Gunderson et al. (2013) Key Study: Parents’ praise and children’s motivational frameworks Flashcards
What was the background to the Gunderson et al (2013) key study?
Research has shown that the way parents praise their young children impacts a child’s later development. Praise may be ‘person praise’ or ‘process praise’, and, drawing on Dweck’s work, it is thought that this different types of praise may encourage different motivational frameworks.
What is meant by person praise?
Someone praised the individual rather than what they are doing.
What is meant by process praise?
Parents can praise a child’s behaviour- i.e. what is being done.
What is meant by entity motivational framework?
A belief that behaviour or ability results from a person’s nature.
What is meant by incremental motivational framework?
A belief that effort drives behaviour and ability, which can change.
What were the aims of the Gunderson et al (2013) key study?
- Children are affected by different types of parental praise given in a natural situation
- Parents give girls less process praise and more person praise than boys
- Parents use of process praise predicts s a child’s reasoning five years later about what motivates and causes behaviour.
Who were the participants in the Gunderson et al (2013) key study?
Childrens that started when they were 14 months.
What was the procedure of the Gunderson et al (2013) key study?
Researchers looked at the following:
Parental praise patterns
- Neither those collecting the data or the participants knew that praise was being studied. (this is known as double-blind method)
- The participants thought the study was about language development.
- At each visit, participants were asked to go about a typical day in the home, and caregiver-child interactions were videotaped.
Children’s later belief
- At 7-8 years old, the same children answered two questionnaires about what they thought led to a person’s intelligence and what led people to act morally.
- Questions included 18 items covering children’s ideas
- 6 items about their belief
How did the researchers examine children’s later beliefs in the Gunderson et al (2013) key study?
Through the use of questionnaires.
What were the results of the Gunderson et al (2013) key study?
Parental praise patterns
- On average, not very much of all parental comments to the child were praise
- Researchers found the similarity of the two praise
Gender and parent praise
- There were gender differences in process praise, with boys receiving more process praise than girls
Parental praise and children’s framework
- The more process praise there is in early childhood, the more likely children will believe that putting in effort is not the waste of time
- There is a relationship between parents praising what a child does and the children’s motivational framework. children who receive process praise are more likely to develop an incremental framework (similar to a growth mindset).
- Early person praise did not seem to lead to an entity framework (similar to a fixed mindset) later in life
What were the conclusions of the Gunderson et al (2013) key study?
- A clear relationship was found between parents’ use of process praise and a child’s later use of an incremental motivational framework. However, the study’s aims were only partly supported because the study did not find that parental use of person praise led to a fixed motivational framework
- Researchers found that boys received more process praise than girls
- Boys had more of an incremental framework than girls
What are the strengths of the Gunderson et al (2013) key study?
- Gunderson et al’s study shows that Dweck’s findings in experimental studies, where the setting is artificial which has low ecological validity
- The researchers who videotaped and transcribed that data did not know that parental praise was the point of interest. This helps to avoid bias in the qualitative data.
What are the weaknesses of the Gunderson et al (2013) key study?
- The ethics of the study could be criticised as it was told to be investigating on language development but it was about praise- therefore, parents were conceived and could not give informed consent
- Parents may have changed their style of praise because they were being observed which shows lack of validity (although this was made less likely because they did not know what the researchers were investigating)
Why did researchers deceive participants in the Gunderson et al (2013) key study?
If the researchers do not deceive then the study will lack validity- there would be demand characteristics.
Why might there be problems with generalisability in the Gunderson et al (2013) key study?
There might be problems with generalisability because only 53 children and their parents were used, and they were all from Chicago- i.e. a big city. It might not be possible to make generalisations to children outside of the USA, or outside of large cities.
