Person versus process praise and criticism: implications for contingent self-worth and coping

Exploring the link between mindset and psychological wellbeing among pharmacy students in Zimbabwe

INTRODUCTION

Mindset may influence pharmacy students' psychological wellbeing. However, little is known about the relationship between mindset and psychological wellbeing among pharmacy students. This study aimed to explore the association between mindset and psychological wellbeing in pharmacy students in Zimbabwe.

METHOD

Fourth-year pharmacy students from the University of Zimbabwe and Harare Institute of Technology were invited to participate via their class WhatsApp groups. An online survey, linked through a cover letter, was distributed to measure students' mindsets, psychological wellbeing, and demographic characteristics. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to assess the relationships among psychological wellbeing, mindset, and demographic factors.

RESULTS

Of the 124 fourth-year pharmacy students, 85 completed the survey (response rate: 68.5 %). Most students demonstrated a growth mindset (n = 43; 56.6 %), while 33 (43.4 %) had a fixed mindset. Students with a strong growth mindset had a higher mean psychological wellbeing score (mean = 57.5; SD = 5.2) compared to those with a strong fixed mindset (mean = 52.4; SD = 4.4; p = 0.048). No associations were found between mindset or psychological wellbeing and age, gender, spirituality, marital status, or institution attended.

CONCLUSION

The majority of students exhibited a growth mindset, which was associated with better psychological wellbeing. Demographic and personal characteristics were not related to students' psychological wellbeing or mindsets. Pharmacy schools and educators should actively promote a growth mindset to enhance students' psychological wellbeing.

Exploring the influence of social relationships on adolescents' multiple sleep problems via a school-based China education panel survey: the moderating role of depressive emotion

BACKGROUND

Poor adolescent sleep health is a significant public health issue worldwide. In particular, multiple sleep problems disturb the lives of adolescents. It is urgent to identify the key factors (e.g., parent‒child relationships, peer relationships, and teacher‒student relationships) and influential moderators (e.g., depressive emotions) that contribute to adolescent sleep problems.

METHODS

Data were derived from the China Education Panel Survey (CEPS) and collected through self-reported questionnaires. A total of 7405 students (3818 boys and 3587 girls) born between 2000 and 2001 were followed from grade 7 through grade 8. Logistic regression was applied to explore the effects of the independent variables and moderating variable on students' sleep problems.

RESULTS

Remaining fatigued after waking up (17.97%), dreaminess (14.21%) and sleep fragmentation (13.07%) were the three most common sleep problems among the students. Peer relationships, teacher praise, and depressive emotions were related to adolescents' sleep problems (all p < 0.05). Notably, depressive emotion served as an influential moderator in the relationship between social relationships and sleep problems among students, exhibiting simultaneous and lasting effects (all p < 0.05).

CONCLUSIONS

Reducing adolescents' sleep problems is necessary, and enhancing adolescents' positive social relationships and reducing their depressive emotions should receive increased attention.

Examining Health and Social Support Among University Housekeepers: A Mixed-Methods Exploratory Study

This pilot, exploratory project examined the relationship among the health, work, and social support of university housekeepers. The first objective was to examine the influence of social support on work-related outcomes among university housekeepers. The secondary objective was to examine the influence of social support on physical and psychological health among housekeepers. Using a mixed-methods approach, the study assessed work-related outcomes and the influence of social support using least square regression models and multinomial logistic regression models. Qualitative data was obtained via one-on-one interviews. Participants (N = 46, 72% female; 87.2% Black) averaged 4.43 ± 0.72 for job satisfaction with stress levels occasionally high for most of the sample (75%). Support was moderate across all three types of support with the highest perceived support in tangible support (2.85 ± 0.52). Four major themes emerged from the interviews, including lack of support and trust from supervisors and administrators; lack of respect from other members of the university community; need for positive recognition; and impact of the job on health. Findings revealed that when housekeepers feel they belong and are appreciated at work, they feel more positive about their jobs and likely do better work. Housekeepers and their work are critical to students, faculty, and staff in the university system. Future research should examine existing health issues and assess for factors contributing to physical or mental health treatment, especially post-COVID. Universities should invest in wellness programming and policies supporting mental health leave to improve overall well-being and stress in this under-resourced population.

Relational Victimization, Characterological Self-Blame, and Adjustment in Young Children

The associations between relational victimization, self-blame attributions, and internalizing problems in early childhood has not previously been examined. Using a sample of 116 preschool children, average age 44.05 months (SD = 4.23), multiple informants, multiple methods, and a longitudinal design, path analyses were conducted to explore the associations between relational victimization, self-blame attributions (Characterological Self-Blame[CSB] and Behavioral Self-Blame[BSB]), and maladjustment in early childhood. Concurrent significant associations were found between relational victimization and internalizing problems. The initial longitudinal models revealed some significant effects that were consistent with predictions. Importantly, follow-up tests decomposing internalizing problems, indicated that anxiety at Time 1 was positively and significantly associated with CSB at Time 2. Depression at Time 1 was negatively and significantly associated with CSB at Time 2. Implications of this work are discussed.

