There was a post recently on the Harvard Business Review blog “Praise Leads to Cheating?” that spoke about praising individuals based on attributes rather than on effort. For example, if I praise someone saying how talented or how smart they were, rather than how hard they may have tried or how much effort they may have put into doing something, it may put someone into what is called a “fixed mindset”, where the person may feel that the attributes they have cannot be changed. If however, you praise the effort that they have put into doing something they may develop a “growth mindset”, where the person may believe that by trying harder they can change the outcomes or improve upon it and they themselves can change.  [Read more…]