Why you should not praise talent

By praising talent (especially to children) you are subtly putting the other person in a fixed mindset. You are showing them that what matters are the skills that are innate to them, rather than those they can acquire.

For instance, when you say to a child, "You are so smart you didn't need to study to ace that test" you are also telling him "If you need to study, you will be stupid". What do you think that child will do the next time he has a test? Study?

Little by little, that child will embrace this fixed mindset and will only take on tasks that he can easily ace. He will avoid the harder challenges because if he fails to do them, then he will be proven stupid. And this will be incredibly detrimental to his growth. That child will reach his peak very early on.

We can avoid this by not praising talent. Instead, we should praise effort and growth. We should teach others to love challenges, be intrigued by the unknown, enjoy learning from mistakes and seeking new ways to solve complex problems

Praise should deal, not with the child's personality attributes, but with his efforts and achievements.

A very important question that arises from this is, when a child completes a task perfectly and easily, should we not praise them? The short answer is no, we should not. We should tell them that task was probably too easy for them and we should get them a task that will challenge them and from which they can learn something.