CHILDREN’S MASTERY-ORIENTED RESPONSES TO FAILURE: THE EFFECTS OF
PARENTAL STRATEGY FEEDBACK AND ATTACHMENT SECURITY
By
Todd Romney Stevens

A DISSERTATION
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
School Psychology—Doctor of Philosophy
2014

ABSTRACT
CHILDREN’S MASTERY-ORIENTED RESPONSES TO FAILURE: THE EFFECTS OF
PARENTAL STRATEGY FEEDBACK AND ATTACHMENT SECURITY
By
Todd Romney Stevens
Encountering challenges and experiencing failure are commonplace in the course of
learning and development. Young children with similar abilities and motivations, however, may
respond in different ways to task difficulty and failure. For example, they may display a helpless
response to failure and give up, or, they may respond with mastery-oriented behaviors such as
maintaining or even increasing effort. Research has shown that the provision of praise, when
focused on process (e.g., effort) and use of non-generic labels (e.g., labeling one specific
instance), promotes mastery-oriented responses to failure. Whereas praise that focuses on person
characteristics (e.g., “You’re smart”) and the use of generic labels (e.g., labeling of an individual
or group) may lead to helpless responses to failure. Praise occurs within a social context and the
quality of the parent-child relationship may also influence the effects of this feedback. Prior
research, however, has not examined how the quality of a child’s attachment security to his or
her parent may serve as a moderating factor between parental praise and young children’s
responses to failure. Prior research has also neglected to consider whether suggestions of
considering alternative strategies (e.g. “maybe it is possible to think of more unusual, original
ideas”), in addition to process praise, strengthens or weakens mastery-oriented responses to
failure. This is important to consider because the consideration of alternative strategies may
promote a sense of control.
The study examined the relation between maternal praise and children’s responses to
failure in relation to suggestions of considering alternative strategies and children’s attachment

insecurity. Participants consisted of fifty 4-5 year old children and their mothers. Survey data
were collected from the fifty mothers to assess the kinds of praise and strategy feedback they
used at home, to measure their perception of the child’s attachment to the mother, and to assess
the child’s responses to failure. In addition, a within-subjects quasi-experimental design exposed
the fifty children, in random order, to two different praise conditions (i.e., process praise, process
praise plus the suggestion to consider alternative strategies) and measured their responses to
failure scenarios using puppets.
Results from both the quasi-experimental design study as well as from the survey data
revealed that different types of praise (i.e. person, process, process plus the suggestion to
consider alternative strategies) were not significantly related to young children’s responses to
failure. Perceptions of attachment insecurity and gender did not moderate the relationship
between the type of praise used and the young children’s responses to failure. Perceptions of
attachment insecurity and of negative affect were significantly related to young children’s
responses to failure. The within-subjects design did not reveal any clear predictors of young
children’s responses to failure scenarios using puppets; however the correlational design showed
that the more insecure the child’s reported attachment, the more negative the child’s reported
response to failure. Similarly, the more negative the child’s reported affect, the more negative
the child’s reported response to failure.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF FIGURES

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CHAPTER 1 – INTRODUCTION
Statement of the Problem
Theoretical Framework
Attribution Theory
Attachment Theory
Purpose of the Study
Research Questions and Hypotheses

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CHAPTER 2 – LITERATURE REVIEW
Introduction
Young Children’s Responses to Failure
Praise and Young Children’s Responses to Failure
The Parent-Child Relationship and Young Children’s Responses to Failure
Current Study

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CHAPTER 3 – METHOD
Participants
Research Design
Variables and Instruments
Background Questionnaire (BQ).
Maternal Praise Survey (MPS).
Responses to Failure: Dimensions of Mastery Questionnaire (DMQ).
Parent/Child Reunion Inventory (PCRI).
Children’s Behavior Questionnaire: Very
Short Form, Negative Affect Scale.
Child’s Verbal Responses after Acting out Failure Vignettes.
Procedure

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CHAPTER 4 – RESULTS
Data Analysis

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CHAPTER 5 – DISCUSSION
Discussion
Conclusions
Limitations of the Study
Implications for Practice and Future Research

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APPENDICES
Appendix A: Puppet Vignette Script
Appendix B: Background Questionnaire

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Appendix C: Maternal Praise Survey
Appendix D: Research Participant Information and Consent Form
Appendix E: Research Participant Information and Parental Permission Form
Appendix F: Verbal Assent Script
Appendix G: Figures
REFERENCES

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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Distribution of Mean Negative Response to Failure across
the Parent Child Reunion Inventory Attachment Insecurity Scale

99

Figure 2: Distribution of Mean Negative Response
to Failure across the Negative Affect Scale

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Figure 3: Distribution of Mean Affect, Attributions,
Motivation, and Persistence across Condition

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Figure 4: Distribution of Mean Affect, Attributions,
Motivation, and Persistence across Gender

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Figure 5: Distribution of Mean Affect, Attributions, and Persistence
across the Child Behavior Questionnaire Negative Affect Scale

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Figure 6: Distribution of Mean Affect, Motivation, and Persistence across
the Parent Child Reunion Inventory Attachment Insecurity Scale

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Figure 7: Distribution of Mean Attributions for Each Condition across
the Parent Child Reunion Inventory Attachment Insecurity Scale

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Figure 8: Distribution of Mean Negative Response to Failure Scale across Use of
Process Praise Plus the Suggestion of Considering Alternative Strategies Scale
by Attachment Insecurity Group

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Figure 9: Distribution of Mean Affect across Praise Condition by Attachment
Insecurity Groups

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Figure 10: Distribution of Mean Attributions across Praise Condition by Attachment
Insecurity Groups

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Figure 11: Distribution of Mean Motivation across Praise Condition by Attachment
Insecurity Groups

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Figure 12: Distribution of Mean Persistence across Praise Condition by Attachment
Insecurity Groups

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Figure 13: Distribution of Mean Negative Response to Failure Scale across Use of
Process Praise Plus The Suggestion of Considering Alternative Strategies Scale by
Gender

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Figure 14: Distribution of Mean Affect across Praise Condition by Gender

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Figure 15: Distribution of Mean Attributions across Praise Condition by Gender

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Figure 16: Distribution of Mean Motivation across Praise Condition by Gender

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Figure 17: Distribution of Mean Persistence across Praise Condition by Gender

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Figure 18: Means of Mothers’ Beliefs about the Motivational
Effects of Different Praise and Neutral Statements

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Figure 19: Means of Mothers’ Beliefs about the Response to
Failure Effects of Different Praise and Neutral Statements

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CHAPTER 1 – INTODUCTION
Statement of the Problem
Young children respond to failure in different ways. Imagine two children in two
different situations working on the same puzzle. They have the same ability to complete the
puzzle, the same expressed desire to complete the puzzle, and the same positive feelings about
the puzzle. While these children appear similar in almost every way, when a teacher points out a
mistake on the puzzle, the children react in opposite ways. The first child completely gives up
on the puzzle, expressing negative feelings and a lack of desire to engage in the task. In contrast,
the second child puts forth even more effort to complete the puzzle, expressing positive feelings
and a continuing desire to engage the task.
The academic literature has characterized these different ways of responding to failure as
helpless and mastery-oriented, respectively. A helpless response involves a marked decrease in
performance in the face of failure, whereas, a mastery-oriented response is characterized by
stable or improved performance. The advantages of a mastery-oriented response to failure are
apparent in how it is measured: superior performance on a given task, greater persistence, more
positive affect, and greater intrinsic motivation when faced with failure.
Helpless and mastery-oriented patterns of responding to failure are consistently found in
children as young as 4 years old (e.g. Cain & Dweck, 1995; Dweck, 1991; Heyman, Dweck, &
Cain, 1992; Smiley & Dweck, 1994). For a long time, it was believed that children in the age
range of 4-7 years were invulnerable to helpless responses to failure due to their tendencies to
overestimate their abilities and to have high expectations for success (e.g. Stipek & Tannatt,
1984). Studies conducted by Dweck and her colleagues, however, revealed that, even at this
young age, some children display reduced persistence, negative affect, and negative self-

1

perceptions in response to failure (for a review, see Burhans & Dweck, 1995). This research also
revealed that, unlike helpless responses of older children which resulted from attributions of low
ability, younger children’s helpless responses were linked to attributions of failure to low selfworth (Burhans & Dweck, 1995). Burhans and Dweck proposed that this sense of self-worth
that is tied to performance on a given task (termed contingent self-worth) is the cause of helpless
responses to failure in young children. Due to the tendency of younger children who exhibit
helplessness to link failure to their sense of self-worth, the importance of mastery-oriented
responses to failure may be especially important during this age in order to promote a
developmentally-appropriate, adaptive, and high sense of self-worth.
Given the advantages of a mastery-oriented response to failure, a number of questions are
raised: how does a young child develop a mastery-oriented pattern of responding to failure? Can
a helpless-oriented response be altered, or is it a stable response? If it can be altered, how can a
parent promote a young child’s mastery-oriented responses to failure? Attribution theory
(Weiner, 1979; 1980) provides a framework for considering these questions. According to
attribution theory many behavioral patterns, such as helpless versus mastery-oriented responses
to failure, are initiated by attributions, or causal ascriptions. In support of this framework, a
number of studies have found associations between children’s helpless responses to failure and
their attributions of failure to uncontrollable factors, such as ability for older children or a low
global sense of self-worth for younger children. On the other hand, a child’s mastery-oriented
responses to failure have been found to be associated with his or her attributions of failure to
controllable factors, such as effort or the strategy used. In addition, younger children’s masteryoriented responses to failure have been associated with a sense of self-worth that is not
contingent on performance.

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Based on the attribution theory framework, young children’s responses to failure are
considered in terms of their attributions, or causal ascriptions, of the situation. When
considering how to promote mastery-oriented responses to failure from this perspective, a
pertinent question arises: are children’s attributions for failure stable or can children’s
attributions for failure shift over time? While many children demonstrate the same pattern of
response to failure over multiple scenarios, it has long been conceptualized as a learned pattern;
hence some early studies refer to it as “learned helpless responses to failure.” Indeed, a number
of studies have shown that children’s attributions are shaped by environmental stimuli, such as
highlighting different goal orientations (e.g. Elliott & Dweck, 1988) and providing specific types
of feedback (e.g. Dweck, 1975).
Due to this ability to influence children’s attributions, parents of young children may ask
what they can do to promote a child’s mastery-oriented responses to failure. One strategy that
has been repeatedly highlighted by the current literature to improve young children’s masteryoriented responses to failure is the use of process, or non-generic (i.e., specific) praise (e.g.,
Cimpian et al., 2007; Kamins & Dweck, 1999; Zentall & Morris, 2010). Process praise is
defined as praise of controllable factors (e.g., effort, strategy) in contrast to person praise that is
defined as praise of innate, uncontrollable factors (e.g., ability, trait). Similarly, non-generic
praise is defined as praise that labels a specific instance of behavior (typically with a verbal
predicate) while generic praise labels an individual or category (typically with a noun label).
Process praise includes a verbal predicate and is classified as non-generic. Person praise uses a
noun label and is viewed as generic. Based on experimental studies, process praise for
preschool-aged children’s successes has been found to lead to significantly more masteryoriented responses to a subsequent mistake, such as described in the introduction above, than

3

person praise for the same success (e.g., Cimpian et al., 2007; Kamins & Dweck, 1999; Zentall
& Morris, 2010).
Despite the superior effects of process praise found in experimental studies where praise
is randomly assigned, correlational studies examining the effects of process praise provided by a
parent have found weaker relations to young children’s responses to subsequent failure. Two
studies (Gilmore et al., 2009; Zentall, 2009) found no significant relationship between parental
process praise and mastery-oriented responses to failure in young children. One of these studies
(Zentall, 2009) found maternal sensitivity in infancy to be a more significant predictor of
mastery-oriented responses to failure in toddlers than maternal feedback and praise. Zentall
hypothesized that children’s internal working models play a role in children’s responses to
failure. Based on this hypothesis, the lack of significant findings of parental praise on responses
to failure may be due to the strong influence of parental attachment confounding the effects of
parental praise.
Another study (Kelley, Brownell & Campbell, 2000) found parental process praise to be
a significant predictor of mastery-oriented responses to failure, but the relationship was still
weaker than predicted. These studies raise the question: How can a weak relationship between
parental process praise and children’s responses to failure be explained? This question remains
largely unaddressed by the current literature. Attachment theory provides a fitting framework to
conceptualize the problem. According to attachment theory, the security of a young child’s
attachment to his or her parent influences internal working models that may influence the child’s
perceptions of parental statements, such as praise. Based on this framework, new questions
arise: Does the quality of children’s attachment to their parent moderate the effect of a parental

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praise statement? Or, does the quality of children’s attachment play such a powerful role that the
effects of a praise statement become insignificant?
Other questions raised by the current literature include whether it would be beneficial to
supplement process praise with the suggestion of considering alternative strategies. In this study,
the “suggestion of considering alternative strategies” is defined as raising the possibility that one
or more different approaches could be used to complete a specific task (e.g. “What are other
ways that could also work?”). Based on attribution theory (Weiner, 1979; 1980), process praise
is beneficial because a child can attribute success to controllable factors, and this conveys the
idea that self-worth that is not contingent upon performance (Kamins & Dweck, 1999). In young
children, attributions of contingent self-worth have been proposed as the cause of helpless
responses to failure (Burhans & Dweck, 1995). When supplemented with the suggestion of
considering alternative strategies, process praise can lead a child to attribute successes to
controllable events while the consideration of an alternative strategy to improve performance
may lead a child to attribute shortcomings in his or her performance to strategy choice. A study
conducted by Diener and Dweck (1978) on fifth graders’ verbalizations found that in contrast to
children with a helpless orientation towards failure who verbalized uncontrollable and stable
attributions for their failure, children with a mastery-oriented response to failure did not
verbalize attributions for their failure because they did not consider the experience a failure.
Instead they considered the experience a controllable opportunity to try out new strategies and
learn. The suggestion of considering alternative strategies during a success could thus prime a
child to frame failure in this way.
When researchers examine parents’ statements to their children that combine process
praise and the suggestion that the children might/should consider alternative strategies, they have

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used different terms to describe it. Butler (1987) used such a statement in her “comment”
condition, which consisted of the phrase “You thought of quite a few different ideas; maybe it is
possible to think of more unusual, original ideas.” Kamins and Dweck used a similar statement
(i.e. “You found a good way to do it, can you think of other ways that may also work?”), which
they termed “strategy praise” (Kamins & Dweck, 1999, p. 844). Kelley and colleagues (2000)
used the term, “corrective feedback.” to code parental statements that were “negative or critical
in content but neutral or positive in tone.” Such a suggestion can take the form of a question
(e.g. “can you think of other ways that may also work?”) or a statement (e.g. “maybe it is
possible to think of more unusual, original ideas.”). In addition, the statements in prior research
included a process praise component that explicitly relayed the positive nature of the message
(e.g. Butler, 1987; Kamins & Dweck, 1999). Combining the suggestion of considering
alternative strategies with process praise is consistent with a mastery-oriented perspective and is
more likely to highlight factors that are within the child’s control. The effects of parental
process praise plus the suggestion of considering alternative on mastery-orientation in response
to failure were examined in the current study.
While parental process praise plus the suggestion of considering alternative strategies has
not been studied, parental corrective feedback alone has been found to be a more positive and
significant predictor of young children’s persistence after failure than parental process praise
(Kelley et al, 2000). Kamins and Dweck (1999) examined differences between a teacher
delivering process praise and a teacher delivering process praise plus the suggestion of
considering alternative strategies; however, no significant differences were found. This could be
due to the small sample size (N=19) used in the study because it contradicts the findings of a
study with a larger sample (N=200; Butler, 1987). Butler found that process praise plus the

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suggestion of considering alternative strategies by teachers resulted in higher performance and
interest and more attributions to controllable factors among fifth and sixth grade students than a
praise statement alone (Butler, 1987). These findings with teachers suggest that a parental
suggestion of considering alternative strategies in addition to process praise may be a beneficial
pairing that is superior to the parents’ provision of process praise alone. Yet the question of
whether parental process praise plus the suggestion of considering alternative strategies leads to
more mastery-oriented responses to failure than parental process praise alone remains largely
unaddressed. In addition, parents’ beliefs about the use of process praise plus the suggestion of
considering alternative strategies and the potentially moderating effect that attachment security
might play on this relationship have yet to be examined.
Studies examining the effects of young children’s gender on the relationships between
praise dimensions and children’s responses to failure also raise an important issue. Critical
feedback tends to have a more detrimental effect on young girls’ motivation than on young boys’
motivation (e.g. Cimipan, 2010; Dweck, 1986; Licht & Dweck, 1984; Roberts, 1991). These
findings raise the possibility that process praise plus the suggestion of considering alternative
strategies may be perceived as critical and lead to more mastery-oriented responses to failure
from young boys than from young girls. From the perspective of attribution theory, these
findings can be explained in one of two ways. First, girls may be more likely to attribute failure
to uncontrollable factors when presented with critical feedback, resulting in more helpless
responses. Alternatively, girls and boys may be equally likely to attribute failure to
uncontrollable factors when presented with critical feedback, but girls may be more likely to
perceive feedback as critical than boys., Mothers tend to provide more negative specific
evaluations and controlling praise for girls and more positive specific evaluations and

