Talking about success: Implications for achievement motivation

Three studies investigated the influence of verbal descriptions concerning the performance of others on children's ability conceptions among 177 elementary school children ranging in age from 8 to 12 years. Study 1 showed that when high-performing characters were described with labels such as “math whiz,” children tended to view the character's ability as more innate, and less susceptible to being altered by a change in effort. Study 2 showed that a reference to a successful character's previous struggles led participants to conceive of ability as more malleable, and to express more optimism about their own prospects for academic success. Study 3 provided further evidence that hearing descriptions of change in performance over time can influence children's reasoning. These results suggest that when individuals frequently make use of ability-related labels or describe people as maintaining stable patterns of performance over periods of time, they may implicitly convey maladaptive conceptions of ability to children.