Effects of praise and "easy" feedback on children's persistence and self-evaluations

Praise is thought to affect children's responses to failure, yet other potentially impactful messages about effort have been rarely studied. We experimentally investigated the effects of praise and "easy" feedback after success on children's persistence and self-evaluations after failure. Children (N = 150; Mage = 7.97 years, SD = 0.58) from the mid-Atlantic region of the United States (73 girls; 79% White) heard one of five types of feedback from an experimenter after success on online tangram puzzles: process praise ("You must have worked hard on that puzzle"), person praise ("You must be good at puzzles"), process-easy feedback ("It must have been easy to rotate and fit those pieces together"), person-easy feedback ("It must have been an easy puzzle for you"), or a control. Next, children failed to complete a harder tangram puzzle. Preregistered primary analyses revealed no differences in persistence and self-evaluation between person and process praise or between person-easy and process-easy feedback. Exploratory analyses showed that hearing process praise led to greater persistence after failure than the control condition (d = .61) and that process-easy feedback led to greater strategy generation than the control condition. The effects of adult feedback after success may be more context dependent than previously thought.

Positive Feedback as a Lever to Boost Students' STEM Outcomes

Although many college students intend to major in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM), dropout from these fields is high, especially among members of historically underrepresented groups, such as women and racial-ethnic minorities. We propose a minimal, yet potentially powerful intervention to broaden participation in STEM: giving positive feedback to students in STEM. Studies 1 and 2 found that giving positive feedback is less normative in math (vs. English) courses, and instructors' feedback-giving practices and students' experiences mirror these norms. However, students who received positive (vs. only objective) feedback on introductory-level college calculus exams showed greater belonging and self-efficacy in math, which predicted better STEM outcomes (i.e., increased interest in STEM and higher final math course grades, respectively, Study 3). These findings were especially strong for racial-ethnic minority students. Giving positive (vs. only objective) feedback is thus a potentially transformative tool that boosts student outcomes, especially for underrepresented groups.

Early childhood teachers' feedback in natural mathematical learning situations: Development and validation of a detailed category system

In many countries, early mathematical learning takes place in informal and play-based situations. To support children's mathematical learning, the interactions that occur in the daily contact between the early childhood (EC) teacher and the child in kindergarten play an important role. In these interactions, the feedback provided by the EC teacher is considered to have effects on learning. However, how EC teachers actually give specific or non-specific feedback in everyday activities and play situations with a potential for mathematical learning (natural mathematical learning situations) has been little studied so far. To comprehensively characterize the EC teacher's feedback in natural mathematical learning situations, the current study developed a detailed category system based on categories from previous feedback studies, conducted under various conditions and with different objectives. To verify our category system, we coded mathematical teacher-child interactions (N = 162). The coding provided us with evidence that the category system allows to capture the given feedback in natural mathematical learning situations reliably and in detail. The category system can be useful for further research examining the effects of naturally given feedback on children's mathematical learning and, in the long run, for training teachers in the use of potentially supportive feedback in natural learning situations.

The Impact of Praise on Cooperative Behavior in Three-Player Public Goods Games and Its Gender Differences

Previous research has primarily focused on static factors influencing cooperative behavior in social dilemmas, with less attention given to dynamic factors within group social interactions, such as positive feedback received during interactions, i.e., praise. This study, through a between-subjects online experiment with a single-factor, two-level design (praise: public praise/no praise), investigates the impact of praise on cooperative behavior changes across two rounds of a three-player public goods problem. Results revealed the following: (1) A positive correlation between individuals' contributions across two rounds and a negative correlation with the number of correct answers in rule comprehension questions were evident; for men, a correlation between rule comprehension and first-round contributions was observed. (2) Multilevel model results showed that praise, role, and rule comprehension significantly positively affected contribution changes across two rounds; gender did not significantly affect contribution changes. Specifically, under public-praise conditions, contribution changes were greater. Publicly praised individuals showed positive or negative behavior changes, while those not praised in the same group showed positive changes. Men contributed significantly more in the first round than women, with no gender difference found in contribution changes. Rule comprehension positively predicted contribution changes, indicating that more correct answers led to greater positive changes in contributions. These results not only support the inferential social learning perspective, suggesting that through praise, individuals can infer external world perceptions and self-evaluations, affecting both the praised (positively or negatively) and positively influencing non-praised individuals in the same group, but also provide a theoretical basis and intervention strategies for team and organizational management in groups.

