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Baughn comments on Advice for a smart 8-year-old bored with school - Less Wrong Discussion
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So to simplify - explaining the state of the world is fine, but there's a difference between that and praising someone for it.
Exactly. Praising means socially encouraging someone to do more of X. If X is fixed trait, there is no way one could do more of X. They can only do more signalling of X.
People sometimes think that giving a honest feedback about any positive trait is implicitly a praise. And they have a point, too. But I guess it's a question of giving this feedback in a proper context.
Signalling of a fixed trait is sometimes useful and sometimes harmful. It can encourage people to work on what they are good at. It can also discourage them from trying new things.
On the other hand praising hard work could also lead to some failures, such an clinging to lost purposes. ("What I am doing now is probably meaningless, but people reward me for working hard, so I can't give up.") It's complicated.