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informational praise for boys (Alessandri & Lewis, 1993; Pomerantz & Ruble, 1998). This
could lead young girls to perceive the suggestion of considering alternative strategies statements
from their mothers as critical and negative, while young boys perceive such statements as helpful
and positive. The only study that examined the effects of a parental suggestion of considering
alternative strategies on responses to failure in young children (Kelley et al., 2000) did not
consider the moderating effect of gender. Butler (1987) found no gender effects when
examining process praise plus the suggestion of considering alternative strategies; however, this
praise was provided by a stranger. Praise from parents may lead to greater gender effects since
previous studies (Alessandri & Lewis, 1993; Pomerantz & Ruble, 1998) suggest that parents may
develop a pattern of providing differential praise based on gender. In addition, the study
conducted by Butler (1987) consisted of a sample of 200 5th and 6th grade students, and other
studies have highlighted differing gender effects across different ages (e.g. Corpus & Lepper,
2007). Thus, an important question to examine is: Does gender moderate the effects of process
praise plus the suggestion of considering alternative strategies on young children’s responses to
failure?
Theoretical Framework
This study examined process praise and the moderating influences of attachment security
and gender on young children’s responses to failure using attribution and attachment theories.
Attribution Theory
Attribution theory provides a useful framework for considering the effects of praise on
young children’s responses to failure. Attribution theory posits that many behavioral sequences
are initiated by a causal ascription, or attribution, for an event (e.g. Weiner, 1980). Three
dimensions of causality that have been identified are locus, controllability, and stability (Weiner,

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1979). Locus refers to an individual’s ascription of causality to internal or external factors.
Controllability refers to the ascription of causality to factors within an individual’s control or
factors outside of an individual’s control. Lastly, the dimension of stability refers to the
ascription of causality to stable factors or to factors that fluctuate over time. Locus and
controllability have been identified as the most central dimensions to attribution theory because
these two dimensions are the most influential in initiating behavioral sequences, although
stability is also predictive of changes in future expectancies and is closely tied to the dimensions
of locus and controllability. According to attribution theory, making an attribution along the
dichotomous controllability and locus dimensions gives rise to an affective, or emotional,
response. This emotional response, in turn, leads directly to a behavioral response.
Expanding on an example from a study conducted by Heyman and colleagues (1992), if a
preschooler watches a classmate steal their crayon, scribble on their paper, and spill their juice,
he or she could attribute the classmate’s behavior to an internal, uncontrollable factor, such as an
innate, stable, badness. This would lead to an emotional response, such as anger or disgust. This
emotional response, in turn, would lead to a behavioral response, such as avoiding the classmate
or treating them negatively. Alternatively, the preschooler could attribute the classmate’s
behavior to an external, flexible, controllable factor, such as the child’s lack of understanding of
the rules. This would lead to a different emotional response, such as pity or sympathy. This, in
turn, would lead to a different behavioral response, such as befriending the classmate and
explaining the rules. Attributions of causality have been linked to a variety of phenomena,
including help-giving (e.g. Weiner, 1980), self-rewarding behaviors (e.g. Graham & Weiner,
1991), collaboration on group projects (e.g. Peterson & Schreiber, 2006), and learned
helplessness (e.g. Abramson et al., 1978).

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Learned helplessness is described by Seligman, Maier and Geer (1968, p. 258) as “the
learning (or perception) of independence between the emitted responses of the organism and the
presentation and/or withdrawal of aversive events.” In other words, learned helplessness is an
individual’s attributions of aversive events such as failure due to factors over which they have no
control. Research has found that individuals identified as exhibiting learned helplessness also
display marked decreases in performance in response to failure (Diener & Dweck, 1978; Dweck,
1975; Dweck & Bush, 1976; Dweck & Reppucci, 1973). In contrast, mastery-oriented
individuals, who perceive that they have control over a failure situation, display consistent or
improved performance in response to failure (Diener & Dweck, 1978; Dweck 1975). Learned
helplessness is also linked to negative affect in response to failure (e.g. Diener & Dweck, 1978).
These findings are notable because, before failure, individuals displaying helpless and more
mastery-oriented responses to failure exhibit similar performance, motivation, and abilities (e.g.
Licht & Dweck, 1984; Kamins & Dweck, 1999).
Children displaying helpless responses to failure tend to attribute failure to internal,
uncontrollable, and stable factors, such as lack of ability (Diener & Dweck, 1978). In contrast,
mastery-oriented children “did not appear to think they were failing. Rather than viewing
unsolved problems as failures that reflected on their ability, they appeared to view the unsolved
problems as challenges to be mastered through effort” (Dweck & Leggett, 1988, p. 258).
Attribution theory provides a cognitive framework for conceptualizing how one child can
demonstrate poor affective and behavioral responses to failure while another child with similar
abilities can demonstrate a positive affective and behavioral response to the same situation. The
child who attributes failure to internal, uncontrollable, stable factors will demonstrate poor
affective and behavioral responses. On the other hand, the child who does not identify the same

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situation as a failure because they attribute the same events to controllable, flexible factors is
more likely to demonstrate the positive affective and behavioral responses.
The learned helplessness literature has also contributed to the further development of
attribution theory. Dweck (1986) proposed that individuals develop implicit theories of
intelligence (i.e. attributions of intelligence) that lead to performance or learning goals, and that
these goals lead to mastery-oriented or helpless responses to failure. Research has supported the
hypothesis that individuals exhibiting learned helplessness (i.e., attribute intelligence to
uncontrollable, stable factors and respond poorly to failure) are more likely to focus on
performance goals, while mastery-oriented individuals (i.e. attribute intelligence to controllable,
changeable factors and respond adaptively to failure) are more likely to focus on learning goals
(e.g., Nicholls, 1984).
Research has also examined developmentally-appropriate explanations for helpless
versus mastery-oriented responses to failure. Based on past research (e.g. Heyman et al., 1992),
Burhans and Dweck (1995) noted that in the face of failure, children ages 4-5 are more
concerned with their general goodness or badness, as opposed to their ability or intelligence.
They also argued that children of this age can make attributions of effort or ability, but they are
not as meaningful as they are to children at a later age. They proposed that self-worth that is
contingent upon behavior or performance is the cause of young children’s helpless responses to
failure. According to Burhans and Dweck:
Perhaps, then, young children have a global conception of self that may be evaluated in
terms of ‘good’ versus ‘bad.’ If so, then it might be this global self that some children
indict following failure. That is, for some children, task failure might mean to them that
they are bad or unworthy (Burhans & Dweck, 1995 p. 1727).

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Research on 4-5 year olds supports this model, with children demonstrating helpless responses
being more likely to rate their self-worth as contingent to their performance (for a review, see
Burhans & Dweck, 1995). In addition, helpless children were significantly more likely to
consider “badness” to be a stable trait.
In other words, Burhans & Dweck (1995) proposed that children from the ages of 4-5
who exhibit learned helplessness still attribute their failure to factors that are internal,
uncontrollable, and stable, but rather than attributing their failure to intelligence, or a lack of
competence at the activity, they attribute their failure to a more global “badness.” Based on this
framework, Kamins and Dweck (1999) hypothesized that person praise would lead children to
attribute failure to stable, uncontrollable factors and teach children that their competence and
worth is dependent upon their performance, while process praise would lead children to attribute
failure to flexible, controllable factors and teach children that their performance is independent
of their competence and worth. Kamins and Dweck’s (1999) research supported these
hypotheses, with person praise leading to significantly lower ratings of competence, intelligence,
and overall “goodness” from preschoolers than process praise. In addition, person praise led
preschoolers to display lower levels of persistence and more negative affect than process praise.
Considering this research and theory also provides a rationale for the benefits of providing the
suggestion of children considering alternative strategies in addition to process praise.
Specifically, process praise plus the suggestion of considering alternative strategies highlights
the fact that the child has control to improve his or her performance. It also provides evidence to
the child that they are worthy of praise even though his or her performance is not perfect. The
feedback could also teach children that even when their performance is poor, they have control
over changing their strategy to improve their performance.

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In addition to measures of attributions, affect, and persistence after failure experiences,
another measure commonly used as an indicator of a young child’s mastery-oriented response to
failure is intrinsic motivation to continue a task after experiencing failure on that task (e.g.
Cimpian et al., 2007). Intrinsic motivation has been defined as “when students value (or can
learn to value) participation in the activity itself” (Brophy, 2004, p. 183). Intrinsic motivation
has been consistently linked with persistence (e.g. Grant, 2008), as well as other positive
outcomes not associated with responses to failure such as academic performance, well-being, and
health (e.g. Grolnick, Ryan & Deci, 1991; Ryan & Deci, 2000).
Attachment Theory
Attachment theory also provides a conceptual framework to examine the parent-child
relationship as a moderator of the relationship between different praise conditions and young
children’s responses to failure. According to attachment theory, a powerful bond forms in the
first several months of life between an infant and the mother (or primary caregiver; Bowlby,
1988). This bond influences the child’s internal working model of the self and others (Bowlby,
1988). If the child develops a secure attachment to his or her mother, then they develop an
internal working model of the caregiver as responsive to their needs and respectful of his or her
autonomy, and an internal working model of the self as an acceptable and capable individual
who can explore the world around them. If the child develops an insecure attachment to his or
her mother, then they develop an internal working model of the caregiver as unresponsive or not
consistently responsive and an internal working model of the self as an anxious, ambivalent, or
conflicted individual who is unacceptable or unworthy. These internal working models allow the
child to predict the attachment figure's likely behavior, and to plan his or her own responses.

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The child’s internal working models shape cognitions about social information (for a
review, see Dykas & Cassidy, 2011). Children with a secure attachment exhibit a more adaptive
social information processing pattern that includes an internal locus of control, more accurate
recall of social information, and more accurate attributions of social behavior. On the other
hand, children with an insecure attachment exhibit a more maladaptive social information
processing pattern that includes an external locus of control (Hortacsu, 1994), less accurate recall
of social information (linked to suppression in one study [Kirsh & Cassidy, 1997] and a greater
focus on negative social cues in another study [Ziv et al., 2004]), and more negative and
inaccurate attributions of social behavior (Suess et al., 1992; Ziv et al., 2004). While this applies
especially to the parent-child relationship, attachment security to the parent has also been found
to influence children’s views of peers, teachers, and others (e.g. DeMulder et al., 2000).
Based on this perspective, a child’s attachment security to the primary caregiver would
shape a child’s internal working models, which would influence the child’s perceptions of
process praise, especially process praise from a parent. If the child has a secure attachment to
the primary caregiver, then he or she would be inclined to perceive process praise accurately,
focusing on the positive information and attributing their success to controllable factors. If the
child has an insecure attachment to the primary caregiver, then the internal working models
would incline them to perceive process praise inaccurately based on the child’s suppression of
information, greater memory of negative information, and negative attributions for the parent’s
behavior and attributions of no control.
Attribution theory and attachment theory both serve as beneficial frameworks for this
study. Attribution theory demonstrates how different forms of feedback can influence young
children’s responses to failure while attachment theory sets the stage for considering the

14

influence of the feedback coming from the child’s parent. Not only do they inform hypotheses
and influence the methods, but they also assist in more clearly defining the purpose of the study.
Purpose of the Study
The purpose of this study is to compare the effects of parental process praise and
parental process praise plus the suggestion of considering alternative strategies on children’s
motivational response to failure. This was examined by conducting a study that utilizes two
different designs with parent-child dyads. A correlational design examined the relationships
between mothers’ reports of types of praise used with their 4-5 year old children and mothers’
reports of the children’s responses to failure. A strength of this design is that it allows for an
examination of the use of praise from the parent’s perspective. A weakness of this design is that
the correlational nature does not allow for an analysis of causality. A within-subjects quasiexperimental design was also used to examine the effects of process praise and process praise
plus the suggestion of considering alternative strategies on young children’s response to failure.
This study uses an analogue behavioral observation method of assessing the 4-5 year old
children’s responses to failure. The children acted out task scenarios with a puppet in two
different conditions where a parent puppet provides the praise. The praise conditions were
presented in random order over the course of two sessions that are at least one week apart. A
strength of this within-subjects quasi-experimental design is that it allows for a clearer
distinction between cause and effect. A weakness of this design is that the construct validity of
the measures can be compromised by the degree to which the tasks the child performs are
different from salient events and stimuli in the natural environment (Haynes, 2001, p. 77). Both
of these designs were used to examine the study’s questions, allowing for a more complete

15

picture of the real-world relationships and causal factors than could be gathered from either
design alone.
While the current parenting literature focuses on praise as an effective strategy for
promoting children’s social competence (e.g. Webster-Stratton, 2008), the potential benefits on
young children’s responses to failure by suggesting the consideration of alternative strategies in
addition to praise has received limited attention. While it is possible that adding a suggestion of
considering alternative strategies to praise could add a level of complexity to the statement,
previous research suggests that young children can comprehend and differentiate these
statements. The study that compared process praise to process praise plus the suggestion of
considering alternative strategies on young children had a small sample size, but it suggested that
adding such a statement has positive effects similar to process praise alone, suggesting that the
statement is not so complex that it has a detrimental effect on young children (Cimpian et al.,
2007). Theoretically, the suggestion of considering alternative strategies might lead to a more
mastery-oriented approach to failure since it highlights the facts that the child’s performance is
validated and valued despite imperfections and that the child has control over improving their
performance (Diener & Dweck, 1978).
This study also aims to examine parental beliefs about the effects of process praise, and
process praise plus the suggestion of considering alternative strategies. This was examined by
analyzing participating mothers’ responses to questions about the effects of different types of
praise statements on their children’s task motivation. No studies have considered parenting
beliefs about the effects of process praise plus the suggestion of considering alternative strategies
in comparison to process praise alone. Based on the emphasis in the current parenting literature
on process praise, parents might consider a process praise statement to have more beneficial

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effects than process praise plus the suggestion of considering alternative strategies. On the other
hand, parents may recognize the potential benefits of including the suggestion of considering
alternative strategies with a process praise statement, based on their experiences or perspectives.
In addition, this study considered the attachment of the children to their primary
caregivers as a moderating factor between parental praise and the children’s response to failure.
This was examined by having the participating mothers complete a questionnaire surveying their
perception of the child’s attachment, and by comparing the results of this survey to data
examining the relation between praise dimensions and children’s responses to failure.
Attachment security was also considered in relation to children’s response to failure.
Current studies have found indicators of secure attachments to be significant predictors of
children’s mastery-oriented responses to failure. Attachment theory also provides a framework
that explains how attachment to a primary caregiver would influence future interactions with
parents and others. Lastly, the purpose of this study was to examine whether gender moderated
the relation between praise condition and the child’s response to failure. Gender was
investigated as a moderator in both the quasi-experimental and correlational designs. Current
research has not examined how gender might moderate the effects of parental process praise plus
the suggestion of considering alternative strategies on young children’s response to failure,
despite the fact that young girls tend to react more negatively to critical feedback than young
boys.
The potential benefits of the suggestion of considering alternative strategies in addition to
process praise have broad implications for how parents and teachers should provide feedback to
children. It could lead to more parents and teachers pairing the suggestion of considering
alternative strategies with process praise in response to a child’s behavior to enhance mastery-

17

oriented responses to failure. There are also many implications for the potentially moderating
effects of the child’s attachment to the parent on the effects of parental praise. A moderating
effect of attachment could highlight the importance of parents sensitively and responsively
addressing their children’s needs from an early age. It could also highlight the need to consider
the context of complex relationships to thoughtfully provide feedback that will enhance masteryoriented responses to failure. Lastly, the potentially moderating effects of gender on the
relationship between process praise plus the suggestion of considering alternative strategies has
implications for meeting the differential needs of girls and boys. If there is a moderating effect,
then process praise plus the suggestion of considering alternative strategies may be a more
beneficial strategy for males than for females.
Research Questions and Hypotheses
The research questions are:
1. How does parental process praise plus the suggestion of an alternative strategy affect young
children’s mastery-oriented responses to failure compared to parental process praise alone?
Based on an attribution theory framework, it was hypothesized that process praise plus
the suggestion of considering alternative strategies would lead to more mastery-oriented
responses to failure compared to process praise alone.
2. Do parents’ perceptions of their children’s attachment security moderate the effects of the
type of parental praise on children’s mastery-oriented responses to failure?
It was hypothesized that the more securely children are attached to their parents, the more
mastery-oriented their response would be to failure after receiving process praise plus the
suggestion of an alternative strategy compared to process praise alone. The less securely
attached to their parents, the more likely children would be to exhibit helpless responses to

18

failure after receiving process praise plus the suggestion of an alternative strategy compared to
process praise alone.
3. Does the child’s gender moderate the effects of the type of parental praise on children’s
mastery-oriented responses to failure?
It was hypothesized that gender would serve as a moderator such that girls display less
mastery-oriented responses after process praise plus the suggestion of an alternative strategy than
process praise alone. In contrast, boys were predicted to display mastery-oriented responses to
failure after process praise as well as after process praise plus the suggestion of an alternative
strategy.
4. What do parents believe about the effects of parental process praise and parental process
praise plus the suggestion of considering alternative strategies on children’s mastery-oriented
responses to failure?
The question is exploratory and examines parents’ beliefs about the effectiveness of process
praise compared to process praise plus the suggestion of considering alternative strategies.

