praise received as a child, the more likely an incremental motivational framework will be developed.

The results did not indicate that children were more likely to develop an entity motivational framework when participants received more person praise.

The results also suggest that boys are more likely to receive process praise than girls. From this, it can be inferred that boys may be more likely to develop an incremental motivational framework than girls.

Summary of the Gunderson et al. 2013 study

Let's take a look at a quick overview of the study to summarise what was investigated in the Parent Praise to 1-3 Year-Olds Predicts Children’s Motivational Frameworks 5 Years Later study (Gunderson et al., 2013).

• The Gunderson et al. (2013) study aimed to identify if different types of praise affect children's motivational framework years later, and to identify if parents were more likely to give a specific kind of praise based on their child's gender.
• The study recruited 29 boys and 24 girls, along with their caregivers.
• Participants were recorded in their homes to measure the frequency of types of praise received.
• After five years, the participants completed two questionnaires three months apart to measure the type of motivational framework developed.
• It was found that receiving more process praise resulted in an incremental motivational framework, but there was no link found between person praise and developing an entity framework.

Gunderson et al. (2013) Study Evaluation

Let's take a look at the strengths and weaknesses of the study!

Gunderson et al. 2013 study strengths and weaknesses

The strengths of Gunderson et al. (2013) are:

• The study's participants were from various ethnic backgrounds, making the results more generalisable to the broader population. However, they only used 53 participants, so the generalisability is similarly limited.
• Demand characteristics and observer effects would be reduced because neither the participants nor the researchers knew the true aims of the study.
• The recordings were gathered at the children's homes which would be a natural environment for them and their caregivers. Participants are more likely to act naturally, which results in more valid data.

The weaknesses of Gunderson et al. (2013 are:

• Although the study did a good job of using participants from various backgrounds, they were still all American, so an element of cultural bias still exists; this phenomenon is known as ethnocentrism.
• They only used 53 participants overall, which reduces the generalisability of the results.
• The participants were not briefed on the study's true aims, so they could not give proper informed consent to participate in the study; this is considered unethical.