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Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Vol. 15, No. 1, 61-72 (1989)
DOI: 10.1177/0146167289151006

Attributional Focus of Praise and Children's Intrinsic Motivation

The Moderating Role of Gender

Richard Koestner

McGill University

Miron Zuckerman

University of Rochester

Julia Koestner

McGill University

The present experiment was designed to examine whether children's gender would moderate the effects of ability-focused versus effort-focused praise on their performance, perceived competence, and intrinsic motivation. A secondary goal was to examine whether type of involvement might also serve to moderate the effects of effort-focused praise. Fifth and sixth grade boys and girls were introduced to hidden-figures puzzles in eithera task-involving (ie., gamelike) or an ego-involving (i.e., test like) manner and then received either ability-focused or effort-focused praise for their performance. The results showed that boys reported feeling relatively more competent, performed relatively better, and displayed relatively more free choice intrinsic motivation after receiving ability praise than effort praise, whereas girls reported feeling relatively more competent, performed relatively better, and evidenced relatively greater intrinsic motivation after receiving effort than ability praise. The differential impact of ability-focused versus effort-focused praise was especially pronounced for boys. These findings are discussed in terms of boys' and girls' previous history with verbal rewards and gender differences in performance attributions. No effects were found for type of involvement.


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