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CHAPTER 2 – LITERATURE REVIEW
Introduction
The review of the current literature is organized into four sections. First, the literature
documenting helpless and mastery-oriented responses to failure in young children is reviewed
and research supporting an attributional framework for conceptualizing responses to failure in
young children is highlighted. Second, research on the influence of praise and feedback on
young children’s responses to failure is reviewed. In the third section, the influence of the
parent-child relationship on young children’s responses to failure and their perceptions of
parental feedback are considered. Lastly, the implications of this literature for practice and
future research are discussed.
Young Children’s Responses to Failure
While patterns of helpless and mastery-oriented responses to failure have been found in
older children since the initial conceptualization of these constructs (e.g. 8-13 year old children;
Dweck, 1975), researchers assumed for many years that similar responses could not be found in
preschool-aged children (e.g. Stipek & Tannatt, 1984). For instance, after finding that preschoolaged children are more likely to provide positive self-assessments than older children, Stipek and
Tannatt (1984) suggested that young children may ignore any information that indicates low
ability. Yet later studies that examined young children’s persistence, affect, and attributions in
response to failure revealed that the same patterns of helpless and mastery-oriented responses to
failure are evident in children as young as four years of age (e.g. Smiley & Dweck, 1994).
When considering persistence on a task during which a child had experienced failure and
the reason for continuing the task, Smiley and Dweck (1994) found that 51% of preschool and
kindergarten aged children displayed a non-persistent response while 49% displayed a persistent

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response. The children who displayed a non-persistent response also reported significantly more
negative affect and less confidence in their ability after the failure trials, consistent with the
helpless pattern of responding to failure observed in older children. On the other hand, the
children who displayed a persistent response also reported significantly more positive affect and
maintained or improved confidence in their ability after the failure trials, consistent with the
mastery-oriented pattern of responding to failure observed in older children. In addition to the
helpless versus mastery-oriented patterns of persistence, affect, and attributions of ability found
in older children, Heyman and colleagues (1992) found that kindergarten-aged children
displaying the helpless pattern of responding to failure were significantly more likely to attribute
people’s actions to their “goodness” or “badness” and to consider behavior to remain stable and
unchanged over time. On the other hand, children displaying the mastery-oriented pattern of
responding to failure were significantly more likely to separate people’s actions from their
“goodness” or “badness” and to consider behavior to change over time. These studies provide
strong evidence that preschool-aged children are capable of displaying helpless and masteryoriented responses to failure. Furthermore, this research provides evidence that children of this
age are capable of making attributions and that these attributions are linked to behavior.
More recent linguistic studies provide additional evidence that, not only are preschoolaged children capable of making attributions, but that they use subtle linguistic cues to shape
their attributions. For example, a statement can provide generic or nongeneric descriptions of a
category or individual (e.g. Cimpian, 2007). In focusing on an individual, generic statements
make a claim about an individual as a whole, while nongeneric statements make a claim about an
individual in the context of a specific event or episode. Oftentimes the distinctions between
sentences that use generic and nongeneric labels are subtle (e.g. she is a carrot-eater versus she

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eats carrots whenever she can; Gelman & Heyman, 1999). Yet studies have found that these
generic or nongeneric cues influence the causal attributions of children as young as four years of
age (e.g. Cimpian, 2010; Cimpian & Erickson, 2012; Cimpian et al., 2007; Gelman & Heyman,
1999). More specifically, generic sentences lead young children to generic conceptualizations
and attributions of failure to stable traits or skills (e.g. Cimpian, 2010; Cimpian & Erickson,
2012; Cimpian et al., 2007; Gelman & Heyman, 1999). On the other hand, nongeneric sentences
lead young children to nongeneric conceptualizations and attributions of failure to flexible
factors such as effort or strategy. These studies demonstrate that, not only are young children
able to make causal attributions based on generic versus nongeneric cues, but they also use these
causal attributions to make inferences about an individual’s future behavior. For example,
Gelman and Heyman (1999) found that five year old children who were exposed to nongeneric
language about a character made predictions that the character’s future behavior was more
flexible while children who were exposed to generic language made predictions that the
character’s future behavior was more stable.
The implicit cues in different types of verbs have also been found to shape the
attributions of children as young as three to four years of age (e.g. Corrigan & Stevenson, 1994;
Rudolph, 2008). Verbs are composed of two categories: action verbs that describe actions (e.g.
run, yell, etc.) and state verbs that describe states (e.g. feel, consider, etc.). Action verbs are
further broken up by distinguishing agent-patient action verbs and agent-evocator action verbs.
In a statement with an agent-patient action verb (e.g. hits), the subject is an agent that completes
the verb on the object, or patient (e.g. hits). In a statement with an agent-evocator action verb
(e.g. answers), the subject is an agent that is reacting to the object, or evocator. State verbs can
also be further divided into two categories: stimulus-experiencer state verbs and experiencer-

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stimulus state verbs. In a sentence with a stimulus-experiencer state verb (e.g. astonishes), the
subject is a stimulus that evokes the verb from the object, or experiencer. In a sentence with an
experiencer-stimulus state verb (e.g. admires), the subject is an experiencer of the verb that is
evoked by the object, or stimulus.
Young children attribute the cause of actions described with agent-patient action verbs or
stimulus-experiencer state verbs to the subject of the sentence, while they attribute the cause of
actions described with agent-evocator action verbs (e.g. answers) or experience-stimulus state
verbs (e.g. admires) to the object of the sentence (e.g. Corrigan & Stevenson, 1994; Rudolph,
2008). It is of particular importance to note Rudolph’s (2008) report that three and five year olds
were reportedly able to answer causal questions (e.g. “Why does this happen?”) with ease, and
only 0.5-2% of these children’s responses were missing values. Similarly, Corrigan and
Stevenson (1994) reported that when three and four year olds were asked to invent stories about
verb statements, the stories tended to contain information about the causation of the events
described by the verbs.
Cumulatively, the findings from the linguistic development literature provide strong
evidence that 3-5 year old children are capable of making causal attributions and that these
causal attributions are shaped by subtle linguistic cues. Next, the influences of different types of
praise and feedback on young children’s responses to failure are considered.
Praise and Young Children’s Responses to Failure
Different types of praise and feedback in response to children’s successes have been
found to influence children’s responses to failure. Praise is being defined as “positive
evaluations made by a person of another’s products, performances, or attributes, where the
evaluator presumes the validity of the standards on which the evaluation is based.” (Kanouse,

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Gumpert, & Canavan-Gumpert, 1981, p. 98). This definition encompasses the multi-dimensional
and categorical praise. For instance, this definition of praise distinguishes positive evaluations
“of another’s products, performances, or attributes.” This aligns with an attribution theory
framework, which highlights the dimensions of product praise, process praise, and person praise
(Corpus & Lepper, 2007). Product praise is defined as praise of the specific product that the
child completes (e.g. a completed homework assignment). Process praise is defined as praise of
factors related to the process an individual went through (e.g. effort, strategy). Person praise is
defined as praise of a person’s innate traits or abilities (e.g. intelligence). From an attribution
theory perspective, process praise leads a child to make causal attributions of his or her actions to
the flexible, controllable factor being praised (e.g. effort, strategy). Alternatively, person praise
leads a child to make causal attributions of his or her actions to the stable, uncontrollable factor
being praised (e.g. intelligence). These categories of praise also correspond with the generic and
nongeneric labels previously discussed. Based on the linguistic content, process praise and
product praise meet the criteria of nongeneric statements. These statements make references
about specific instances of behavior. On the other hand, person praise meets the criteria of
generic statements. These statements make references about an individual across situations.
The general versus specific dimensions of praise are also encompassed by the above
definition. Specific praise is praise that is connected to a specific behavior (e.g. good clapping)
while general praise is praise that is not connected to a specific behavior (e.g. good; Chalk &
Bizo, 2004; Stevens et al., 2011). From a behavioral perspective, specific praise is beneficial due
to the more precise description of the behavior that is being reinforced. Another dimension of
praise is controlling versus informational. According to cognitive evaluation theory, praise has
two functions (Kast & Connor, 1988). One function of praise is an informational aspect that

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indicates the appropriateness of the behavior. The second function of praise is a controlling
aspect that indicates the expectation of a certain performance. Informational praise highlights
the first function while controlling praise highlights the latter.
The motivational effects of praise have been the subject of frequent study and debate for
decades; however, the effects of praise on young children’s responses to failure have only
become an area of study over the last fifteen years. Studies examining young children’s
responses to failure have focused on the contrasting effects of person praise and process praise.
Three studies used a similar methodology and found that process praise led young children to
significantly more mastery-oriented responses to failure while person praise led to significantly
more helpless responses to failure (e.g. Cimpian, 2007; Kamins & Dweck, 1999; Zentall &
Morris, 2010). The participants in these studies ranged from preschool to first grade. The
procedure for each study involved having the child use a puppet or doll to act out scenes and
randomly receive person or process praise from a teacher figure. The children used the puppet or
doll to act out failure scenarios and their responses to failure were measured based on their
willingness to persist at the task that they experienced failure on, their affect, their motivation to
engage in the task on a separate occasion, and their attributions for failure to stable,
uncontrollable factors or flexible, controllable factors. Each study found process praise to lead to
significantly more persistence, positive affect, motivation, and attributions for failure to flexible,
controllable factors than person praise.
Another study examined the effects of praise on preschoolers’ responses to feedback, but
used a different methodology (Corpus & Lepper, 2007). Instead of only comparing different
categories of praise, they included a neutral feedback condition as well. They also provided
praise directly to the participants while they worked on two puzzles, as opposed to praising a doll

25

or puppet. They found that person praise, process praise, and product praise all led to
significantly higher motivation to engage in a task ten days after experiencing a task failure
compared to neutral feedback. When only examining the effects of the three praise conditions,
the same pattern emerged as was found in the previous studies, with process praise leading to
higher motivation and more controllable attributions than person praise. Other studies with
different conceptual frameworks have utilized different dimensions of praise, such as the
informational vs. controlling (e.g. Harackiewicz, 1979; Kast & Connor, 1988; Pittman et al.,
1980; Ryan, 1982; Ryan, Mims and Koestner, 1983) and the general vs. specific dimensions (e.g.
Chalk & Bizo, 2004; Fueyo, Saudargas & Bushell, 1975; Sutherland et al., 2000). However, due
to the lack of focus on causal attributions that lead to helpless or mastery-oriented responses to
failure, studies utilizing these frameworks have examined general motivational or behavioral
outcomes as opposed to responses to failure.
It is important to note the differentiation between the terms “praise” and “feedback” in
the current literature. Feedback has been defined as “more neutral forms of recognition”
(Henderlong & Lepper, 2002, p. 775) than praise. Different types of feedback have also been
found to relate to young children’s responses to failure. Corrective feedback is one form of
feedback that has been found to increase young children’s mastery-oriented responses to failure
(Kelley et al., 2000). Corrective feedback was defined as statements that were “negative or
critical in content but neutral or positive in tone.” (Kelley et al., 2000, p. 1064). An example of
corrective feedback would be, “That is not the right piece,” stated in a neutral or positive tone.
Criticism is another form of feedback that has been found to influence young children’s masteryoriented responses to failure, although studies examining this influence are somewhat
contradictory (Kamins & Dweck, 1999; Kelley et al., 2000). The effects of criticism mirror that

26

of praise in a study conducted by Kamins and Dweck (1999), with person criticism leading
young children to display more helpless responses to failure and process criticism leading young
children to display more mastery-oriented responses to failure. On the other hand, Kelley and
colleagues (2000) found that person and process criticism both undermine young children’s
responses to failure compared to person and process praise. These studies suggest that person
and process criticism may lead to the same differential effects on responses to failure as person
and process praise, but that praise is a more beneficial alternative to criticism.
Besides praise, another type of statement that may influence young children’s responses
to failure is the suggestion of considering alternative strategies. When combined with process
praise, the suggestion of considering alternative strategies may lead to more mastery-oriented
responses to failure than process praise alone (Butler, 1987; Kamins & Dweck, 1999). Two
studies considered the effects of process praise plus the suggestion of considering alternative
strategies using similar statements (“You found a good way to do it, can you think of other ways
that may also work?", “You thought of quite a few ideas; maybe it is possible to think of more
different ideas.”), but found conflicting results. When examining the effects of process praise
plus the suggestion of considering alternative strategies on fifth graders responses to failure,
Butler (1987) was surprised to find this statement to be lead to higher performance and interest
on a task than praise alone. More directly related to responses to failure, Butler found that
process praise plus the suggestion of considering alternative strategies led to more attributions to
controllable factors such as effort and fewer attributions to uncontrollable factors such as ability.
Process praise plus the suggestion of considering alternative strategies leading to more
attributions to controllable factors is a finding that aligns with attribution theory. Specifically,
process praise ties the child’s success to controllable factors and frames the statement in a

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positive light, while the suggestion of considering alternative strategies ties the child’s potential
improvement to a controllable factor that the child can turn to when faced with a future failure.
Despite the theoretical benefit of process praise plus the suggestion of considering
alternative strategies, a study conducted by Kamins and Dweck (1999) did not find significant
differences between kindergartners who received process praise alone and kindergartners who
received process praise plus the suggestion of considering alternative strategies. Still, this
finding does not indicate that process praise plus the suggestion of considering alternative
strategies has negative effects on young children’s responses to failure. In fact, process praise
and process praise plus the suggestion of considering alternative strategies were both found to
lead to more mastery-oriented responses to failure than person praise or product praise. The
small sample size (10 participants in each condition) may explain the lack of significant
differences in this study. In comparison, there were over twice as many participants in the study
examining the process and person praise conditions. These two studies indicate that adding the
suggestion of considering alternative strategies to process praise can, at the very least, lead to
similarly mastery-oriented responses to failure as process praise alone, but may even lead to
more mastery-oriented responses to failure than process praise alone. Additional study of the
effects of process praise plus the suggestion of considering alternative strategies can help to
clarify its effect.
While the effects of feedback and praise on children’s responses to failure have been well
documented, there are factors that moderate this relationship. Gender has been found to
moderate the effects of praise or feedback that is evaluative or that may be perceived as
diminishing perceived autonomy or control (e.g. Cimpian 2010; Corpus & Lepper, 2007; Dweck
1986; Licht & Dweck 1984; Roberts, 1991). More specifically, feedback of this nature tends to

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lead to more detrimental effects on motivation and responses to failure in girls than boys. For
example, Cimpian (2010) found that when a teacher pointed out a mistake after a nongeneric
gender statement (e.g. “There is a girl who is really good at this game!”), six and seven year-old
boys displayed more motivation to continue the task than girls. Similarly, other studies have
found that failure feedback leads to more aversive motivational and behavioral outcomes for
girls than for boys (e.g. Dweck & Reppucci, 1973; Nicholls, 1975). Furthermore, research has
consistently shown that praise with cues that diminish perceived autonomy or control tend to
have more negative effects on girls than boys (e.g. Corpus & Lepper, 2007; Kast & Connor,
1988; Koestner, Zuckerman & Koestner, 1989; Zinser, Young & King, 1982).
One explanation for the gender effects of feedback and praise that is evaluative and that
diminishes control or autonomy is that girls are socialized to be more aware of such cues. The
differential types of feedback that have been found to be given to boys and girls at home and
school lend support to this view. Research has found that by the toddler years, mothers provide
more negative specific evaluations and controlling praise for girls and more positive specific
evaluations and informational praise for boys (Alessandri & Lewis, 1993; Pomerantz & Ruble,
1998). The opposite pattern emerges as children enter school, with teachers providing more
negative feedback to boys (Burnett, 2002), while providing more process praise to girls (Dweck
et al., 1978). This pattern of girls receiving more negative evaluations and controlling praise
from an early age may lead to them being more sensitive to evaluation and cues that diminish
control or autonomy. In contrast, boys’ lack of exposure to these negative forms of feedback at
an early age may contribute to less sensitivity to such cues. While the effects of gender on the
relationship between process praise plus the suggestion of considering alternative strategies and

29

young children’s responses to failure has not been considered, girls may be more aware of the
controlling and evaluative cues in the suggestion of considering alternative strategies.
Age also moderates the effects of praise and feedback on children’s responses to failure.
Older children tend to attribute a lower ability to the recipient of praise than the recipient of
neutral or critical feedback, while younger children tend to attribute a higher ability to the
recipient of praise (Barker & Graham, 1987). Furthermore, the effects of different types of
praise may be moderated by age. Corpus and Lepper (2007) found that process praise led fourth
and fifth grade students to higher motivation to persist on a task after failure than person praise.
While the same pattern emerged in the younger children, the differential effects of person and
process praise were not significant. As previously discussed, this lack of significance was likely
due to the inclusion of a neutral feedback control condition, but it indicates that the effects of
person versus process praise on children’s responses to failure increase with age.
Yet, another line of research suggests that person and process praise may lead to greater
differential effects in younger children’s responses to failure than older children’s responses to
failure. As previously discussed, a number of linguistic studies have found that by preschool,
children use subtle cues in language to develop causal attributions that influence their judgments
(Cimpian, 2010; Corrigan & Stevenson, 1994; Gelman & Heyman, 1999; Rudolph, 2008).
Furthermore, the tendency for younger children to think of traits in terms of categories as
opposed to dimensions has led to the proposition by Gonzalez, Zosuls, and Ruble (2010) that
children of this age make more causal inferences from subtle linguistic labels than older children.
In support of this hypothesis, Cimpian (2010) found that generic versus nongeneric gender
statements led to different patterns in 4-5 year olds and 6-7 year olds. Specifically, 4-5 year old
children who received generic or nongeneric gender statements displayed similar levels of

30

motivation before a failure experience, but those who received a nongeneric gender statement
displayed greater motivation after the failure experience than those who received a generic
gender statement. In contrast, 6-7 year old children who received generic or nongeneric gender
statements displayed different levels of motivation before the failure experience, but similar
levels of motivation after the failure experience. Furthermore, a study conducted by Cimpian
and Erickson (2012) suggested that younger children are more likely to make inferences about
categories based on generic versus nongeneric cues, although this has not been extended to
inferences based on generic versus nongeneric cues about an individual.
While the current research presents two conflicting views about younger children’s
responses to failure being more or less likely to be affected by the subtle linguistic cues in person
versus process praise and feedback, the significance of person versus process praise on
preschool-aged children’s responses to failure are not in question. Studies that have directly
compared the effects of person and process praise provide consistent support for the proposition
that process praise and feedback leads to significantly more mastery-oriented responses to failure
in preschool-aged children than person praise and feedback (e.g. Cimpian et al., 2007; Cimpian,
2010; Kamins & Dweck, 1999; Zentall & Morris, 2010). In order to clarify the effects of age on
this relationship, more cross-sectional or longitudinal studies of the effects of praise and
feedback on responses to failure should be examined. In addition, there has only been one study
with a small sample size that compared the effects of process praise plus the suggestion of
considering alternative strategies to process praise alone on preschool-aged children’s responses
to failure. These findings reveal that praise, feedback, and suggestions of considering alternative
strategies influence children’s responses to failure. Age and gender are two factors that impact
these effects.