Anxiety predicts math achievement in kindergarten children

Introduction

Math anxiety (MA) is an academic anxiety about learning, doing, and evaluating mathematics, usually studied in school populations and adults. However, MA likely has its origins before children go to school. For example, studies have shown that general anxiety (GA) for everyday events is less separable from MA in primary than in early secondary school. This suggests that GA may be a precursor of MA. For this reason, here, we have examined whether GA is already associated with math achievement at the end of kindergarten.

Methods

We tested 488 Hungarian kindergarten children aged 5.7 to 6.9 years (55% girls) and analyzed the effect of GA, sex, and family SES on math achievement in kindergarten children.

Results

Strikingly, confirming results from primary school children, we found that GA negatively correlated with math achievement already in this preschool population. Higher GA levels had a stronger negative effect on girls' than boys' math achievement. However, there were no significant sex differences in math achievement in kindergarten. Additionally, family socioeconomic status was the strongest predictor of math achievement.

Discussion

We speculate that high GA in preschool is a plausible early precursor of later high MA. Early interventions could aim to control GA levels before children start formal schooling.

Shared Minds, Shared Feedback: tracing the influence of parental feedback on shared neural patterns

Parental feedback affects children in multiple ways. However, little is known about how children, family, and feedback types affect parental feedback neural mechanisms. The current study used functional near-infrared spectroscopy-based hyperscanning to observe 47 mother-daughter pairs's (mean age of mothers: 35.95 ± 3.99 yr old; mean age of daughters: 6.97 ± 0.75 yr old) brain synchronization in a jigsaw game under various conditions. Between parental negative feedback and praise conditions, mother-daughter brain in supramarginal gyrus, left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, right inferior frontal gyrus, and right primary somatic (S1) differed. When criticized, conformity family-communication-patterned families had much worse brain synchronization in S1, left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, and right Wernicke's region than conversational families. Resilient children had better mother-child supramarginal gyrus synchronicity under negative feedback. This study supports the importance of studying children's neurological development in nurturing environments to assess their psychological development.

Effects of Resilience Training on Resilient Functioning in Chronic Stress Situations among Cadets of the Swiss Armed Forces

Research on resilient functioning has gained increasing interest, and some recent studies interpreted resilience in the sense of resilient functioning to stress. In the present study, we investigated the associations between resilient functioning and coping strategies, stress reactivity, self-efficacy, and well-being, and we examined whether resilient functioning could be improved through a training intervention. The participants were 110 male cadets from two infantry officers' schools of the Swiss Armed Forces. The schools were divided into an intervention and control group. The participants in the intervention group took part in the resilience training intervention, whereas the participants in the control group performed military training as usual. Data were assessed before and after the intervention period. Results showed that resilient functioning was positively associated with task-oriented coping and well-being and negatively associated with emotion-oriented coping and stress reactivity. Furthermore, resilient functioning significantly improved in the intervention group from pre- to post-intervention. The results suggested that specific interventions have the power to increase resilient functioning.

Exploring the role of "in the moment" and global caregiver and child factors in caregiver questioning during shared book viewing

Questions of high (vs. low) cognitive demand (CD), which encourage children to engage in abstract or critical thinking (e.g., problem solve, reason about cause-and-effect relations, make inferences), may drive relations between children's language exposure and early skills. The present study adopted a micro-analytic approach to examine caregivers' high-CD questioning with their preschool-aged children while viewing a wordless picture book (n = 121) and "in the moment" (e.g., interaction time, child responses) and global factors (e.g., caregiver education). The probability of caregivers' high-CD questioning increased with interaction time and caregiver education. Post-hoc exploratory analyses revealed that the relation between children's responses and caregivers' high-CD questioning depended on caregivers' perceptions of children's vocabulary skills. Specifically, the probability of caregivers' subsequent high-CD questioning was greater if their child did not respond previously and if caregivers perceived them to have high vocabulary skills. In contrast, caregivers' questioning remained relatively constant for responsive children across different vocabulary skills. Thus, caregivers may employ certain types of input during brief, informal learning interactions with their children by considering their own and their child's propensities and micro-level changes that occur during their conversations.

