Telling a young child they are ‘smart’ seems like a good idea. New research shows how it could encourage them to cheat

Parents and teachers might think telling kids “they’re smart” is a helpful way to build self-confidence and support positive development.

But according to new research , these kinds of statements might shape how kids approach academic tasks in ways we did not intend or expect.

In some cases, it might even courage a child to cheat.

What adults say matters When children experience success or failure, parents and teachers will often provide feedback about why the success or failure occurred.

This can help kids make sense of the world, feel good about themselves or know how to improve for next time.

Researchers refer to these explanations as “attributions”.

According to longstanding research , the explanation we make for success or failure typically focus on one of four attributes: ability (“you are so smart”) effort (“you tried so hard”) luck (“you must have guessed correctly”) or task difficulty (“it was an easy test”).

Whether they are accurate or not, research tells us these attributions can have a significant impact.

They can shape how kids feel about the outcome of a test or task and how they might respond to challenges in the future.

This is particularly true when the attributions come from people kids trust.

How adult feedback might promote cheating In new research conducted in China and published in the Journal of Educational Psychology, researchers considered how children aged 5–6 years would respond when given different attributions about their performance.

Specifically, they wanted to see whether different explanations would influence whether children cheated in future tests.

Across two experiments, 210 children from urban middle-class backgrounds were given a test designed for them to experience success (an easy counting task).

After the test, children in one of the experiments were variously told by the experimenter they succeeded because they were smart, they worked hard, they got lucky, or because the task was easy.