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The Parent-Child Relationship and Young Children’s Responses to Failure
Another factor to consider when examining the effects of praise and feedback on young
children’s responses to failure is the relationship between the provider of the praise or feedback
and the recipient of the praise or feedback. This relationship has not yet been taken into account
when examining the effects or praise or feedback on young children’s responses to failure, but an
overview of the current literature suggests that it may serve as a significant moderator. When
examining the type of relationship between the provider of the praise or feedback and the
recipient of the praise or feedback, different patterns emerge. The most common procedure used
in these studies involves having a novel teacher puppet or doll provide the praise or feedback
(e.g. Cimpian et al, 2007; Cimpian, 2010; Kamins & Dweck, 1999; Zentall & Morris; 2010).
These studies all found significant results when examining the effects of different types of praise
and feedback on young children’s responses to failure. In contrast, the few correlational studies
that have examined the effects of different types of parental praise and feedback on young
children’s responses to failure found insignificant or weaker relationships than expected (e.g.
Gilmore et al., 2009; Kelley et al., 2000; Zentall, 2009). Taken in isolation, these studies suggest
that feedback and praise provided by a parent does not have as strong of an influence on young
children’s responses to failure as praise provided by a novel puppet. An alternative explanation
is that the relationship between the parent and child may play a direct role on young children’s
responses to failure, while also moderating the effects of parental praise and feedback on young
children’s responses to failure.
From an attachment theory perspective, helpless versus mastery oriented responses to
failure are considered in relation to children’s internal working models (Zentall, 2009). Based on
attachment theory, children develop internal models of themselves and others based on the

32

relationship with their primary caregiver. If the primary caregiver is responsive and sensitive to
the child’s needs, then the child develops a secure attachment and his or her internal working
models will reflect this healthy relationship. On the other hand, if the primary caregiver is not
consistently responsive and sensitive to the child’s needs, then the child develops an insecure
attachment and his or her internal working models will reflect this maladaptive relationship.
Children use these internal working models as a frame of reference for dealing with events in
their life.
When facing failure, children’s internal working model of themselves could lead them to
believe that they are either capable, or incapable, of overcoming the failure. Links between
attachment-related constructs and constructs related to young children’s responses to failure have
been found in a number of studies. Coded observations of maternal sensitivity in infancy were
found to be a significant predictor of children’s responses to failure in the study conducted by
Zentall (2009). Similarly, Arend, Gove, and Sroufe (1979) found attachment security to be a
strong predictor of ego-resilience, which was defined as “the ability to respond flexibly,
persistently, and resourcefully, especially in problem situations” (Arend et al., 1979, p. 951).
Another study provides weaker support for the connection between attachment and
children’s responses to failure. In a study conducted by Wang and colleagues (2011),
observations of the parent’s responsivity, acceptance, organization, learning materials,
involvement, and variety when the child was 6 months old, but not 2 years old, were a significant
predictor of the child’s reported persistence at 3 years of age when controlling for other factors.
Surprisingly, these parenting behaviors at 6 months of age were not a significant predictor of the
child’s reported responses to failure when controlling for other factors, including gender;
however, maternal responsivity (the parenting factor most associated with attachment security)

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was not examined in isolation from the other constructs, which were not as relevant to the theory.
An interesting finding from this study was the large effect that gender had on children’s
persistence and responses to failure. These studies indicate that attachment security may play a
powerful role in the development of mastery or helpless responses to failure, but more research is
necessary that directly compares these relationships.
While the influence of attachment security on the effects of parental praise and feedback
has not been directly examined, studies have found that children’s attachment security is closely
tied to children’s perceptions of social information in the parent-child relationship (for a review,
see Dykas & Cassidy, 2011). Kirsh and Cassidy (1997) found that toddlers with insecure
attachments tend to pay less attention to pictures of positive, neutral, and negative parent-child
interactions than children with secure attachments. Similarly, Main and colleagues (1985) found
kindergartners with insecure-avoidant attachments to avoid looking at a family picture and those
with insecure-disorganized attachments to display more disorganized patterns of attention to a
family picture. These findings support the hypothesis that children with insecure attachments
suppress their attention to attachment-relevant information because of the pain and anxiety
associated with their own internal working models of the attachment relationship.
Insecure children’s suppression of attachment-relevant information is another finding that
has been found by multiple studies (e.g. Johnson, Dweck & Chen, 2007; Johnson et al., 2010).
All of these studies were conducted on 12 to 16 month old infants. They found that when the
infants were exposed to parent-child scenarios, those with a secure attachment paid closer
attention to unresponsive maternal behavior while those with an insecure attachment paid closer
attention to responsive maternal behavior. The authors explained these findings by discussing
the visual habituation paradigm that shows infants look longer at unexpected events than at

34

familiar events; however, another explanation is that the insecurely attached children are
avoiding and suppressing their attention to parent-child scenarios that are similar to their own
internal working models. Another study considering children’s selective attention (Belsky,
Spritz & Crnic, 1996) found no significant differences between securely and insecurely attached
children’s levels of distraction from a puppet show by a clicking sound, which indicates that
attachment security may affect some dimensions of attention more than others.
Memories of social information have also been linked to attachment security by a number
of studies (e.g. Belsky et al., 1996; Kirsh & Cassidy, 1997). Belsky and colleagues (1996) found
that children with insecure attachments had more accurate recall of the negative social events
portrayed in a puppet show, while children with secure attachments had more accurate recall of
the positive social events portrayed in a puppet show. This finding supports the hypothesis that
children with insecure attachments perceive negative social information as more salient, thus
failing to recall the positive social events. In another study, Kirsh and Cassidy (1997) found that
toddlers with secure attachments had more accurate recall of vignettes displaying responsive
behavior than insecure-avoidant children and more accurate recall of vignettes displaying
rejecting stories than insecure-ambivalent children. This finding supports the hypothesis that
children with insecure attachments suppress memories of attachment-relevant information.
Other studies have revealed weaker relationships between attachment security and
attributions. Ziv, Oppenheim and Sagi-Schwartz (2004) found attachment security to be
unrelated to 7 year-old children’s recall accuracy and attention to videotaped mother-child and
peer interactions. These findings are puzzling, especially since attachment security has been
associated with poorer attention and recall of attachment-relevant information in adults (e.g.
Dewitte et al., 2007; Edelstein, 2006) as well as the studies of younger children discussed above.

35

Dykas and Cassidy (2011) raise the possibility that the unstructured nature of the measures of
memory and attention used in Ziv and colleagues’ (2004) study led to the insignificant results.
Even though this study found insignificant differences based on attention and memory, they did
find insecurely attached children to be significantly more likely to attribute ambiguous peer and
parental social behavior as having negative motives. Similar connections between insecure
attachment and attributions of ambiguous social behavior to negative motives have also been
found in another study of 5 year-olds conducted by Suess and colleagues (1992); however,
several studies (Cassidy et al., 1996; Raikes & Thompson, 2008) found that attachment security
did not predict hostile attributions of ambiguous social behavior in preschool-age children like it
did in older children.
Few studies have examined how attachment security affects attributions of control. Only
one study (Hortacsu, 1994) which was conducted on fourth graders, found that children with
insecure attachments had a more external locus of control while those with secure attachments
had a more internal locus of control. Several studies (Leondari & Kiosseoglou, 2002;
Mickelson, Kessler & Shaver, 1997; Torquati & Vazsonyi, 1999) examined the relationship
between attachment security and attributions of control in adolescents and adults and found
similar patterns of attachment security correlating with a more internal locus of control and
attachment insecurity correlating with a more external locus of control.
Cumulatively, these studies indicate that insecurely attached children are more likely than
securely attached children to suppress their attention to attachment-relevant information, and
when paying attention to such information, they pay more attention to responsive maternal
information due to its unexpected nature, or to suppress the insecure nature of their attachment.
Yet attachment security does not play a significant role on children’s ability to be distracted by

36

certain cues, such as clicking sounds. In addition, these studies reveal a pattern of children with
insecure attachments having more accurate recall of negative social information and poorer recall
of positive social information and attachment-relevant information than securely attached
children. Older children with insecure attachments are more likely to attribute ambiguous social
information to negative or hostile motives, but this does was not found with younger children.
Lastly, studies have found that children with insecure attachments were more likely to have an
external locus of control, but this relationship has not yet been examined in young children.
A major criticism of attachment theory has been voiced by temperament theorists, who
argue that the factors regulating the expression of affect are better accounted for by the intrinsic
traits of the child than by his or her attachment security to the primary caregiver (e.g. Chess &
Thomas, 1982). A study conducted by Vaughn and colleagues (1992) did show significant
correlations between measures of temperament and attachment security; however, they argued
that both theories provide valuable and unique insights. As they stated:
In our view, these data provide a sufficient rationale for abandoning positions that
conceptualize attachment and temperament in ways that force them into qualitatively
different psychological regions or behavioral domains. Instead, we prefer to characterize
the behavioral domains governed by temperament and attachment concepts as falling
along a bipolar continuum of assessment possibilities that ranges, at one extreme, from
assessments capturing variability that is primarily intrinsic to the person to, at the
opposite extreme, measures capturing only relationship variability (Stevenson-Hinde,
1988). (Vaughn et al., 1992, p. 471)
This view recognizes the importance and contribution of each perspective. Temperament theory
provides an understanding of the innate temperamental patterns that influence children’s

37

development and interactions with others. Attachment theory provides an understanding of the
relationship between a child and the primary caregiver. To consider the unique effects of
parental praise on mastery-oriented responses to failure, the attachment theory is a fitting
framework to consider the role of the parent-child relationship as opposed to considering the role
of innate and uncontrollable factors within the child. However, due to the overlap between the
two constructs and the unique contributions of temperament theory, it is important to consider
whether temperament can better explain the relationship between parental praise and young
children’s responses to failure.
Current Study
Considering the state of the present literature, there are many implications for the current
study. The current literature suggests that young children can display helpless or masteryoriented responses to failure and that subtle differences in feedback and praise can influence
these responses. Process praise plus the suggestion of considering alternative strategies could be
more advantageous to young children’s responses to failure than process praise alone; however,
research that directly compares the effects of these two strategies on young children’s responses
to failure has not been conducted with a large sample. The literature also indicates that it is
important to consider the effects of the age and gender of the recipient of praise when examining
the relationship between process praise plus the suggestion of considering alternative strategies
on children’s responses to failure. The implications of potential gender effects are that there may
be certain populations for whom praise plus the suggestion of considering alternative strategies
should not be used. The potential moderating influence of attachment security on the effects of
different types of praise and feedback on young children’s responses to failure has many
implications for parents’ support of mastery-oriented responses to failure. It also has potential

38

implications for strategies to promote mastery-oriented responses to failure in other contexts,
such as the classroom, since attachment security has also been found to influence social
cognitions outside of the parent-child relationship.

39

CHAPTER 3 – METHOD
Participants
The population of interest includes male and female 4-5 year old children and their
mothers. Mothers are the parent of interest in this study because the majority of attachment
theory research examines children’s attachments to their mothers. This also controls for any
differences in children’s perception of praise due to the gender of the parent providing the praise.
Mothers were recruited from two childcare programs and one university-run preschool. Fiftyfour mother-child dyads comprised of 31 male children and 23 female children participated in
the study. Of the 54 dyads, 53 mothers (31 had male children, 22 had female children)
completed all of the questionnaires required for the correlational study while 47 children (28
male children, 20 female children) completed both of the puppet praise conditions. The six
children who did not complete the puppet praise conditions appeared anxious and their
participation on the task was discontinued. One child gave verbal assent to participate, but then
refused to answer any verbal questions. Five children refused to give verbal assent. The race of
the majority of the mothers was White, not of Hispanic origin (75.4%) followed by,
Asian/Pacific Islander (13.2%), multiracial (7.5%), and Hispanic (3.8%). The mothers had a
range of educational levels with 39.6% of the mothers reported being college graduates, 26.4%
reported completing some college education, 22.6% indicated obtaining a graduate degree
(M.A., M.B.A.), 5.7% reported having a professional degree (Ph.D, M.D., J.D.), and 5.7%
reported graduating from high school graduate as their highest educational level.
The demographics of the participants can also be understood in terms of the context from
which the sample was drawn. U.S. Census Bureau statistics (2014) for the county of the three
recruitment sites revealed that 83.8% of the population is White alone, not Hispanic or Latino,

40

11.0% are Hispanic or Latino, 2.3% are two or more races, 1.6% are Asian alone, 0.8% are
American Indian and Alaska Native alone, 0.8% are Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander
alone, and 0.7% are Black or African American alone. In addition, 93.6% of the population over
the age of 24 have graduated from high school or higher while 35.7% have obtained a Bachelor’s
degree or higher. In addition, 81.2% of the residents of the county were identified as members of
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS) in 2011 (Canham, 2012).
A power analysis (using G*Power 3.1.3 software) for multiple linear regression with a
power of .8, an effect size of .25, 7 predictors (i.e., gender, neutral statement, person praise,
process praise, process praise plus the suggestion of considering alternative strategies,
attachment insecurity, negative affect), and an alpha error probability of .05, revealed a
minimum sample size of 34 . A power analysis for the MANOVA within-factors analyses with a
power of .8, an effect size of .25, an alpha error probability of .05, 2 measurements, 2 groups,
and a correlation between the measures of .4, revealed a required sample size of 40. Using R
software, a post-hoc power analysis for a Spearman’s rho analysis with a sample of 53, an alpha
error probability of .05, and the means and standard deviations of each variable measured
(negative responses to failure scale, attachment insecurity scale, negative affect scale, use of
person praise, use of process praise, use of neutral statements, and use of process praise plus the
suggestion of considering alternative strategies, gender) led to a power of .79. A post-hoc power
analysis for a Friedman analysis with a sample of 47, an error probability of .05, an effect size of
.25, two measurements, and a correlation of .581 led to a power of .61. In appreciation of their
participation, mothers received a $20 gift certificate to a store, and the children received two
animal finger puppets for each of the two separate puppet procedures, for a total of four animal
finger puppets.