Personal qualities are malleable and fixed: Ambivalent mindset, capability ranking reinforcement, and parent–child relationship among Hong Kong Chinese parents

Past research showed that people may hold contradictory ideas about something or someone. Mindset ambivalence refers to the psychological state in which a person holds contradictory beliefs about the malleability of a valued attribute and spontaneously expresses agreement with both the fixed and growth mindsets. Our past findings showed that a sizable proportion of Hong Kong Chinese adults possess the ambivalent mindset. In the present study, 101 Hong Kong Chinese parents completed a survey during the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings provided further support for the prevalence of the ambivalent mindset. In addition, we found that parents with the ambivalent mindset tended to support several parental practices that would reinforce the relative ability rankings of their children. These practices included person praise, mobilization of effort to compensate for low ability, and lowering of expectation to avoid future failures. Finally, the use of these parental practices was accompanied by deterioration of parent–child relationship when children displayed undesirable self-regulatory behaviors. We discuss these findings’ implications for growth mindset interventions in Chinese societies.

A bibliometric review on latent topics and research trends in the growth mindset literature for mathematics education

Embracing a growth mindset is essential to students' academic improvement. This manuscript aims to better understand the existing literature on the role and effects of the growth mindset in mathematics teaching and learning. It provides an updated perspective on the research regarding the growth mindset in mathematics education. The dataset comprises 85 journal articles published from 2012 to 2022 retrieved from the Web of Science (WOS) and Scopus databases. The current study applies a methodology based on bibliometric analysis techniques. The analysis reveals and corroborates several patterns from the research trends, journals, countries, and authors that have significant impacts on the research field. The findings show that USA, UK, and Norway are the most productive countries in publishing research on the topic. Moreover, the results of the thematic analysis indicate that the topics discussed among most of the articles in the dataset include engagement, implementation, persistence, children, fluid intelligence, and skills. The longitudinal trends in research themes based on study keywords illustrate an evolution in the research from the concept of mindsets to implicit theories on the growth mindset alongside academic achievement. Lastly, this study also provides an overview of the conceptual structure underlying studies on the growth mindset, which offers valuable insights into potential research topics for academics and practitioners seeking to explore the growth mindset in the future.

Teachers’ dysfunctional feedback to students from immigrant and non-immigrant backgrounds: A pilot study

Teachers often provide more positive feedback to ethnic minority students than to ethnic majority students in order to compensate for potential discrimination. However, even feedback that sounds positive can have unwanted effects on the students, such as reinforcing negative beliefs and reducing motivation. In this experimental pilot study, we investigated whether teachers were more likely to convey such dysfunctional feedback to students from immigrant backgrounds than to students from non-immigrant backgrounds. Teachers (N = 186) read descriptions of classroom situations and indicated the feedback they would provide to the fictive students. The students’ names implied either an immigrant background associated with low competence stereotypes or no immigrant background. For the most part, feedback did not differ according to immigrant status. Yet, there were some situation-specific differences: When immigrant students failed despite effort, teachers used a simpler language in their feedback. In one of two scenarios describing students who succeeded easily without effort, teachers were more likely to provide dysfunctional ability feedback, dysfunctional effort feedback, and inflated praise to a student from an immigrant background than to a student from a non-immigrant background. A subsequent expert survey (N = 12) was conducted to evaluate the scenario-based feedback test. In sum, the study contributes to the field by providing first signs that students from immigrant backgrounds might be at risk of receiving not only more positive but actually more dysfunctional feedback. Furthermore, the study presents a practice-oriented, standardized, and economic instrument to assess teachers’ dysfunctional feedback, which may be used in future research.

Negative emotional reactions to criticism: Perceived criticism and source affects extent of hurt and relational distancing

Criticism is commonly perceived as hurtful and individuals may respond differently to criticism originating from different sources. However, the influence of an individual’s perception of criticism in their social relationships on negative emotional reactions to criticism has not been examined across different relational contexts. The present study investigated the influence of perceived criticism and relational contexts–mother, father, romantic partner, and workplace supervisor–on the feelings of hurt and relational distancing experienced upon receiving criticism. Participants (N = 178) completed the Perceived Criticism Measure and read vignettes describing scenarios of personally directed criticism in the four relational contexts. Significant main effects of perceived criticism and source were found on levels of relational distancing. Participants who perceived their relational partner to be more critical experienced greater distancing upon receiving criticism from them. Greater relational distancing was experienced for criticism received from workplace supervisors compared to mothers, fathers and romantic partners. Results indicate that emotional reactions and relationship outcomes in response to criticism can differ based on individual differences and relational context, suggesting their role in relationship maintenance and development of psychopathology.

Promoting positive parenting and mental wellbeing in Hong Kong Chinese parents: A pilot cluster randomised controlled trial

Objective

Effective and brief positive parenting interventions could be adopted widely, but evidence is limited. We aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of a positive parenting programme in Hong Kong Chinese parents.

