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When Being Called “Incredibly Good” Is Bad for Children
Parents and other adults heap the highest praise on children who are most likely to be hurt by the compliments, a new study finds. Researchers found that adults seem to naturally give more inflated praise to children with low self-esteem. But while children with high self-esteem seem to thrive with inflated praise, those with low self-esteem actually shrink from new challenges when adults go overboard on praising them. “Inflated praise can backfire with those kids who seem to need it the most -- kids with low self-esteem,” said Eddie Brummelman, lead author of the study and a visiting scholar at The Ohio State University in autumn 2013.
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New Research From Psychological Science
Read about the latest research published in Psychological Science: Attitudes Toward Arab Ascendance: Israeli and Global Perspectives Felicia Pratto, Tamar Saguy, Andrew L. Stewart, Davide Morselli, Rob Foels, Antonio Aiello, Maria Aranda, Atilla Cidam, Xenia Chryssochoou, Kevin Durrheim, Veronique Eicher, Laurent Licata, James H.
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Increasing Personal Savings, the Groundhog Day Way
Thinking about time as a cycle of recurring experiences may help us to put more money away into our savings.
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New Research From Psychological Science
Read about the latest research published in Psychological Science: Power Anomalies in Testing Mediation David A. Kenny and Charles M. Judd In this article, the authors describe several peculiarities of mediation analysis in which the power for the test of the total effect and the power for the test of the direct effect can be dramatically different than the power for the test of the indirect effect. The authors describe when and why these peculiarities might occur and their implications for interpretation of mediation analyses. "Top-Down" Effects Where None Should Be Found: The El Greco Fallacy in Perception Research Chaz Firestone and Brian J.
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Residents of Poorer Nations Find Greater Meaning in Life
While residents of wealthy nations tend to have greater life satisfaction, new research shows that those living in poorer nations report having greater meaning in life. These findings, published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, suggest that meaning in life may be higher in poorer nations as a result of greater religiosity. As countries become richer, religion becomes less central to people’s lives and they lose a sense of meaning in life. “Thus far, the wealth of nations has been almost always associated with longevity, health, happiness, or life satisfaction,” explains psychological scientist Shigehiro Oishi of the University of Virginia.
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Boosting Self-Worth Can Counteract Cognitive Effects of Poverty
For people in poverty, remembering better times — such as past success — improves cognitive functioning by several IQ points and increases their willingness to seek help from crucial aid services, a study finds.