New research reveals heaping on the praise on your child doesn’t necessary lead to happiness down the road

 
Praising children, especially those with low self-esteem, for their personal qualities rather than their efforts may make them feel more ashamed when they fail, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association.
 
“This type of personal praise may backfire. What may seem like common sense can sometimes lead adults astray in their attempts to help children with low self-esteem feel better about themselves,” said lead researcher Eddie Brummelman, MS, of Utrecht University in the Netherlands. The study was published online in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.
The study found that children with low self-esteem often received praise for their personal qualities, and that type of praise can trigger greater feelings of shame from failure and may lead to a diminished sense of self-worth.
 
In one experiment, 357 parents in the Netherlands, ranging in age from 29 to 66, read six descriptions of hypothetical children — three with high self-esteem (e.g., “Lisa usually likes the kind of person she is,”) and three with low self-esteem (e.g., “Sarah is often unhappy with herself”). The participants were told to write down the praise they would give the child for completing an activity, such as drawing a picture. On average, the parents gave children with low self-esteem more than twice as much praise directed at personal qualities (e.g., “You’re a great artist!”) than they gave to children with high self-esteem. They also were more likely to praise children with high self-esteem for their efforts. (e.g., “You did a great job drawing!”)
“Adults may feel that praising children for their inherent qualities helps combat low self-esteem, but it might convey to children that they are valued as a person only when they succeed,” Brummelman said. “When children subsequently fail, they may infer they are unworthy.”
 
A second experiment illustrated that point. The researchers recruited 313 children (54 percent girls) ranging in age from 8 to 13 from five public elementary schools in the Netherlands. Several days before the experiment, the students completed a standard test that measures self-esteem. For the experiment, the children were told they would play an online reaction time game against a student from another school and that a webmaster would be monitoring their performance via the Internet. In reality, the computer controlled the outcome of the game, and the children were divided into winners and losers, including groups that received praise for themselves, praise for their efforts, or no praise.
In the group where the children were praised for their personal qualities, the webmaster wrote, “Wow, you’re great!” after the students completed one round of the game, whereas the children whose actions were praised were told, “Wow, you did a great job!” The group that received no praise served as a control. After a second round, the children were told they either won or lost the game, and they completed a survey about their feelings of shame. Children who lost the game experienced a sharp increase in shame if they had been praised for their personal qualities, especially if they had low self-esteem, compared to the other groups.
The researchers theorized that children who are praised for their efforts may not associate their self-worth with success, so failure is viewed as a temporary setback or a lack of effort rather than a flaw in their character. Brummelman said the study results may apply generally to children from most Western countries, including the United States, but the results may be less applicable to Eastern countries, such as China, where adults may use different approaches for praising children.
 
The differences between praising a person and praising his or her efforts may be very subtle, but those differences can have a big impact on children’s self-esteem, said study co-author Brad Bushman, PhD, a communication and psychology professor at The Ohio State University. Therefore, parents and teachers should focus on praising children for their efforts rather than their personal qualities, he added.
“In general, it is better to praise the behavior rather than the individual,” Bushman said. “If you praise the individual and he fails, it can cause shame and may inadvertently send the message, ‘I am a bad person.’”
 
ᔥAmerican Psychological Association

Article: “On Feeding Those Hungry for Praise: Person Praise Backfires in Children With Low Self-Esteem,” Eddie Brummelman, MS, Utrecht University; Sander Thomaes, PhD, Utrecht University and University of Southampton; Geertjan Overbeek, PhD, Bram Orobio de Castro, PhD, and Marcel A. van den Hout, PhD, Utrecht University; and Brad J. Bushman, PhD, The Ohio State University and VU University Amsterdam; Journal of Experimental Psychology: General; online Feb. 26, 2013.
Full text of the article is available from the APA Public Affairs Office and at
http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/xge-ofp-brummelman.pdf

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For chronic pain sufferers, such as people who develop back pain after a car accident, avoiding the harmful effects of stress may be key to managing their condition.

 
This is particularly important for people with a smaller-than-average hippocampus, as these individuals seem to be particularly vulnerable to stress. These are the findings of a study by Dr. Pierre Rainville, PhD in Neuropsychology, Researcher at the Research Centre of the Institut universitaire de gériatrie de Montréal (IUGM) and Professor in the Faculty of Dentistry at Université de Montréal, along with Étienne Vachon-Presseau, a PhD student in Neuropsychology. The study appeared in Brain, a journal published by Oxford University Press.