Methods

We conducted a pilot cluster randomised controlled trial in 2017 in 144 Hong Kong Chinese parents (84.7% women, mean age 42.5 [SD 5.87] years) of school-age children (mean age 10.9 [2.8] years) in 4 family service centres (clusters). The intervention included two 2-hour interactive talks (4 hours in total). The contents covered skills of giving praise, showing appreciation and playing enjoyable family games. The control group was offered the intervention after all the data were collected. Praise, appreciation and enjoyment related behaviours were measured as primary outcomes at baseline, 1 month and 3 months. The secondary outcomes were subjective happiness, wellbeing, personal health and happiness, family health, family happiness and harmony, and family relationship. After the completion of all assessments, five focus group discussions with the parents and four individual in-depth interviews with community service providers were conducted to explore their experiences.

Results

Compared with the control group (n = 69), the intervention group (n = 75) showed greater positive changes in appreciation and enjoyment at 3 months with small effect sizes (d = 0.42 and 0.32, respectively), and greater improvements in the secondary outcomes at 3 months with small effect sizes (d: 0.29–0.48). In the focus groups, the parents reported more praise to their children, better temper control, more focus on their children’s strengths and better family relationships. According to the service providers, most of the parents enjoyed the activities.

Conclusions

The brief intervention in community settings with the engagement of community service providers has shown preliminary effectiveness in promoting positive parenting and mental wellbeing of Hong Kong Chinese parents.

Trial registration

The authors confirm that all ongoing and related trials for this intervention are registered. The study reported in this manuscript is registered as clinical trial at clinicaltrials.gov: NCT03282071. https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03282071.

Does Training Motivation Influence Resilience Training Outcome on Chronic Stress? Results from an Interventional Study

Resilience is understood as an acquired skill which aids in coping with acute and chronic stress. Accordingly, the present study aimed to determine the effect of resilience training on mental health problems during chronic stress. To this end, we conducted a quasi-experimental study with 127 male cadets (mean age: 21 years) of the Swiss Armed Forces officers' school. Whereas the intervention group (IG) received resilience training in addition to the standard officer's education program, the control group (CG) completed the officers' school as usual. Data assessment included pre- and post- measurement of chronic stress, symptoms of depression, and vital exhaustion in both groups. Motivation for training was collected before the first training session. Those who received the resilience training reported no change in chronic stress, whereas participants in the CG showed a significant increase in chronic stress over time (η_p² = 0.025). Furthermore, significant differences between IG and CG were only found for symptoms of depression: Participants in the IG reported significantly decreased symptoms of depression, while this was not the case for participants in the CG. Within the IG, participants' training motivation strongly influenced the effectiveness of the resilience training. More specifically, motivated individuals were more likely to benefit from the resilience training than unmotivated ones. Outcome data suggest that resilience training appeared to favorably affect chronic stress and related mental health symptoms; however, the motivation for the training seemed to be an essential prerequisite.

A Comparison of Chinese and European–American University Students’ Virtue and Mind Learning Beliefs and Academic Achievement in Global Cultural Exchange

The world’s two largest economies, the United States and China, have fundamentally different cultural beliefs about learning. Thus, when examining Chinese learners, Western researchers were confused by the contrasting phenomenon between seemingly poor learning approaches and high academic achievement, i.e., the Paradox of Chinese Learners. In addressing this paradox, Jin Li offered a theoretical framework of the Chinese virtue model versus the European–American mind model to comprehensively understand the differences in students’ learning beliefs and academic achievement between the two cultures. However, Li does not pay attention to global cultural exchange or directly link learning beliefs to academic achievement. Therefore, this paper presents two empirical studies addressing these research gaps. Study 1 adopted both qualitative and quantitative methods to investigate the learning beliefs of Chinese and European–American university students, and revealed that deepening cultural exchange narrowed the gap between the two models (Study 1a), but the impact of the virtue model on European–American students was weaker than that of the mind model on Chinese students (Study 1b). Study 2 further revealed that both models were beneficial for Chinese students’ academic achievement, whereas only the virtue model benefited European–American students. These findings have important implications for addressing the Paradox of Chinese Learners.

Experiences of criticism in adults with ADHD: A qualitative study

People with ADHD are at high risk of receiving criticism from others, yet criticism has not been well researched in this population. This study aimed to provide a rich understanding of what experiences adults with ADHD traits have with criticism. As part of a larger study, 162 participants with ADHD and high ADHD traits provided a written response to an open question asking about their experiences of criticism from other people. Thematic analysis was used to identify five common themes in the responses. Behaviours associated with inattention were perceived as the most criticised, whilst impulsive behaviours were mostly criticised in social contexts. Criticism was perceived via numerous conducts and was reported to have negative consequences for self-worth and wellbeing. To cope, some participants avoided criticism or changed how they reacted, including trying to accept themselves as they are. The responses indicated that receiving understanding from others played an important role in whether criticism was perceived. Overall, the findings highlight the need for more knowledge, understanding and acceptance towards neurodiversity from the general population.