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Research Design
The study utilized two different research designs. One design is correlational, examining
the relation between 53 mothers’ reported use of praise and strategy feedback and the mothers’
reports of the children’s responses to failure. In addition, the mothers’ beliefs about the effects
of praise and strategy feedback were examined in relation to their beliefs about the other praise
dimensions. Several studies have used a similar correlational design to examine the relationships
between measures of maternal praise and children’s responses to failure (e.g. Gilmore et al.,
2009; Kelley et al., 2000; Zentall, 2009).
A within-subjects design was used to assess the effects of the type of praise on children’s
mastery-orientation. This design entailed the use of an analogue behavioral observation method
with each child exposed to both praise conditions. The analogue behavioral observation method
used an adapted version of a script developed by Cimpian, Arce, Markman, & Dweck (2007).
This procedure is similar to those developed and used in a number of studies (e.g. Kamins &
Dweck, 1999; Zentall & Morris, 2010) that examined the effects of person versus process praise
on 4-5 year old children’s responses to failure. While it involves acting out scenarios as opposed
to the children engaging in the actual activity, this allows for exposure to multiple failures
without experiencing high levels of personal distress. It also allows for the provision of praise
and pointing out errors without it appearing as contrived, as could be the case if the child were
actually engaging in the activity.
47 4-5 year-old children acted out vignettes under two different praise conditions. Each
praise condition involved having the child use an animal puppet to act out four vignettes (see
Appendix A) following a script (Cimpian et al., 2007). A female research assistant used a
mother animal puppet to respond to the child’s successes with verbal feedback. In one condition,

42

the mother puppet responded to the four vignettes with process praise (e.g. “I can tell you
worked really hard on the drawing.”). In the second condition, the mother puppet responded to
the four vignettes with process praise plus the suggestion of considering alternative strategies
(e.g. “I can tell you worked really hard on the drawing; can you think of other ways to draw a
tree?”).
For both praise conditions, the child verbally responded to questions assessing the child’s
affect towards the drawing and his or her attributions for success. The child also acted out two
failure vignettes after each praise condition. Both of these failure vignettes involved the child
using the puppet to pretend to draw an object and the puppet realizing that they forgot an
important feature of the object. Following the two failure vignettes, the child verbally responded
to questions using the script (see Appendix A). These questions assessed the child’s mastery
motivation by examining persistence, affect, motivation, and attributions. Finally, the child
acted out two resolution vignettes that involved successfully fixing the mistakes they made to
resolve any negative feelings. Both praise conditions, in combination with the accompanying
questions and failure and resolution vignettes, took approximately 20 minutes to complete. The
two conditions were presented in random order to each child during two separate meetings
approximately one week apart. The entire procedure was conducted over approximately one
week and involved approximately 40 minutes of the child’s time.
An important distinction of the current study is that the within-subject design diminished
the problem of non-equivalent groups. Past studies used this script in a between-subjects design
so that each child was exposed to only one praise condition. An advantage of utilizing a withinsubjects design is that any observed differences were not due to differences between the
participants because each participant was exposed to each condition (Gliner, Morgan, George &

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Harmon, 2002). In addition, a within-subjects design was more feasible due to the ability to
obtain greater power with a smaller sample. Order effects were accounted for by presenting the
conditions in random order, and carryover effects were minimized by presenting the conditions
approximately one week apart. There were also adaptations that were made to the original script
developed by Cimpian and colleagues (2007). One adaptation is the use of a mother puppet to
provide the praise as opposed to a novel teacher. This was done to be able to examine praise in
the context of a parent-child relationship. The script was also adapted by replacing the “person
praise” condition with the “process praise plus the suggestion of considering alternative
strategies” condition.
The moderating variables of attachment security and gender were considered in both
research designs. These variables were measured based on maternal surveys. Parents’
perceptions of the child’s attachment security were measured by the Parent/Child Reunion
Inventory. In addition, a maternal survey measure of the child’s temperament was administered
to rule out temperament as an additional moderator.
Variables and Instruments
Background Questionnaire (BQ).
To determine whether the mother-child dyad met the inclusion criteria for completing the
study and to determine the child’s gender, a Background Questionnaire (BQ) was completed by
the mother. The BQ, which, was developed for this study, took approximately 5 minutes to
complete and is found in Appendix B. The BQ consists of five open-ended and seven forcedchoice questions. These questions ask for the parent and the child’s names and address, the
child’s gender and age, whether the mother is the primary caregiver and has the ability to

44

complete the required questionnaires, and whether the child has the ability to complete the
required puppet shows and answer the related questions.
Maternal Praise Survey (MPS).
The Maternal Praise Survey (MPS) is an adaptation of a survey developed by Henderlong
(2001) to measure the mother’s use of, and beliefs about, different dimensions of praise. The
MPS, found in Appendix C, took approximately 10 minutes to complete, and can be
administered to mothers of any age. It consists of one gender-specific vignette, followed by one
open ended question and 15 Likert scale questions. The vignette reads as follows:
Ethan/Emma is 4 years old and attends preschool. Ethan/Emma enjoys school and tends
to do fairly well. One day, Ethan/Emma was working on some wooden jigsaw puzzles
that his/her mother had given him. The puzzles were interesting and he/she was able to
finish two of them fairly quickly, though he/she wasn’t sure how long it would take most
children to complete them. When Ethan/Emma’s mother walked into the room she
stopped at the table where Ethan/Emma was working.
This vignette was followed by one open ended question assessing how the parent would
respond (“What would YOU say to Ethan/Emma if you were his/her mother?”). The response to
this question was coded by two independent raters as no praise, person praise, product praise,
process praise, process praise plus the suggestion of considering alternative strategies, or some
combination of different forms of praise. Henderlong (2001) used a similar coding procedure
and found 89% inter-rater reliability. The two raters were trained by coding sample responses
and then discussing any discrepancies. Any disagreements were settled through discussion.
Next, mothers evaluated four possible ways to respond to the vignette: 1) a neutral statement
(“Okay. You’re done playing with the puzzles.”), 2) person praise (“Wow! That’s really good.

45

You must be good at puzzles!”), 3) process praise (“Wow! That’s really good. You must have
been really thinking!”), and 4) process praise plus the suggestion of considering alternative
strategies (“Wow! That’s really good. You must have been really thinking! Can you think of
another way to solve the puzzles?”). Each of the four responses was followed by three Likert
scale questions. One Likert scale question assessed the parent’s likelihood of using the statement
on a scale from 1 (NOT very likely) to 7 (very likely). The second Likert scale question assessed
the parent’s beliefs about the effects of the statement on the child’s motivation on a scale from 1
(will make Ethan/Emma LESS interested in puzzles) to 7 (will make Ethan/Emma MORE
interested in puzzles). Lastly, the parent’s beliefs about the effects of the statement on the
child’s preparation to face future setbacks is assessed on a scale from 1 (does NOT prepare
Ethan/Emma well) to 7 (prepares Ethan/Emma well).
One adaptation that was made to the original survey developed by Henderlong (2001)
involved basing the vignette on an interaction between a mother and child as opposed to an
interaction between a teacher and a child. The MPS also contained a process praise plus the
suggestion of considering alternative strategies statement in addition to the neutral statement
and person and process praise statements that were in the original survey. The Likert scale
question assessing the parent’s likelihood to use each statement was also added to the MPS to
provide another measure of parent’s use of praise in combination with the open-ended question.
Questions in Henderlong’s survey that were unrelated to this study were omitted from the
survey. The order of the questions in the survey was also changed. In the MPS, the open-ended
question was asked first to eliminate the possibility that exposure to the five statements would
influence responses.

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Responses to Failure: Dimensions of Mastery Questionnaire (DMQ).
For the correlational study, young children’s responses to failure were measured by
mothers’ responses on the Dimensions of Mastery Questionnaire (DMQ) - Negative Reactions to
Failure Scale (Morgan et al., 2009). This questionnaire was developed to measure mastery
motivation, while the Negative Reactions to Failure Scale was specifically developed to examine
children’s expressive aspects of mastery motivation after experiencing failure.
The Negative Reactions to Failure Scale is a subscale of the DMQ and consists of five
items rated on a 5 point Likert scale, from 1 (not at all typical) to 5 (very typical). The entire
DMQ took approximately 10 minutes to complete. A sample item is: “Looks down or away
when he or she tries but cannot do something.” The parent ratings of the Negative Reactions to
Failure Scale have been found to have adequate internal consistency (alpha = .75) for 4-6 year
old children (Morgan et al., 2009, p. 65). As predicted, there were negative correlations between
parent ratings on the preschool version of the Negative Reactions to Failure Scale and the other
six scales (r = -.13 to -.57). Test-retest reliability of the preschool version of the Negative
Reactions to Failure Scale after a one month interval was .68 when completed by a preschool
teacher. The DMQ has been used by a number of studies (e.g. see Morgan et al., 2009, p. 31-39
for a comprehensive list) and is considered a valid measure of a child’s mastery motivation.
Parent/Child Reunion Inventory (PCRI).
The Parent/Child Reunion Inventory (PCRI) was used to measure the child’s attachment
security from the mother’s perspective (Marcus, 1990. The PCRI consists of 20 3-point Likert
scale items that describe possible ways the child may behave after a separation from the parent
and range from 0 (never) to 2 (usually). The PCRI took approximately 10 minutes to complete.
Six items form a secure attachment sub-scale while 14 items form an insecure attachment sub-

47

scale. It requires substantially less time and training than measures such as the strange situation
paradigm and it can be given to parents of children aged 3-11.
The PCRI demonstrated adequate criterion validity based on significant (p < .05)
correlations to ratings of physical affection of foster children (.48), the California Preschool
Social Competence Scale (.41), the Preschool Behavior Questionnaire (-.51), the Pettit-Dodge
Aggression Scale (-.26) and ratings of internalizing (-.35), externalizing (-.53), and achievement
(-.53) problems on the CBCL (Marcus, 1990). The Cronbach alphas have also been
demonstrated to be adequate for both the secure attachment (.76) and the insecure attachment
(.77) scales. An examination of the factor structure of the PCRI conducted by Marcus (1997)
revealed categories that approximated those found by more intensive observational methods,
such as the Main and Cassidy observation system. A comparison of maternal and paternal
ratings of the PCRI found significant correlations (r=.49, p<.001). In order to control for the
type of separation that mothers referenced, the PCRI instruction was modified directing mothers
to consider their most recent separation from their child: “Think back to the most recent time that
you picked your child up from childcare or school.”
Children’s Behavior Questionnaire: Very Short Form, Negative Affect Scale.
The Negative Affect Scale of the Children’s Behavior Questionnaire-Very Short Form
(CBQ-VSF) measured the young children’s temperament in this study. The CBQ-VSF is a
parental survey that was developed by Putnam and Rothbart (2006) to serve as a brief measure of
temperament for children aged 3-8. It consists of 36 items that are rated on a 7 point Likert
scale, from 1 (extremely untrue of your child) to 7 (extremely true of your child). These items
are divided into three 12-item scales: Surgency, Negative Affect, and Effortful Control.
Negative Affect was the only scale used for the current study due to the high degree of

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conceptual overlap in the Surgency and Effortful Control scales and attachment security. A
sample item from the Negative Affect scale is: “When angry about something, s/he tends to stay
upset for ten minutes or longer.” An examination of the inter-rater reliability between mother
and father for the Negative Affect scale of the CBQ-VSF revealed correlations of .36 at 33
months and .52 at 46 months. An analysis of the 12 month test-retest reliability of the Negative
Affect scale revealed a correlation of .70 based on maternal ratings and a correlation of .61 for
paternal ratings. The Negative Affect scale demonstrated adequate internal consistency across
three different samples (α = .66, .70, .67). When allowing for error terms in the same scale to
correlate, the fit of the CBQ-VSF factor structure was adequate based on maximum likelihood
confirmatory factor analysis (comparative fit index = .98, Tucker-Lewis index = .98, root mean
square error of approximation= .053, = .050 to .056). As was expected, there were small but
significant correlations between Surgency and Effortful Control (r = -.19, p < .01) and Surgency
and Negative Affect (r = -.08, p < .05), but not Negative Affect and Effortful Control.
Child’s Verbal Responses after Acting out Failure Vignettes.
Using a quasi-experimental within-subjects design, young children’s responses to failure
were measured after they used a puppet to act out two failure scenarios. Following these two
scenarios, the children’s task persistence, intrinsic motivation to continue the task, affect towards
the task, and attributions for failure on the task were measured with 12 questions posed by the
research assistant. The children’s task persistence was measured based on their oral responses to
the following forced choice questions:
Think about the story where you drew a cat and forgot the ears. What would you do now?
Would you keep working on the drawing of the cat or would you do something else?

49

Think about the story where you drew a bus and forgot the wheels. What would you do
now? Would you keep working on the drawing of the bus or would you do something
else?
These responses were coded by the research assistants as mastery-oriented if they chose
to keep working on the drawing with the mistake, or as helpless if they chose to do something
else. The children’s intrinsic motivation to continue the task was measured by their oral
responses to the following forced choice questions:
On another day, when you had a chance to draw one of these again, would you want to
draw the bus, want to draw the tree, or want to draw the cat? If you had a chance to do
something tomorrow, would you draw or would you do something else?
The children’s affect towards the task was measured by their oral responses to the
following forced choice questions, coded on two 6-point Likert scales:
Do you like the cat that you drew or do you not like it? How much do you like/not like
it? Do you SORT OF like/not like it, do you like/not like it, or do you REALLY like/not
like it? Did what happened in the cat story where you forgot the ears make you feel
happy or sad? How happy/sad? Were you SORT OF happy/sad, happy/sad, or REALLY
happy/sad?
Lastly, the children’s attributions of failure to ability and to contingent self-worth were
measured based on their oral responses to the following forced choice questions:
Did everything that happened in the cat story where you forgot the ears make you feel
like you were good at drawing or not good at drawing? Did everything that happened in
the cat story where you forgot the ears make you feel like you were a good boy/girl or not
a good boy/girl?

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As previously noted, in combination with the random assignment of praise conditions
discussed above, this method of examining 4-5 year olds’ responses to failure has been
developed and used in a number of different studies (e.g. Cimpian et al., 2007; Kamins &
Dweck, 1999; Zentall & Morris, 2010), and has advantages over the child’s actual engagement in
a task, especially for a within-subjects design. Kamins and Dweck (1999) found similar
responses to failure vignettes to have significant correlations between attribution questions and
affect questions (r = .57, p < .01), as well as attribution questions and persistence questions (r =
.68, p < .01). All other comparisons of indicators of response to failure yielded insignificant
correlations.
Procedure
The procedure for this study entailed recruiting children and their mothers from two
childcare programs and a University-run preschool. Each of these sites provided services to 4-5
year old children, provided a room where the research assistants can complete the puppet script,
and agreed to allow the research assistants to work with the participating 4-5 year old children
for 20 minutes on two separate occasions that were at least one week apart. Three undergraduate
students were recruited to assist in the study using a listserve of undergraduate students from a
local university who were looking for research opportunities. The research assistants were
selected from the pool of applicants based on coursework demonstrating an understanding of
basic psychological principles, research experience, and experience working with young
children. In addition, the research assistants working directly with the preschool children had to
be female since they were acting out the part of the mother in the puppet vignettes. From the
pool of applicants, two female research assistants were chosen to work directly with the children
while one male research assistant with experience using puppets was chosen to record data, code

51

data, and help train the female research assistants. These research assistants completed MSU
Institutional Review Board (IRB) training as well as training in the study recruitment and data
collection procedures. A research assistant met with mothers at the sites to inform them about
the study, using the informed consent form as a guide. Interested mothers then completed the
Background Questionnaire and informed consent and parental permission forms (see Appendices
D and E). At least 20 children of each gender were recruited. Dyads in which the mother was
not the primary caregiver were excluded from this study. In addition, mothers who could not
read or write, children who had difficulties with attention or articulating or understanding
language, and dyads for whom English was a second language were excluded from the study. If
the mother-child dyad was eligible, the surveys, which included the MPS, DMQ, PCRI and
CBQ-VSF, were sent home with the mother. The mothers returned the completed surveys to the
experimenter in a pre-addressed and stamped envelope that was sent home with the measures.
All data were stored in a locked cabinet in the researcher’s office. All identifying information
was replaced with an anonymous identification code and stored on a password-protected
computer. De-identified codes were used to enter and analyze the data in order to ensure
confidentiality.
After the questionnaires were returned to the experimenter, the primary researcher and
two research assistants scheduled the two data collection sessions one week apart with the
participating child. Each session began by reading the verbal assent script (see Appendix F) and
only continued if the child provided verbal assent to participate. Both of the 20 minute sessions
included a praise condition (given in random order), where the child chose a puppet of the same
gender to act out four vignettes that involved the puppet drawing while a mother puppet, played

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by the participating research assistant, provided process praise or process praise plus the
suggestion of considering alternative strategies.
The puppet was asked to draw a specific object and pretended to draw it on a blank piece
of paper with a pipe cleaner. These four vignettes were followed in each session by two failure
vignettes that involved the mother puppet mentioning that something was missing from a
drawing and a picture, with the mistake being described. Next, the researcher asked questions
about this “failure” that assessed the child’s persistence, intrinsic motivation, affect, and
attributions for failure. The sessions ended with two resolution vignettes that allowed the child
to fix the puppet’s mistakes to ensure that the participant was not upset by the procedure. Upon
completion of each session, as a token of appreciation, the child chose two animal finger
puppets. At the conclusion of the study, the mother received a $20 gift card in the mail as
compensation.

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CHAPTER 4 – RESULTS
Data Analysis
The first step consisted of scoring each measure. This included coding the open ended
MPS question (i.e. “What would YOU say to Ethan/Emma if you were his/her mother?”) as no
praise, person praise, product praise, process praise, process praise plus the consideration of
alternative strategies, or a combination of different forms of praise. The data were then entered
into an SPSS database. Reliability of the measures was calculated and normality of the variables
was tested.
Internal consistency for the Parent Child Reunion Inventory Attachment Insecurity scale
(α = .721), Motivation Questionnaire Negative Response to Failure scale (α = .805), and the
Child Behavior Questionnaire Negative Affect scale (α = .730) were all in the acceptable range.
Interrater reliability for 53 responses on the open-ended question of the Maternal Praise Survey
was moderate (Kappa = .528, p < .001). This low reliability is believed to be due to the long and
complex nature of the typical responses of parents. For example, one parent commented:
“Wow! Look at that Emma! You did two puzzles already? That's so great! Good job cutie pie!
Are you going to do some more? Do you need any help?” This response contains vague praise
(e.g. “Wow”), process praise (e.g. “Good job”), person praise (e.g. “cutie pie”), and several
questions that provide the child with choices (e.g. “Are you going to do some more?”), but are
not suggestions of considering alternative strategies. Due to the low reliability of the open ended
question and due to the lack of responses in the coded categories (e.g. no or very few responses
coded as process praise plus the suggestion of considering alternative strategies, product praise,
no praise), the statistical analyses were based solely on the Maternal Praise Survey Likert scale
questions assessing the use of different forms of praise. Still, the complex and multidimensional

54

nature of the parent responses to the open-ended question raise some interesting questions about
typical spontaneous parental praise statements.
The Shapiro-Wilk test revealed that the Child Behavior Questionnaire Negative Affect
scale (p = .127) and Motivation Questionnaire Negative Response to Failure scale (p = .109) met
the assumptions of a normal distribution. The Parent-Child Relationship Inventory Attachment
Security scale did not meet the assumption of a normal distribution (p <.001). Fifty eight percent
of the respondents received the highest score possible (12 out of 12) on the scale, which did not
allow for variability across participants and led to a high level of skew (-2.124) and kurtosis
(5.952).
For this reason, the Parent-Child Relationship Inventory Attachment Insecurity scale was
used instead. This scale had significantly less skew (.594) and kurtosis (-.531) and greater
variance of scores. Still, the Attachment Insecurity scale did not meet the assumption of
normality using the Shapiro-Wilk test, even after performing transformations (p = .017). In
addition, parent ratings of use of process praise, person praise, neutral statements, and process
praise plus the consideration of alternative strategies were not normally distributed variables.
Also, when considering variance and distribution of the responses to the puppet vignettes as well,
it became apparent that these variables did not meet the assumptions of normality even after
performing transformations.
After completing these initial analyses, the research questions were addressed.
Research Question 1: How does parental process praise plus the suggestion of an
alternative strategy affect young children’s mastery-oriented responses to failure compared to
parental process praise alone?

