Abstract:

With 103 children of 5th-grade students as subjects, the study explored the psychological effects of post-failure of praise for ability or praise for effort on children. The results were: (a) Praise for ability led children to display a maladaptive helpless response pattern after failure, the levels of self-evaluation, task enjoyment, task evaluation, self-efficacy and task persistence of children praised for ability were lower than those praise for effort and the conditional children; (b) Children praised for ability showed a greater tendency to use defensive attribution strategy, while the level of low-ability attribution of children received praise for ability was more than children received praise for effort; (c) Praise for ability led children to display a tendency of self-handicapping, they would report more test anxiety, and reduced the time spent on the Standard Progressive Matrices, eventually led low scores.

Key words: praise, attribution, failure, response pattern

摘要：

以103名小学五年级的儿童为被试，考察不同归因取向的表扬对儿童遭遇失败后的影响效应。结果发现：（1）接受能力取向表扬的儿童在遭遇失败后表现出无助取向的反应模式，接受努力取向表扬的儿童表现出掌握取向的反应模式；（2）接受能力取向表扬的儿童倾向于采取防御性的失败归因策略，将失败更多地归因于测试焦虑，但其对能力因素的归因仍高于努力组和控制组，接受努力取向表扬的儿童更多地将失败归因于努力因素；（3）接受能力取向表扬的儿童表现出自我设限倾向，他们报告更多的测试焦虑，并缩短后测的做题时间和更低的后测成绩。

关键词: 表扬, 归因, 失败, 反应模式