What Dweck discovered is that an important predictor of long-term learning effectiveness is the praise of effort rather than outcomes.1 In other words, it will do a student (or a child at home or an athlete or my patient or a factory worker) more good when he or she hears something to the effect of “What you are doing is really difficult. I am pleased with how hard you are working at this.” Or “You did well—you must have put a great deal of effort in to your work.”