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This question was analyzed by conducting two statistical analyses. The first planned
analysis was a hierarchical multiple regression; however, due to the lack of normal distributions
in the attachment insecurity and parent’s reported use of praise variables as described above, this
analysis was replaced with Spearman’s Rho correlational analyses. First, the data were recoded
based on rank from 1 to 54. If more than one data point shared the same value, the ranks were
summed and divided by the number of shared values. Spearman’s Rho correlational analyses
revealed weak and non-significant (p > .05) correlations between the Motivation Questionnaire
Negative Response to Failure scale and the mothers’ reported use of neutral statements (r =
.030), person praise (r = -.089), process praise (r = -.085), and process praise plus the suggestion
of considering alternative strategies (r = -.038). This indicates that children’s responses to failure
were not correlated with parents’ praise or feedback of any kind. Similarly, gender was not
related (r = -.204, p = .143) to their response to failure. Reported attachment insecurity was
significantly (p = .005) and moderately (r = .377) correlated to the children’s reported negative
responses to failure such that the more insecure the attachment, the more negative the child’s
responses to failure (see Figure 1). Reported negative affect of the children was also
significantly (p < .001) and strongly (r = .475) correlated to the children’s negative responses to
failure such that the more negative the child’s affect, the more negative their responses to failure
(see Figure 2). The Spearman’s rho correlation between the attachment insecurity scale and
negative affect scale was not significant (p = .246) and weak (r = .161), indicating that both of
these variables have a unique relationship to the negative response to failure scale.
The second planned analysis consisted of a MANOVA; however after the initial data
analysis it became apparent that MANOVA was not appropriate for several reasons. First, a
MANOVA was not appropriate due to the lack of normal distributions in the attachment

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insecurity and children’s responses to failure scenario variables as described above. Second, a
MANOVA was not appropriate due to the lack of relation between the dependent variables.
Spearman’s rho correlational analyses revealed that after making a mistake, the young children’s
affect and attributions were significantly (p < .01) and strongly correlated (r = .643) while their
motivation and persistence were significantly (p < .01), but weakly correlated (r = .269).
However, the young children’s affect and attributions were not significantly correlated to either
motivation or persistence (p > .05). For these reasons, the MANOVA was replaced with
Friedman and Spearman’s Rho correlational analyses.
Friedman tests revealed no significant differences across condition (process praise,
process praise plus the suggestion of considering alternative strategies) in the distributions of
affect (chi square = .000, p = 1.000), attributions (chi square = 2.333, p = .127), motivation (chi
square = .200, p = .655), and persistence (chi square = .600, p = .439; see Figure 3). Spearman’s
Rho correlational analyses do not allow for mixed model analyses of between and within-subject
variables at the same time, so independent analyses of affect, attribution, motivation, and
persistence were conducted for the two separate conditions. The analyses revealed that there
were no significant correlations between gender and any of the outcome variables (affect,
attributions, motivation, or persistence) in either of the conditions (see Figure 4). There were
also no significant correlations between the Negative Affect scale of temperament and the
children’s affect, attributions, or motivation, in response to failure in either condition. There was
a significant negative correlation (p = .024, r = -.328) between the Negative Affect scale and the
child’s persistence in response to failure in the process praise condition, but not in the process
praise plus the consideration of alternative strategies condition (see Figure 5). Spearman’s Rho
correlational analyses also revealed no significant correlations between the Parent Child Reunion

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Inventory Attachment Insecurity scale and the child’s affect, motivation, or persistence in
response to failure in either of the conditions (see Figure 6). There were also no significant
correlations between children’s attributions in response to failure and the Attachment Insecurity
scale in the process praise only condition; however there were significant negative correlations
between children’s attributions and the Attachment Insecurity scale in the process praise plus the
suggestion of considering alternatives strategies condition (p = .034, r = -.309; see Figure 7).
Research Question 2: Do parents’ perceptions of their children’s attachment security
moderate the effects of the type of parental praise on children’s mastery-oriented responses to
failure?
Due to the lack of a normal distribution across the attachment insecurity, parent’s
reported use of praise, and children’s responses to failure scenario variables, a new plan for
considering the moderating effect of attachment insecurity was developed. There are no widely
accepted methods for considering moderator variables in nonparametric analyses; therefore, the
first step was to sort the participants into low, medium, and high attachment insecurity groups.
This was done by sorting them into groups of one or more standard deviations below the mean,
less than one standard deviation below or above the mean, and one or more standard deviations
above the mean, as recommended by Cohen and Cohen (2003). Next, these groups were
considered graphically to see if there was a pattern that indicated that attachment insecurity
serves as a moderator. Next, parametric analyses (multiple linear regression, repeated measures
ANOVA) were conducted. While the interpretation of these analyses are limited since several
variables violated the assumption of normality, they were still completed to provide some
statistical approximation of the likelihood of attachment insecurity being a moderating variable if
the variables had met the assumption of being normally distributed. Graphs of the data from the

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correlational design revealed no clear moderating effect of attachment insecurity group on the
mean negative response to failure across the use of process praise plus the consideration of
alternative strategies (see Figure 8). Multiple linear regression revealed that interaction terms
between reported attachment insecurity and the mother’s reported use of neutral statements,
person praise, process praise, and process praise plus the suggestion of considering alternative
strategies were all non-significant (p > .05) predictors of the children’s reported negative
responses to failure.
Graphing the moderating effects of attachment security based on the within-subjects design
revealed a lower mean affect (i.e. feeling good about one’s work) and mean attribution (i.e.
separating self-worth and ability from performance) of the process praise plus the consideration
of alternative strategies condition compared to the process praise condition in the high
attachment insecurity group. For the low attachment insecurity group, the graphs revealed a
pattern of mean affect and attribution remaining steady or being greater in the process praise plus
the consideration of alternative strategies condition compared to the process praise condition (see
Figures 9 and 10). The same pattern was not found for motivation and persistence, which
revealed that the low attachment insecurity group (more secure) had a higher mean motivation
and mean persistence in the process praise condition than in the process praise plus the
suggestion of considering alternative strategies condition. The high attachment insecurity group
(less secure) had a mean motivation and mean persistence that remained fairly steady across the
process praise and process praise plus the suggestion of considering alternative strategies
conditions (see Figures 11-12). Repeated measures ANOVAs revealed that attachment
insecurity did not serve as a significant moderator (p > .05) between the condition and the
children’s affect, attributions, motivation, or persistence after experiencing failure.

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Research Question 3: Does the child’s gender moderate the effects of the type of parental
praise on children’s mastery-oriented responses to failure?
Graphs of the data from the correlational design revealed no clear moderating pattern of
mean negative response to failure across the use of process praise plus the consideration of
alternative strategies across the groups of males and females (see Figure 13). Multiple linear
regression revealed that interaction terms between gender and the mother’s reported use of
neutral statements, person praise, process praise, and process praise plus the suggestion of
considering alternative strategies were all non-significant (p > .05) predictors of the children’s
reported negative responses to failure. Graphs of the data from the within-subjects design
revealed no clear moderating pattern of mean affect, attributions, or motivation across the
parental praise condition across the groups of males and females (see Figures 14-16). The
graphs did reveal a clear pattern of mean persistence decreasing from the process praise
condition to the process praise plus the consideration of alternative strategies condition for males
and mean persistence increasing from the process praise condition to the process praise plus the
consideration of alternative strategies for females (see Figure 17). Repeated measures ANOVAs
revealed that gender was not a significant moderator (p > .05) between the condition and the
children’s affect, attributions, motivation, or persistence after experiencing failure.
Research Question 4: What do parents believe about the effects of parental process
praise and parental process praise plus the suggestion of considering alternative strategies on
children’s mastery-oriented responses to failure?
Due to the parental belief variables from the MPS violating the assumption of a normal
distribution, Friedman and Wilcoxon signed ranks tests were conducted. A Friedman analysis
revealed that the differences in variance between the mothers’ beliefs about the motivation of the

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different statements were significant (p < .01). To follow up, six Wilcoxon signed ranks tests
were conducted on mothers’ beliefs in the motivational effects between pairs of each of the four
possible statements. These tests revealed that there were significant differences (p < .01)
between parents’ beliefs in the motivational effects of neutral statements versus person praise,
neutral statements versus process praise, and neutral statements versus process praise plus the
consideration of alternative strategies. There were no significant differences (p > .05) between
beliefs in motivational effects of person versus process praise, person versus process praise plus
the consideration of alternative strategies, or process praise versus process praise plus the
consideration of alternative strategies. A plotline of the means across the categories (see Figure
18) clearly shows that the mean belief about the motivational effects of neutral statements is far
lower than the mean belief about the motivational effects of the other three statements.
A second Friedman analysis revealed significant differences in mothers’ beliefs about the
response to failure effects of the different statements (p < .01). To follow up, six Wilcoxon
signed ranks tests were conducted on mothers’ beliefs in the response to failure effects between
pairs of each of the four possible statements. The Wilcoxon signed rank tests revealed that there
were significant differences (p < .01) in mothers’ beliefs in the response to failure effects of each
of the six pairs. A plotline of the means across the categories (see Figure 19) clearly shows a
pattern where the mean beliefs about the response to failure effects of neutral statements is the
lowest, followed by person praise, followed by process praise, followed by process praise plus
the consideration of alternative strategies.
These findings revealed differences between mothers’ perceptions of the response to
failure effects of different statements and the relationship between these statements and
children’s responses to failure based on a puppet’s mistake and based on parent report. Mothers

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believed process praise plus the consideration of alternative strategies would have the most
positive effect on young children’s responses to failure, followed by process praise alone, then
person praise, then neutral statements; however, the actual relationship between different types
of praise and young children’s responses to failure was insignificant across both study designs.

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CHAPTER 5 – DISCUSSION
Discussion
One purpose of this study was to compare the effects of parental process praise and
parental process praise plus the suggestion of considering alternative strategies on young
children’s motivational response to failure. Additionally, this study explored whether gender and
the attachment of the young children to their primary caregivers moderated the effects of parental
praise (process praise versus process praise plus the suggestion of an alternative strategy) on
children’s response to failure. Survey data were collected from 54 mothers to assess their use of
praise and strategy feedback at home, to measure their perception of the child’s attachment
security to the mother, and to assess the child’s responses to failure. In addition, the children
participated, in random order, in two different praise conditions (i.e., process praise, process
praise plus the suggestion of considering alternative strategies) and their responses to failure
scenarios were measured using puppets. The findings of the current study are discussed in
relation to each of the research questions:
Research Question 1: How does parental process praise plus the suggestion of an
alternative strategy affect young children’s mastery-oriented responses to failure compared to
parental process praise alone?
Based on an attribution theory framework, it was hypothesized that process praise plus
the suggestion of considering alternative strategies would lead to more mastery-oriented
responses to failure compared to process praise alone. Contrary to the hypothesis, there were no
significant effects on young children’s responses to failure when comparing process praise to
process praise plus the consideration of alternative strategies. This finding was consistent across
two different analyses. First, when comparing exposure to process praise plus the suggestion of

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alternative strategies to process praise alone from a mother puppet, there were no significant
differences in young children’s affect, attributions, motivation, and persistence after their puppet
made a mistake. Second, when comparing mothers’ reported use of neutral statements, person
praise, process praise, and process praise plus the consideration of alternative strategies to young
children’s responses to failure in the home, there were no significant correlations. These
findings indicated that process praise plus the suggestion of considering alternative strategies did
not have an immediate beneficial or detrimental effect on young children’s responses to failure
compared to process praise alone. This suggests that children who are exposed to process
praise, as well as children who are exposed to process praise plus the suggestion of considering
alternative strategies, would be equally likely to display mastery-oriented responses to failure. It
is still possible that process praise plus the suggestion of considering alternative strategies has
more long-term benefits, such as being more willing to consider alternative solutions or being
more open to alternative ideas presented by others; however, no long-term effects were measured
in this study.
One possible explanation for these findings is that attributions of mistakes to the process
lead to an equally mastery-oriented approach to failure as attributions of mistakes to the strategy
used or a combination of the process and the strategy. From an attribution theory perspective,
both statements attribute failure to controllable, external, and flexible factors. It was
hypothesized that adding the suggestion of considering alternative strategies would lead to more
controllable, external, flexible attributions, but it may be that both lead to equally masteryoriented attributions. This explanation also aligns with Kamins & Dweck’s (1999) study that
compared process praise plus the suggestion of considering alternative strategies to process
praise in a small sample of young children and found no significant effects on the children’s

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responses to failure. Another possible explanation is that young children have difficulty
interpreting the strategy-attributing cues in a statement with process praise plus the suggestion of
considering alternative strategies, but that older children pick up on such cues. This would be
counter to research that has found that very young children pick up on very small attributional
cues (e.g. Cimpian, 2010; Cimpian & Erickson, 2012; Cimpian et al., 2007; Gelman & Heyman,
1999); however there may be more complexities in presenting the suggestion of alternative
strategies that are harder for young children to grasp.
Another explanation may be that there are unconsidered factors that moderate the
relationship between process praise plus the consideration of alternative strategies and masteryoriented responses to failure. Informal observations of children’s reactions to the process praise
plus the consideration of alternative strategies from a mother puppet revealed a large variation in
children’s responses. Some children responded to the statement “I can tell you worked really
hard on the drawing; can you think of other ways to draw a dog?” by avoiding eye contact,
shaking their head and displaying negative affect. Other children responded to the same question
by smiling and verbally describing a different way that they could draw a dog. It may be that the
children who responded more positively to process praise plus the suggestion of considering
alternative strategies were able to pick up on more cues of external, controllable, flexible
attributions for failure and responded in a more mastery-oriented way to failure than when they
were exposed to process-praise alone. The children who responded more negatively to process
praise plus the consideration of alternative strategies may have viewed their response to that
statement as a failure that they attributed to internal, stable, uncontrollable factors. This could
have led to even more attributions of their later mistake to internal, stable, and uncontrollable
factors when compared to their responses to process praise alone.

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Another unexpected finding of the correlational, but not the quasi-experimental study,
was that parental report of negative affect and attachment insecurity were the most significant
predictors of young children’s reported responses to failures. Parental report of negative affect
and attachment insecurity were both significantly and positively related to parental report of the
young children’s negative responses to failure. This means that based on parent ratings, the
more negative the child’s innate affect and the more insecure the child’s attachment to their
primary caregiver, the more helpless the child’s response to failure. This indicates that
depending on their temperaments, some children may be predisposed to respond helplessly while
other children may be predisposed to a mastery-oriented response after experiencing failure.
Likewise, children with different parenting experiences (i.e. one that promotes a secure
attachment and one that promotes an insecure attachment) may respond differently to failure.
Children whose parents cultivate a secure attachment may display a mastery-oriented response
while those who develop an insecure attachment may display a helpless response to failure. The
relationship between parental report of attachment insecurity and young children’s responses to
failure aligns with research indicating that the more sensitive mothers were with their infants, the
more mastery-oriented their child’s responses to failure were on an unsolvable task at 20 months
of age (Zentall, 2009). It also is consistent with a study (Hortacsu, 1994) demonstrating that the
more securely attached, children were in fourth grade, the more internal their locus of control.
The relationship between parental report of negative affect and young children’s responses to
failure has not been considered at all in past studies, although Eisner (1995) has discussed the
possibility that attribution explanatory style (i.e. optimistic vs. pessimistic) is an innate trait.
There were no clear patterns between parental report of negative affect and children’s
affect, attributions, and motivation after making mistakes with their puppet in either condition.

