Negative Effects of Praise on Skilled Performance

A series of experiments explored the possibility that praise can impair subsequent performance. Three models were proposed: praise leads to reduced effort, it implies a pressured demand for good performance (which impairs performance), and it generates self-attention which impairs the automaticity of skilled execution. The reduced effort model was contradicted by the finding that praise improved subsequent performance on a pure effort task. The performance-demand model received partial support, but it had difficulty accounting for the finding that task-irrelevant praise impaired performance. The self-attention model seems best able to encompass all findings. In conclusion, praise appears to increase effort, but it may impair skilled performance.