A cross-cultural study of the effect of parental bonding on the perception and response to criticism in Singapore, Italy and USA

Parents play a primary and crucial role in emotional socialisation processes in children where individuals learn the expression, understanding and regulation of emotions. Parenting practices and dimensions of the parent-child relationship have been associated with social and emotional processes in children. As criticism involves negative emotional reactions and emotion regulation, the parent-child relationship is likely to influence an individual's perception and response to criticism. Hence, the present study investigated the relationship of parental bonding and the perception and response to criticism in three different countries-Singapore, Italy and USA. Adult participants (n = 444) completed the Parental Bonding Inventory (PBI) and measures of criticism. Parental care, overprotection and country were found to be significant predictors of a tendency to perceive criticism as destructive. Higher levels of parental care predicted a lower tendency to perceive criticism as destructive while higher levels of parental overprotection predicted a higher tendency to perceive criticism as destructive. US American participants were found to have a significantly higher tendency to perceive criticism as destructive compared to Italian and Singaporean participants. The findings align with past research on the role of the parent-child relationship in the socio-emotional development of children as well as providing insight into a specific aspect in social interaction; perception and response to criticism, being affected. Future studies can look to investigate this relationship further in different countries in light of cultural variation in parenting styles and emotion experience, expression and regulation.

Effects of Attribute Affirmation and Achievement Goals on High School Students' Motivation

Researchers have suggested that receiving attribute affirmation (AA) may increase the motivation of students to confront a challenge. However, we posited that to determine whether AA increases the motivation of students to confront a challenging task, we must consider dispositional achievement goals of the students. The participants were 171 junior-high-school students, randomly assigned to an AA or no affirmation condition. The results showed that AA enhanced the tendency to confront a challenging task for students who endorsed low mastery-approach goals (MAGs) and low performance-approach goals (PAGs) simultaneously (b = 0.5, p = 0.015). The effect was mainly mediated by the increasing state performance-approach goals (SPAGs) in confronting the task (indirect effect = 0.21, 95% CI = 0.04-0.49); however, being attribute-affirmed decreased the tendency to confront the challenging task for students adopting a dominant PAG orientation (b = -0.76, p = 0.049). In addition, for students adopting a dominant MAG orientation or adopting high MAGs and high PAGs simultaneously, no difference was noted in the tendency to confront the task between participants in the control and attribute-affirmed conditions.

Planting the Seeds: Orchestral Music Education as a Context for Fostering Growth Mindsets

Growth mindset is an important aspect of children's socioemotional development and is subject to change due to environmental influence. Orchestral music education may function as a fertile context in which to promote growth mindset; however, this education is not widely available to children facing economic hardship. This study examined whether participation in a program of orchestral music education was associated with higher levels of overall growth mindset and greater change in levels of musical growth mindset among children placed at risk by poverty. After at least 2 years of orchestral participation, students reported significantly higher levels of overall growth mindset than their peers; participating students also reported statistically significant increases in musical growth mindset regardless of the number of years that they were enrolled in orchestral music education. These findings have implications for future research into specific pedagogical practices that may promote growth mindset in the context of orchestral music education and more generally for future studies of the extra-musical benefits of high-quality music education.

How Do Young Children Explain Differences in the Classroom? Implications for Achievement, Motivation, and Educational Equity

Classroom settings bring to light many differences between children—differences that children notice and attempt to explain. Here, we advance theory on the psychological processes underlying how children explain the differences they observe in the classroom. Integrating evidence from cognitive, social, cultural, developmental, and educational psychology, we propose that young children tend to explain differences among their peers by appealing to the inherent characteristics of those individuals and, conversely, tend to overlook extrinsic reasons for such differences—that is, reasons having to do with external circumstances and structural factors. We then outline how this inherence bias in children’s explanations affects their motivation and performance in school, exacerbating inequalities in achievement and making these inequalities seem legitimate. We conclude by suggesting several means of counteracting the inherence bias in children’s explanations and its effects on their educational outcomes. Throughout, we highlight new directions for research on the relation between children’s explanations, their motivation and achievement, and the inequalities observed in elementary school and beyond.