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After receiving process praise, children with low negative affect had higher persistence than
children with high negative affect. After receiving process praise plus the suggestion of
considering alternative strategies, there were no significant correlations between persistence and
negative affect. There were no clear patterns between parental report of attachment insecurity
and children’s affect, motivation, and persistence after making mistakes with their puppet in
either condition. After receiving process praise plus the consideration of alternative strategies,
children with high attachment insecurity had more attributions of failure to ability and
contingent-self worth than children with low attachment insecurity (more secure). After
receiving process praise alone, there were no significant correlations between attributions and
attachment security.
Based on parental report, mothers’ use of neutral statements, person praise, process
praise, and process praise plus the consideration of alternative strategies did not influence young
children’s responses to failure. This indicates that if two children have been exposed to different
types of praise throughout their lives, it may not lead to significant differences in their overall
approach to failure across situations. This finding contrasts with past studies of person praise,
process praise and neutral statements (e.g. Cimpian et al., 2007; Kamins & Dweck, 1999), which
found that process praise led to significantly more mastery-oriented responses to failure than
person praise and neutral statements led to the most helpless responses to failure. One possible
explanation for this finding is that this study considered overall use of specific types of praise
and children’s general responses to failure instead of linking specific instances of using the
praise with specific responses to failure. Past studies that have found significant results between
different types of praise (e.g. Kamins & Dweck, 1999) have measured the response to failure

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immediately following a specific type of praise, such as the within-subjects design utilized in the
current study.
Another consideration is that this analysis considered multiple variables which had not
been accounted for in past studies. In comparison to other variables, such as attachment
insecurity, the specific type of praise and feedback may play a smaller role in young children’s
responses to failure than previously estimated. Based on attachment theory, young children with
an insecure attachment may interpret interactions with the primary caregiver with a more
inconsistent or unresponsive internal working model of the primary caregiver. These children
with insecure attachments may also interpret personal failures with a more helpless internal
working model of the self. This may lead these children to stable, uncontrollable, internal
attributions of failure and more helpless responses to failure, regardless of the type of parental
praise used. Young children with a secure attachment may interpret interactions with the parent
with a more consistently responsive internal working model of the primary caregiver. These
children with secure attachments may also interpret personal failures through a more masteryoriented internal working model of the self. This may lead these children to flexible,
controllable, and external attribution and more mastery-oriented responses to failure, regardless
of the type of parental praise used. Based on this framework, the attachment security that was
developed in the earlier years may carry so much weight in determining young children’s
internal working models and attributional framework, that the effects of subtle attributional cues
from statements such as praise are minimalized.
Research Question 2: Do parents’ perceptions of their children’s attachment security
moderate the effects of the type of parental praise on children’s mastery-oriented responses to
failure?

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Based on attachment theory, the hypothesis was that the child’s attachment security, as
assessed by parents’ perceptions, would moderate children’s responses to failure. It was
hypothesized that the more securely children are attached to their parents, the more masteryoriented their response would be to failure after receiving process praise plus the suggestion of
an alternative strategy compared to process praise alone. The less securely attached to their
parents, the more likely children would be to exhibit helpless responses to failure after receiving
process praise plus the suggestion of an alternative strategy compared to process praise alone.
Whereas attachment insecurity was a significant predictor of young children’s negative
responses to failure, multiple analyses revealed that attachment insecurity was not a significant
moderator between process praise plus the consideration of alternative strategies and responses
to failure. This indicates that if children receive process praise plus the suggestion of
considering alternative strategies and are then exposed to failure, children with a secure
attachment as well as children with an insecure attachment would respond similarly. Graphical
analysis of the within-subjects design data did reveal the predicted moderating pattern of
attachment insecurity on the relationship between praise condition and the children’s affect and
attributions in response to failure, but the same pattern was not found between praise condition
and the children’s motivation and persistence. Graphical analysis and multiple regressions for
the correlational design data revealed no significant or clear moderating effect of attachment
insecurity. The lack of a significant moderating effect of attachment insecurity may be due to
the fact that insecurely attached children’s internal working model of the parent may lead to
equally negative perceptions of either statement even though a statement with the consideration
of alternative strategies has more ambiguous cues. This explanation aligns with research that
links attachment insecurity with perceptions of ambiguous parental interactions as more hostile

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(Ziv, Oppenheim & Sagi-Schwartz, 2004); however the current study suggests that children with
an insecure attachment may also perceive positive parental interactions as more hostile.
Alternatively, the insecurely attached children may focus so much on the fact that they made a
mistake that they discount or forget the statement that the parent made previously. This
explanation is supported by research that links attachment insecurity with more accurate recall of
negative social events and less accurate recall of positive social events (e.g. Belsky et al., 1996;
Kirsh & Cassidy, 1997).
Research Question 3: Does the child’s gender moderate the effects of the type of parental
praise on children’s mastery-oriented responses to failure?
It was hypothesized that gender would serve as a moderator such that girls would display
the same pattern as children with insecure attachments. In contrast, boys were predicted to
display mastery-oriented responses to failure after process praise as well as after process praise
plus the suggestion of an alternative strategy. Gender did not serve as a significant moderator of
the relationship between the type of parental praise and the young children’s responses to failure.
Boys and girls were equally likely to respond to a certain type of praise with a mastery-oriented
response to failure or a helpless response to failure. This indicates that the use of process praise
and process praise plus the suggestion of considering alternative strategies do not need to be
differentiated between boys and girls. While past studies found that failure feedback leads to
more aversive motivational and behavioral outcomes for girls than for boys (e.g. Dweck &
Reppucci, 1973; Nicholls, 1975), the more subtle cues in process praise plus the suggestion of
considering alternative strategies may be perceived as equally positive by boys and girls.
Likewise, while praise with cues that diminish perceived autonomy or control tend to have more
negative effects on girls than boys (e.g. Corpus & Lepper, 2007; Kast & Connor, 1988; Koestner,

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Zuckerman & Koestner, 1989; Zinser, Young & King, 1982), a statement with process praise
plus the suggestion of considering alternative strategies may not be perceived to diminish any
autonomy or control since it is open ended and positive.
Research Question 4: What do parents believe about the effects of parental process praise
and parental process praise plus the suggestion of considering alternative strategies on children’s
mastery-oriented responses to failure?
This question was exploratory. Mothers’ beliefs about the effects of different types of praise
statements on young children’s responses to failure aligned with the hypotheses of the study and
were consistent with an attribution theory framework. They believed process praise plus the
consideration of alternative strategies to have the greatest effect on young children’s responses to
failure, followed by process praise, person praise, and then a neutral statement. This indicates
that parents believed that process praise plus the suggestion of considering alternative strategies
would be more likely to promote a mastery-oriented response to failure than process praise,
person praise, or neutral statements. This suggests that mothers may intuitively view the effects
of praise in a manner consistent with attribution theory. This may also be related to the high
level of education of the participating mothers, since 95.3% of participating mothers attended at
least some college classes and 100% graduated from high school. The findings of the current
study are actually counter to these beliefs and raise questions about the true significance of
different types of praise statements on young children’s responses to failure when compared to
other factors.
Another finding of this study was not related to a specific research question, but is
important to highlight. Correlations revealed that young children’s affect and attributions after
making a mistake with puppets were not significantly related to their motivation and persistence

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to keep trying the task on which they made a mistake with the puppets. One possible explanation
is that this form of measurement, which involved asking children questions after acting out
scenes with puppets, may not have been authentic enough to accurately reflect their actual affect,
attributions, motivation, and persistence when they make mistakes in the real world. This is
believed to be the case, since correlational analysis of the Negative Responses to Failure scale
revealed significant (p < .05), moderate (r > .3) correlations between items that measure
persistence (e.g. “Gives up easily if cannot do something.”) and items that measure affect and
attributions (e.g. “Lowers head or slumps over when he or she does not do well at something.”).
Also, past studies found significant associations between affect, attributions, motivation, and
persistence in relation to achievement outcomes (e.g. Graham & Weiner, 1991; Peterson &
Schreiber, 2006) and in relation to helpless versus mastery-oriented responses to failure (e.g.
Diener & Dweck, 1978; 1980).
Conclusions
The results of the current study indicated that parents’ use of process praise plus the
suggestion of considering alternative strategies did not increase children’s mastery orientation in
response to failure as compared to process praise. While the expected benefits of the suggestion
of considering alternative strategies was not found, there was no detrimental effect in adding
such a statement and there may be possible long-term benefits. In addition, this study found that
parental report of attachment insecurity and negative affect were significantly related to parental
reports of young children’s responses to failure. In comparison, parental use of person praise,
process praise, and neutral praise were not significantly related to parental report of young
children’s responses to failure. This may be due to the way these constructs were measured, but
it may also be due to attachment insecurity and temperament minimizing the effects of different

72

types of praise. Past studies did not consider attachment insecurity or temperament when
examining the effects of different types of praise statements on young children’s responses to
failure. Also, past studies did not focus on differentiating between process praise and process
praise plus the consideration of alternative strategies.
An intriguing finding from the correlational design was the significant relationship
between parental report of attachment insecurity and young children’s responses to failure. The
survey data findings suggest that children with an insecure attachment are more likely to display
a helpless response to failure that is pointed out by their mother than their securely attached
peers, regardless of what type of feedback or praise they typically receive from the mother after a
success. This corresponds with attachment research which suggests that insecurely attached
children are more likely than their securely attached peers to notice and pay attention to any
negative feedback from their primary caregiver and ignore positive feedback from their primary
caregiver. It also corresponds with research that found insecurely attached children are more
likely to have an internal locus of control, which would lead to more internal, stable,
uncontrollable attributions of failure. This same relationship was not found however, between
attachment insecurity and young children’s responses in the within subjects design, with one
exception. After exposure to process praise plus the suggestion of considering alternative
strategies, children with high attachment insecurity were significantly more likely to make
attributions of failure to ability and contingent self-worth than securely attached children. This
same pattern was not found when considering affect, motivation, and persistence after failure.
After exposure to process praise only, there were no significant relationships between affect,
attributions, motivation, and persistence after failure and young children’s attachment insecurity.

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One possible explanation for these discrepant findings between the correlational and
within-subjects designs is that the survey measure of children’s responses to failure is
considering the child’s overall pattern of responses to failure, whereas the puppet response
measure is based on their responses in a specific situation. A child’s attachment insecurity may
be related to their overall pattern of responses to failure, but it may have little relation to their
response in the specific scenario used in the within-subjects design. Another possible
explanation is that the puppet response method of measuring children’s responses to failure is not
representative of children’s responses to mistakes and failures in real life. Some evidence of this
can be found in the lack of correlation between measures of affect, attributions, motivation, and
persistence when a child responded to questions after their puppet made a mistake. These
findings contradict the relationships between these variables in the survey measure and past
studies.
It was also notable that negative affect had the strongest and most significant relationship
to negative responses to failure in the correlational design. This same relationship was not found
however, between temperament and young children’s responses in the within subjects design,
with one exception. After exposure to process praise, children with lower negative affect had
significantly more persistent responses to failure than children with high negative affect. This
same pattern was not found when considering affect, attributions, and motivation after failure.
After exposure to process praise plus the suggestion of considering alternative strategies, there
were no significant relationships between affect, attributions, motivation, and persistence after
failure and young children’s negative affect.
Temperament is a factor that has not previously been considered in relation to young
children’s responses to failure, but these findings highlight the need to research temperament

74

factors in more depth. The fact that a measure of temperament was the most powerful predictor
of responses to failure suggests that perhaps helplessness may in part be a result of innate traits.
Specific traits may predispose a child to attribute failure to internal, uncontrollable, stable factors
or to external, controllable, flexible factors. It would be beneficial to examine which traits,
including negative affect, are the greatest predictors of young children’s attributions and
responses to failure. It is also important to note that parental report of attachment insecurity was
not strongly correlated with the child’s reported negative affect. This indicates that the effects of
these factors cannot be attributed to overlap in the constructs themselves.
Taken together, these findings shed some light on the problem of helpless responses to
failure in young children. First, process praise plus the suggestion of alternative strategies may
lead young children to equally mastery-oriented responses to failure as process praise alone;
however more research is needed to consider long-term effects and to account for shortcomings
of the current research design. Second, young children’s responses to failure appear to be
bolstered by a secure attachment to their primary caregiver. This suggests that sensitive and
consistent caregiving in infancy and early childhood may be an essential to promoting masteryoriented responses to failure. More research on the influence of attachment security on
responses to failure may better illuminate our understanding of this relationship. Third, young
children’s responses to failure appear to be closely related to the temperamental trait of negative
affect. This suggests that children may be born with specific traits that predispose them to
helpless or mastery-oriented responses to failure; however, more research on the effects of
specific traits can provide a clearer picture of the importance of temperament.

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Limitations of the Study
One limitation of the current study is that the correlational design of the survey study did
not allow for a determination of causation. While attachment insecurity and negative affect were
both significantly related to young children’s responses to failure based on the survey data, it
cannot be concluded that attachment insecurity and negative affect cause young children’s
helpless responses to failure. It cannot be ruled out that there is another factor that is leading to
both high attachment insecurity and helpless responses to failure, or that another factor is leading
to both high negative affect and helpless responses to failure. Likewise, it cannot be ruled out
that young children’s helpless responses to failure cause insecure attachments or negative affect.
Theoretically and conceptually, the direction of the relationship may be clear, but the
correlational design of the study means that these alternative explanations cannot be ruled out.
Another limitation is that the behavioral analogue puppet task may have led to different
responses from participants than they would have provided in naturally occurring situations. The
construct validity is dependent on the child responding to the puppet vignettes in a similar way to
how they respond to salient events and stimuli in the natural environment. The lack of
correlation between the young children’s affect, attributions, motivation, and persistence in
response to failure indicate that the task may not have been a valid assessment of their responses
to failure and feedback. Despite these limitations, the use of two designs within the study
allowed for the opportunity to collect multiple sources of data to compare and contrast the results
of each, providing a richer and more comprehensive view of the relationships between these
constructs.
Another limitation of the behavior analogue puppet task is that responses to failure were
based on the child’s responses in a 15 minute session. While the child responded to two different

76

failure scenarios in the 15 minute session, the child’s answers may have depended on how they
were feeling in that moment. It is also possible that some of the children may not have
interpreted the situations as a failure, although the interpretation of that situation as a learning
opportunity instead, has been associated with more mastery-oriented responses to failure in past
studies (e.g. Diener & Dweck, 1978; 1980).
A weakness of the measures used in the study is that the assessments of parental use of
praise, the child’s reported responses to failure, and the parent’s perception of the child’s
attachment security are all based on survey responses as opposed to behavioral measures.
Responses may be biased based on how the respondent was feeling at the time they completed
the surveys, based on their attitude towards their child, and even based on who was willing to
complete the surveys. For example, the PCRI is based on the mother’s perceptions of the child’s
reunion behaviors, but a mother’s responses may be influenced based on her mood when she
completed the survey as opposed to remaining an objective description of these events. For this
reason, the PCRI is considered as the mother’s perceptions of the child’s attachment security. It
is believed that considering the mother’s perceptions of the child’s attachment security is an
important variable that is conceptually linked to the child’s attachment security. Another
weakness of the measure of parental use of praise is that the test-retest reliability of the MPS has
not been verified. This means that the consistency of parental responses to the questions on the
MPS over time is unknown and these responses may change based on respondent characteristics.
There are also limitations of the statistical analyses and interpretations of the analyses
due to the fact that multiple variables violated the assumptions of a normal distribution. The
nonparametric analyses did reveal the nature of the relationships between the variables of
interest; however they were not as powerful and did not give as detailed of information about

77

these relationships as their parametric equivalents. In addition, there is no widely accepted
method of considering moderating variables using nonparametric analyses. For this reason,
parametric analyses were used to consider the moderating variables of attachment insecurity and
gender, even though the interpretive utility of these analyses is limited.
Another limitation of the current study is that some characteristics of the participants
were not taken into account. The effects of many characteristics of the recipient of praise, such
as race and ethnicity, remain largely unknown. Temperament may play an especially influential
role in explaining some of the differences in effects of praise between individuals. Parental
education is another factor that may moderate the effects of responses to failure. While this
study focused on the moderating effects of attachment security and gender on the relationships
between parental praise dimensions and responses to failure, future studies examining this topic
should take these additional factors into consideration.
In addition, the cultural context of the parent-child relationship was not taken into
account when considering the effects of praise. While mothers’ beliefs about the effects of
different types of praise were examined in the current study, a more in-depth analysis of how
differing cultural beliefs (e.g. discipline, affection, etc.) might moderate the effects of praise
should be explored in future research. Another weakness in the current study is that due to the
method of recruiting participants through childcare settings and due to the demographics of the
cities that they were recruited from, the participants may not be representative of the larger
population and may over-represent or under-represent certain subgroups, thus limiting
generalizability. Of particular note, 95.3% of participating mothers attended at least some
college classes and 100% graduated from high school. This indicates a greater representation in
this study, of mothers who had formal education. In addition, races other than White are under-

78

represented; no mothers reported their race as Black or American Indian or Alaska Native and
only 3.8% of mothers reported their race as Hispanic. Other characteristics of the participants
were not gathered, but due to the demographics of the area, may over-represent or underrepresent certain subgroups. For example, members of the LDS church are likely overrepresented while members of other religious groups are likely under-represented.
The sample may also be skewed due to selection bias. There may be some characteristics
of the parents who chose to participate that differentiated them from those who did not. For
example, mothers with less education or with more racial diversity may have been less willing to
participate in the study. The six children who chose not to participate also appeared to be
significantly more anxious than the children who did participate. Perhaps the skew in the data is
due to the absence of the data from these children or to the select nature of the sample. It is
possible that the inclusion of these six children may have led to strengthening the findings of the
current study. Their anxious state was apparent when they first entered the room and may have
been due to innate traits or attachment insecurity. Had they participated, their anxiety might have
made it difficult for them to respond well to any failure, regardless of the type of praise they
received from the parent puppet. Alternatively, their anxiety might have increased their
sensitivity to the different praise conditions and revealed greater differences between process
praise and process praise plus the suggestion of considering alternative strategies.
Implications for Practice and Future Research
Considering the results of the current study, there are many implications for both practice
and research. Process praise plus the suggestion of considering alternative strategies did not
have any detrimental or beneficial effect on young children’s responses to failure when
compared to process praise alone, but it may have some long-term benefits. Parents and teachers