“Cortisol, a hormone produced by the adrenal glands, is sometimes called the ‘stress hormone’ as it is activated in reaction to stress. Our study shows that a small hippocampal volume is associated with higher cortisol levels, which lead to increased vulnerability to pain and could increase the risk of developing pain chronicity,” explained Étienne Vachon-Presseau.

As Dr. Pierre Rainville described, “Our research sheds more light on the neurobiological mechanisms of this important relationship between stress and pain. Whether the result of an accident, illness or surgery, pain is often associated with high levels of stress Our findings are useful in that they open up avenues for people who suffer from pain to find treatments that may decrease its impact and perhaps even prevent chronicity. To complement their medical treatment, pain sufferers can also work on their stress management and fear of pain by getting help from a psychologist and trying relaxation or meditation techniques.”

Research summary

This study included 16 patients with chronic back pain and a control group of 18 healthy subjects. The goal was to analyze the relationships between four factors: 1) cortisol levels, which were determined with saliva samples; 2) the assessment of clinical pain reported by patients prior to their brain scan (self-perception of pain); 3) hippocampal volumes measured with anatomical magnetic resonance imaging (MRI); and 4) brain activations assessed with functional MRI (fMRI) following thermal pain stimulations. The results showed that patients with chronic pain generally have higher cortisol levels than healthy individuals.

Data analysis revealed that patients with a smaller hippocampus have higher cortisol levels and stronger responses to acute pain in a brain region involved in anticipatory anxiety in relation to pain. The response of the brain to the painful procedure during the scan partly reflected the intensity of the patient’s current clinical pain condition. These findings support the chronic pain vulnerability model in which people with a smaller hippocampus develop a stronger stress response, which in turn increases their pain and perhaps their risk of suffering from chronic pain. This study also supports stress management interventions as a treatment option for chronic pain sufferers.

Source: University of Montreal
Étienne Vachon-Presseau, Mathieu Roy, Marc-Olivier Martel, Etienne Caron, Marie-France Marin, Jeni Chen, Geneviève Albouy, Isabelle Plante, Michael J. Sullivan, Sonia J. Lupien et Pierre Rainville. “The stress model of chronic pain: evidence from basal cortisol and hippocampal structure and function in humans”, February 18, 2013, BRAIN.

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This is a surprisingly blunt view, even for a respected neuroscientist such as Eero Castrén. After all, millions of people throughout the world have been prescribed antidepressants, and pharmaceutical companies have made a billion-dollar business out of selling them. Surely the system cannot be entirely wrong?

Recent studies suggest that this may be the case. Research on animal models demonstrates that antidepressants are not a cure as such. Rather, their role is to restore plasticity in the adult brain. Antidepressants reopen a window of brain plasticity, which allows the formation and adaptation of brain connections through the patient’s own activities and observations, similarly to a young child whose brain and experiences about the world develop in response to environmental stimuli.

Correcting abnormal pathways

When cerebral plasticity is reopened, problems caused by false connections in the brain can be addressed. Such problems can be manifested, for example, as phobias. Studies conducted on animal models by Professor Eero Castrén’s research group at the University of Helsinki show that therapy helps to reduce fears for a time, but an antidepressant alone provides no relief. By combining the two, however, long-term effects can be achieved.

“Simply taking drugs is not enough. We must also show the brain what the desired connections should be,” Professor Castrén of the Neuroscience Centre explains.

The need for both therapy and medical treatment may also explain why antidepressants sometimes seem to have no effect. If the patient’s environment and situation remain unchanged, the drug-induced capacity of the brain to change will not make the patient feel better.

Reaching this point is the result of years of research. Scientists discovered as early as the 1960s that antidepressants affect neurotransmitters in the brain, such as serotonin. Later, antidepressants were found to increase neurotrophins and their ability to transmit signals in the brain. Only recently have scientists begun to explore the effects of drugs on plasticity of brain networks.

Enhancing the plasticity of the adult human brain through antidepressants has opened a whole new field of research for Eero Castrén. He has received a five-year grant of EUR 2.5 million from the European Research Council (ERC) to investigate mechanisms related to adult brain plasticity.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22194582

Full bibliographic information
Fear erasure in mice requires synergy between antidepressant drugs and extinction training.Karpova NN, Pickenhagen A, Lindholm J, Tiraboschi E, Kulesskaya N, Agústsdóttir A, Antila H, Popova D, Akamine Y, Bahi A, Sullivan R, Hen R, Drew LJ, Castrén E.Science. 2011 Dec 23;334(6063):1731-4

Source: Helsingin yliopisto (University of Helsinki)