Promoting adherence to physical activity among individuals with cardiovascular disease using behavioral counseling: A theory and research-based primer for health care professionals

Physical activity (PA) promotion remains a cornerstone of primary and secondary prevention efforts to reduce morbidity and mortality from cardiovascular disease (CVD). While frontline health care providers (HCPs; e.g., family physicians, cardiologists, registered nurses, nurse practitioners, etc.) are in an optimal position to administer PA-promoting interventions to their patients, many HCPs may feel ill-equipped to address common obstacles to implementing and maintaining complex health behavior change. Behavioral counseling refers to a collection of theory- and empirically-supported strategies and approaches to health behavior promotion that can be learned and applied by HCPs for CVD prevention and treatment. In this selective review, we discuss prominent theories of health behavior change and the empirical intervention literature regarding PA promotion in community and CVD-samples and provide practical recommendations for integrating effective behavioral counseling strategies to clinical practice for frontline HCPs. We argue that behavioral counseling interventions for PA can be effectively executed within the contextual constraints of health settings through subtle shifts in communication strategies and brief counseling approaches. The administration of behavioral counseling for PA by HCPs has enormous potential to reduce CVD incidence and progression at a population level.

The Negative Effect of Ability-Focused Praise on the "Praiser's" Intrinsic Motivation: Face-to-Face Interaction

Most previous research has demonstrated that receiving ability-focused praise (e.g., “You are smart”) negatively affects intrinsic motivation following failure. Surprisingly, a recent study showed that ability-focused praise affects not only the praisee but also the person offering praise, that is, the praiser. However, evidence of the effects on the praiser is quite limited, despite the utility of praise in education. Therefore, the present study employed face-to-face interaction to advance the knowledge of the effects of praise on the praiser. Two experiments were conducted in which undergraduate participants (n = 39 and n = 51) praised a research confederate. We measured attentional engagement using an eye-tracker as a behavioral indicator of intrinsic motivation, as well as self-reported task enjoyment. To estimate the effect of praise, we combined the results of two experiments and conducted a Bayes factor meta-analysis. The results showed that in the ability praise group, participants’ attentional engagement in a task was significantly lower than in the control group. The present finding indicates that ability-focused praise negatively affects the praiser’s intrinsic motivation and suggests that praise should be used with caution in social and educational contexts.

Mindsets in the clinic: Applying mindset theory to clinical psychology

Beliefs about the malleability of attributes, also known as mindsets, have been studied for decades in social-personality psychology and education. Here, I review the many applications of mindset theory to clinical psychology and psychotherapy. First, I review social psychological and cognitive neuroscience evidence that mindsets and mindset-related messages are, to a large extent, focused on emotional tolerance. Specifically, the growth mindset, or the belief that attributes are malleable, encourages confronting and tolerating anxiety, frustration, and disappointment in healthy and adaptive ways that promote resilience, whereas the fixed mindset and related messages discourage the experience of these emotions and often leads to helplessness. Second, I review the emerging research on the anxiety mindset and discuss its relevance to clinical work. A model is proposed illustrating connections between mindsets, emotion regulation strategies, treatment preferences, and outcomes. Case examples are used to illustrate practical applications. I conclude that mindsets can inform psychotherapy, research, and public policy.

Disapproval from romantic partners, friends and parents: Source of criticism regulates prefrontal cortex activity

The prevalence of criticism in everyday social situations, and its empirically demonstrated association with psychopathology, highlight the importance of understanding neural mechanisms underlying the perception and response of individuals to criticism. However, neuroimaging studies to date have been limited largely to maternal criticism. The present study aims to investigate neural responses to observing criticism occurring in the context of three different relationship types: romantic partners, friends, and parents-from a third-party perspective. 49 participants were recruited and asked to rate the perceived criticism for these relationships. Functional near-infrared spectroscopy was used to measure changes in oxygenated haemoglobin levels in the prefrontal cortex when participants read vignettes describing three different scenarios of criticism. Participants were randomly assigned to 3 groups where the given description of the relationship of the protagonist to the source of criticism for each vignette was randomised. A significant interaction between relationship type and perceived criticism ratings for mothers was found in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Compared to low perceived criticism, high perceived criticism individuals showed increased activation reading vignettes describing criticism from romantic partners and parents but decreased activation for those from friends. Findings contribute to understanding neural responses to criticism as observed from a third-party perspective. Future studies can look into differentiating neural responses of personalised experiences of criticism and third-party observations.

Peer Feedback Reflects the Mindset and Academic Motivation of Learners

Given that little is known how peer feedback reflects adolescents’ academic well-being in different cultures, this study investigates, by means of multiple-group structural equation modeling (SEM), the influence of peer feedback on the mindset and academic motivation of Chinese (N = 992) and Finnish (N = 870) students in the fourth to the ninth school grades. Within this investigation, we also explore the culture-invariant and culture-dependent nature of student feedback, mindset and academic motivation. The results indicate that the way students praise their peers in their feedback primes and modifies their mindsets and academic motivation. Person-focused praise reflects a fixed mindset and negative academic motivation (i.e., avoidance), whereas process-focused praise undermines negative academic motivation. The pupils in the two samples had growth mindsets. However, the Finnish students preferred to bestow neutral praise and to be more negative with regard to their academic motivation whereas the Chinese students favored process- and person-focused praise, the former reflecting not only their growth mindset but also their positive academic motivation (i.e., trying).

Testing If Primal World Beliefs Reflect Experiences-Or at Least Some Experiences Identified ad hoc

Do negative primal world beliefs reflect experiences such as trauma, crime, or low socio-economic status? Clifton and colleagues recently suggested that primals-defined as beliefs about the general character of the world as a whole, such as the belief that the world is safe (vs. dangerous) and abundant (vs. barren)-may shape many of the most-studied variables in psychology. Yet researchers do not yet know why individuals adopt their primals nor the role of experience in shaping primals. Many theories can be called retrospective theories; these theories suggest that past experiences lead to the adoption of primals that reflect those experiences. For example, trauma increases the belief that the world is dangerous and growing up poor increases the belief that the world is barren. Alternatively, interpretive theories hold that primals function primarily as lenses on experiences while being themselves largely unaffected by them. This article identifies twelve empirical tests where each theory makes different predictions and hypothesizes that retrospective theories are typically less accurate than interpretive theories. I end noting that, even if retrospective theories are typically inaccurate, that does not imply experiences do not shape primals. I end by offering a conceptual architecture-the Cube Framework-for exploring the full range of human experience and suggest that, though psychologists have historically focused on negative, externally imposed experiences of short-duration (e.g., trauma), positive, internally driven, and longer-term experiences are also worth considering.

Moving beyond executive functions: Challenge preference as a predictor of academic achievement in elementary school

Intrinsic motivation and executive functions (EFs) have been independently studied as predictors of academic achievement in elementary school. The goal of this investigation was to understand how students' challenge preference (CP), an aspect of intrinsic motivation, is related to academic achievement while accounting for EFs as a confounding variable. Using data from a longitudinal study of 569 third-, fourth-, and fifth-graders (50% female), we tested students' self-reported CP as a predictor of mathematics and English language arts (ELA) achievement in multilevel models that controlled for school fixed effects and student demographic characteristics. CP was positively associated with mathematics and ELA over and above the set of covariates and EFs. While also controlling for prior achievement, CP continued to explain a small amount of unique variance in mathematics, but not in ELA. These results underscore the importance of including measures of students' intrinsic motivation, in addition to EFs, to obtain a comprehensive understanding of academic success.

Therapist written goodbye letters: evidence for therapeutic benefits in the treatment of anorexia nervosa

BACKGROUND

Despite their use in clinical practice, there is little evidence to support the use of therapist written goodbye letters as therapeutic tools. However, preliminary evidence suggests that goodbye letters may have benefits in the treatment of anorexia nervosa (AN).

AIMS

This study aimed to examine whether therapist written goodbye letters were associated with improvements in body mass index (BMI) and eating disorder symptomology in patients with AN after treatment.

METHOD

Participants were adults with AN (n = 41) who received The Maudsley Model of Anorexia Treatment for Adults (MANTRA) in a clinical trial evaluating two AN out-patient treatments. As part of MANTRA, therapists wrote goodbye letters to patients. A rating scheme was developed to rate letters for structure and quality. Linear regression analyses were used to examine associations between goodbye letter scores and outcomes after treatment.

RESULTS

Higher quality letters and letters that adopted a more affirming stance were associated with greater improvements in BMI at 12 months. Neither the overall quality nor the style of goodbye letters were associated with improvements in BMI at 24 months or reductions in eating disorder symptomology at either 12 or 24 months.

CONCLUSIONS

The results highlight the potential importance of paying attention to the overall quality of therapist written goodbye letters in the treatment of AN, and adopting an affirming stance.

Young children are more likely to cheat after overhearing that a classmate is smart

Research on moral socialization has largely focused on the role of direct communication and has almost completely ignored a potentially rich source of social influence: evaluative comments that children overhear. We examined for the first time whether overheard comments can shape children's moral behavior. Three- and 5-year-old children (N = 200) participated in a guessing game in which they were instructed not to cheat by peeking. We randomly assigned children to a condition in which they overheard an experimenter tell another adult that a classmate who was no longer present is smart, or to a control condition in which the overheard conversation consisted of non-social information. We found that 5-year-olds, but not 3-year-olds, cheated significantly more often if they overheard the classmate praised for being smart. These findings show that the effects of ability praise can spread far beyond the intended recipient to influence the behavior of children who are mere observers, and they suggest that overheard evaluative comments can be an important force in shaping moral development.