79

may wish to consider using such statements to promote external, controllable, flexible
attributions while also promoting the consideration of alternative ideas and ways of thinking.
Researchers may wish to consider how process praise plus the suggestion of considering
alternative strategies influences young children’s flexible thinking, such as their willingness to
consider different ideas. The long-term effects of process praise plus the suggestion of
considering alternative strategies could also be considered in future research. The current study
only considered immediate effects, but the repeated exposure to suggestions of considering
alternative strategies may lead to a more positive response to critical feedback over time. Also,
more studies may wish to consider the long-term effects of neutral statements compared to
person and process praise, since these statements may have less influence on young children’s
responses to failure than previously considered. Past studies of these different praise statements
used designs such as the puppet vignettes used in the current study and found significant
immediate effects; however the correlational design in the current study revealed that the effects
of these different types of praise on children’s overall response to failure over time may be
negligible.
The significant relation between parental perceptions of attachment insecurity and young
children’s reported responses to failure highlights the need for responsive and consistent
parenting in early childhood. Consistently responsive parenting in early childhood will foster a
child’s secure attachment, which may promote mastery-oriented responses to failure in a variety
of settings. Future research on attachment security may wish to consider mastery-oriented
responses to failure as a potential outcome. This finding also revealed that the effects of specific
types of feedback and praise cannot be considered in isolation from the context of the
relationships in which the statements are given. Considering the effects of praise in an

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experimental setting with a complete stranger providing the praise cannot be generalized to
praise given in other relationships. Also, the puppet vignette behavioral analogue research
design should be used with caution since the child may not respond to puppets in the same way
that they would respond in the context of an interaction with real people. Future studies should
measure the effects of praise within the contexts of the specific relationships in which they are
delivered (e.g. parent-child, teacher-student, etc.), since these relationships may have a more
powerful influence on the child’s perceptions and behavior than the specific form of praise itself.
The current study provides some preliminary support for this possibility that the relationship
within which the praise is delivered (i.e. considered in the form of attachment insecurity) may be
more influential than the specific type of praise given (i.e. all forms of praise had non-significant
effects on young children’s responses to failure). It is also important to continue to consider
attachment security in relation to young children’s responses to failure since this appears to play
a significant role. The current findings suggested that the early relationship between children
and their primary caregiver play a more important role in the development of motivation than
indicated by previous research. Future research may consider young children’s responses to
failure in relation to a more in-depth measure of attachment security, such as the strange situation
paradigm.
Future research should also consider the role of different temperamental traits in the
development of helpless versus mastery-oriented responses to failure. Past research has only
hypothesized about this relationship (e.g. Eisner, 1995), but the current study suggests that
temperament may play a large role in explaining responses to failure. More in-depth measures of
temperament, such as the Child Behavior Questionnaire, Standard Form, may help to provide
more precise and complete information. A measure such as the Child Behavior Questionnaire,

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Standard Form would also allow for consideration of other traits besides negative affect, such as
sadness, shyness, and fear.
The significant relation between the children’s reported negative affect and their reported
responses to failure indicate that children may be born with innate tendencies to attribute failure
to uncontrollable, internal, stable factors or controllable, external, flexible factors. Considering
the influence of both attachment insecurity and temperament, parents and teachers should
exercise patience when children are displaying helpless responses to failure since they may have
developed a pattern of internal, stable, uncontrollable attributions of failure that has become
entrenched over time. This does not mean that parents and teachers should not attempt to help
children to develop a more mastery-oriented way of responding to failure; however, the use of a
specific type of praise with subtle attributional cues may not lead to significant, long-standing
changes. It may take more encouragement, praise, and consistent responsiveness and support
than previously considered.

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APPENDICES

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Appendix A: Puppet Vignette Script
Okay, so today we are going to play a pretending game. And we’re going to play with toys and
act out stories. Then I’m going to ask you a few questions. And we’re going to pretend that one
of these toys is you. Which one do you want to be? Okay, and this one is going to be your mom.
Let’s pretend that your mom is playing with you, and right now she’s going to ask you a few
questions:
• (Child’s name), what is your favorite color?
• (Child’s name), do you have any brothers or sisters?
• (Child’s name), what’s your favorite kind of ice cream?
Now let’s play a drawing game. We’re going to act out a few stories and pretend that these
puppets are you and your mom. Here. Pretend this is a green crayon.
1) One day you were drawing with your green crayon and your Mom said, "(Child’s name),
will you make a tree for me?" and you said "OK, Mom." And so you started drawing a
tree. First, you drew the trunk and then the branches. Next, you added the green leaves.
You wanted to show your Mom the tree you drew, and so you said “Mom, I drew a tree
for you,” and you looked back at the drawing and thought to yourself, “Yep, I drew a
tree.” When your Mom came over and saw the tree you drew she said, "That looks like a
tree.
a. I can tell you worked really hard on the drawing. [process]
b. I can tell you worked really hard on the drawing; can you think of other ways to
draw a tree? [process plus the suggestion of considering alternative strategies]
Okay, now let me give you this orange crayon.
2) Another day you were playing at the drawing table with your orange crayon and your
Mom said, "(Child’s name), will you make a flower for me?" and you said "OK, Mom."
And so you started drawing a flower. First, you drew a circle and colored it in to make
the center of your flower. Next you drew five orange petals. You wanted to show your
Mom the flower you drew, and so you said “Mom, I drew a flower for you,” and you

84

looked back at the drawing and thought to yourself, “Yep, I drew a flower.” When your
Mom came over and saw the flower you drew she said, "That looks like a flower.
a. I can tell you worked really hard on the drawing. [process]
b. I can tell you worked really hard on the drawing; can you think of other ways to
draw a flower? [process plus the suggestion of considering alternative strategies]
Okay, now here’s this red crayon.
3) Pretend one day you were playing at the drawing table with your red crayon and your
Mom said, "(Child’s name), will you make an apple for me?" and you said "OK, Mom."
And so you started drawing an apple. First, you drew a circle and colored it in to make
the red apple. Next you drew the stem and a leaf coming out of the top. You wanted to
show your Mom the apple you drew, and so you said “Mom, I drew an apple for you,”
and you looked back at the drawing and thought to yourself, “Yep, I drew an apple.”
When your Mom came over and saw the apple you drew she said, "That looks like an
apple.
a. I can tell you worked really hard on the drawing. [process]
b. I can tell you worked really hard on the drawing; can you think of other ways to
draw an apple? [process plus the suggestion of considering alternative
strategies]”
Before we go on I’m going to ask you a few questions about this apple story.
(a) Do you like the apple that you drew or do you not like it?
o How much do you like/not like it? Do you SORT OF like/not like it, do you
like/not like it, or do you REALLY like/not like it?
(b) Did what happened in the apple story make you feel happy or sad?
o How happy/sad? Were you SORT OF happy/sad, happy/sad, or REALLY happy/sad?
(c) Did everything that happened in the apple story make you feel like you were good at drawing
or not good at drawing?
(d) Did everything that happened in the apple story make you feel like you were a good boy/girl
or not a good boy/girl?
Okay, now let’s go on. Pretend this is a brown crayon.
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4) And one day you were playing at the drawing table with your brown crayon and your
Mom said, "(Child’s name), will you make a dog for me?" and you said "OK, Mom."
And so you started drawing a dog. First, you drew in his head and his face. Next you
drew his body with your brown crayon. You wanted to show your Mom the dog you
drew, and so you said “Mom, I drew a dog for you,” and you looked back at the drawing
and thought to yourself, “Yep, I drew a dog.” When your Mom came over and saw the
dog you drew she said, "That looks like a dog.
a. I can tell you worked really hard on the drawing.[process]
b. I can tell you worked really hard on the drawing; can you think of other ways to
draw a dog? [process plus the suggestion of considering alternative strategies]”

Here is a yellow crayon.
Another day you were playing at the drawing table with your yellow crayon. After a little
while, your Mom says, "(Child's name), will you make a bus for me?" and you say "OK,
mom." First you draw a long rectangle and then you add the windows. Next, you color it
in yellow. You look at what you did and think to yourself, "Uh-oh, the bus doesn't have
any wheels," but you want to show your Mom the bus you drew and so you say, "Mom, I
drew a bus for you." Your Mom looks at the bus you drew and says, "That doesn't look
like a bus; it has no wheels."
Let’s see what happens in the next story. [hand black pipe-cleaner]
6) Another day you were playing at the drawing table with your black crayon. After a little
while, your Mom says, "(Child’s name), will you make a cat for me?" and you say "OK,
Mom." First you draw a circle to make the cat’s face. Next, you add the body and color it
in black. You look at what you did and think to yourself, "Uh-oh, the cat doesn’t have
any ears," but you want to show your Mom the cat you drew and so you say "Mom, I
drew a cat for you." Your Mom looks at the cat you drew and says, “That doesn’t look
like a cat; it has no ears.”
Okay, now I’m going to ask you some questions about this cat story.
(a) Do you like the cat that you drew or do you not like it?
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o How much do you like/not like it? Do you SORT OF like/not like it, do you like/not like it, or
do you REALLY like/not like it?
(b) Did what happened in the cat story where you forgot the ears make you feel happy or sad?
o How happy/sad? Were you SORT OF happy/sad, happy/sad, or REALLY happy/sad?
(c) Did everything that happened in the cat story where you forgot the ears make you feel like
you were good at drawing or not good at drawing?
(d) Did everything that happened in the cat story where you forgot the ears make you feel like
you were a good boy/girl or not a good boy/girl?
(e) On another day, when you had a chance to draw one of these again, would you want to draw
the bus, want to draw the tree, or want to draw the cat?
(f) If you had a chance to do something tomorrow, would you draw or would you do something
else?
(g) Think about the story where you drew a cat and forgot the ears. What would you do now?
Would you keep working on the drawing of the cat, or would you do something else?
(h) Think about the story where you drew a bus and forgot the wheels. What would you do now?
Would you keep working on the drawing of the bus or would you do something else?
Now I’m going to ask some different kinds of questions1:
• Imagine a new student is in your class, Sally/Ken (depending on gender). She/he steals your
crayons, scribbles on your paper, and spills your juice. Then she/he calls you names.
Do you think she/he will always act this way?
• Imagine a new student is in your class. You look over at her/him and see that she/he did not
wash her/his hands before she/he ate the food at snack time. Does this mean she/he is bad?
Okay, so let’s try the bus again:
7) Another day you were playing and your Mom says, "Will you make a bus for me?" and
you say "OK, Mom." So you work really hard and try to draw a good bus for your Mom.
You really want to do well, and when you look at what you did, you think to yourself,
“The bus needs wheels," so you draw them in, and you say to your Mom, "Mom, I drew a
bus." Your Mom looks at the bus you drew and says, “You found a really good way to
draw the bus. I see it is yellow and has wheels.”
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That went well. Let’s see about the cat:
8) Another day you were playing at the drawing table and your Mom asks you to make a cat
and you say "OK, Mom." So you work really hard and try to draw a good cat for your
mom. You really want to do well and when you look at what you did, you think to
yourself, "This cat needs ears," so you draw them in with the black crayon, and you say
to your Mom, "Mom, I drew a cat." Your Mom looks at the cat you drew and says, “You
found a really good way to draw the cat. I see that it is black and has ears.”

1 These

two questions were included for parallelism with Kamins and Dweck (1999) but were not directly pertinent
to our manipulation, so we did not discuss them in the proposal.

88

Appendix B: Background Questionnaire
Child’s Name:________________________

School or Childcare Setting:_______________

Child’s Gender:_☐ Female

Child’s Birth Date: __/__/__

☐ Male

Years in childcare:_____

Grade in school:_________

Mother’s Name:______________________
Person in the home that spends the most time taking care of the child:______________________
Does your child have difficulty communicating or understanding speech? ☐ Yes

☐ No

The research materials will be presented in English. Will you or your child
have difficulty completing these tasks in English?
☐ Yes

☐ No

Address (used only to send the gift card):_____________________________
_____________________________
Please answer the following questions only if you feel comfortable doing so:
What is your race and/or ethic origin? (check the descriptor(s) that best applies)
☐ American Indian or Alaskan Native

☐ White, not of Hispanic origin

☐ Asian or Pacific Islander

☐ Multiracial (please specify above)

☐ Black, not of Hispanic origin

☐ Other (please specify:__________)

☐ Hispanic
What is your highest level of education? (please check one)
☐ Some high school

☐ College graduate (e.g., B.A., B.S.)

☐ High school graduate

☐ Graduate degree (e.g., M.A.)

☐ Some college

☐ Professional degree (e.g., M.D., Ph.D., J.D.)

89

Appendix C: Maternal Praise Survey
Ethan/Emma is 4 years old and attends preschool. Ethan/Emma enjoys school and tends to
do fairly well. One day, Ethan/Emma was working on some wooden jigsaw puzzles that his
mother had given him. The puzzles were interesting and he was able to finish two of them
fairly quickly, though he wasn’t sure how long it would take most children to complete
them. When Ethan/Emma’s mother walked into the room she stopped at the table where
Ethan/Emma was working.

a. What would YOU say to Ethan/Emma if you were his mother?

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Ethan/Emma’s mother commented in one of the following ways: (Please read each response
and circle a number on the rating scales).

a. “Wow! That’s really good. You must have been really thinking!”
i.

How likely is it that you would respond in this way?
1----------2----------3----------4----------5----------6----------7

NOT very likely

very likely

ii. How “motivating” is the mother’s response for Ethan/Emma?
1----------2----------3----------4----------5----------6----------7
will make Ethan/Emma
LESS interested in puzzles

will have no effect

will make Ethan/Emma
MORE interested in puzzles

iii. How well does the mother’s statement “prepare” Ethan/Emma for future setbacks (i.e., how
will Ethan/Emma react if faced with failures in the future on similar puzzle tasks)?
1----------2----------3----------4----------5----------6----------7
does NOT prepare
Ethan/Emma well

prepares Ethan/Emma
well

b. “Wow! That’s really good. You must be good at puzzles!”
i.

How likely is it that you would respond in this way?
1----------2----------3----------4----------5----------6----------7

NOT very likely

very likely

ii. How “motivating” is the mother’s response for Ethan/Emma?
1----------2----------3----------4----------5----------6----------7
will make Ethan/Emma
LESS interested in puzzles

will have no effect

will make Ethan/Emma
MORE interested in puzzles

iii. How well does the mother’s statement “prepare” Ethan/Emma for future setbacks (i.e., how
will Ethan/Emma react if faced with failures in the future on similar puzzle tasks)?
1----------2----------3----------4----------5----------6----------7
does NOT prepare
Ethan/Emma well

prepares Ethan/Emma
well

91

c. “Okay. It looks like you finished playing with the puzzles.”
i.

How likely is it that you would respond in this way?
1----------2----------3----------4----------5----------6----------7

NOT very likely

very likely

ii. How “motivating” is the mother’s response for Ethan/Emma?
1----------2----------3----------4----------5----------6----------7
will make Ethan/Emma
LESS interested in puzzles

will have no effect

will make Ethan/Emma
MORE interested in puzzles

iii. How well does the mother’s statement “prepare” Ethan/Emma for future setbacks (i.e., how
will Ethan/Emma react if faced with failures in the future on similar puzzle tasks)?
1----------2----------3----------4----------5----------6----------7
does NOT prepare
Ethan/Emma well

prepares Ethan/Emma
well

d. “Wow! That’s really good. You must have been really thinking! Can you
think of other ways to work on the puzzles?”
i.

How likely is it that you would respond in this way?
1----------2----------3----------4----------5----------6----------7

NOT very likely

very likely

ii. How “motivating” is the mother’s response for Ethan/Emma?
1----------2----------3----------4----------5----------6----------7
will make Ethan/Emma
LESS interested in puzzles

will have no effect

will make Ethan/Emma
MORE interested in puzzles

iii. How well does the mother’s statement “prepare” Ethan/Emma for future setbacks (i.e., how
will Ethan/Emma react if faced with failures in the future on similar puzzle tasks)?
1----------2----------3----------4----------5----------6----------7
does NOT prepare
Ethan/Emma well

prepares Ethan/Emma
well

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Appendix D: Research Participant Information and Consent Form
You are being asked to participate in a research project. Researchers are required to provide a consent
form to inform you about the study, to convey that participation is voluntary, to explain risks and benefits
of participation, and to empower you to make an informed decision. You should feel free to ask the
researchers any questions you may have.
Study Title: Children’s Mastery-Oriented Responses to Failure: The Effects of Parental Strategy
Feedback and Attachment Security
Researcher: Romney Stevens, M. A., Doctoral Candidate in School Psychology
University: Michigan State University, Department of Counseling, Educational Psychology, & Special
Education
Research Supervisor: Dr. Evelyn R. Oka, Associate Professor, School Psychology & Educational
Psychology
Address and Contact Information:
1. PURPOSE OF RESEARCH: You are being asked to participate in a research study of the effects of
praise and the parent-child relationship on young children’s responses to failure. This study is being
conducted by Romney Stevens, a doctoral student at Michigan State University. You have been selected
as a possible participant in this study because you are the mother of a child between the ages of 4-6. You
are receiving this information because your child attends _____. From this study, the researchers hope to
learn how feedback affect’s children’s motivation, especially on difficult tasks. The researchers also hope
to learn how the relationship between mothers and their children is related to children’s responses to
failure. Your participation in this study will take about 45 minutes and your child’s participation in the
study will take about 30 minutes, divided into two 15-minute segments. If you are under 18, you cannot
be in this study without parental permission.
2. WHAT YOU WILL DO: First, you will complete and return this informed consent form, as well as
the accompanying background questionnaire. Next, questionnaires for you to complete will be sent home
with your child. You will complete several surveys that gather information about your background, your
child’s responses to feedback, your responses to your child’s successes, and your relationship with your
child. These questionnaires take approximately 45 minutes to complete. You will complete these
questionnaires and mail them in a pre-addressed and stamped envelope that you will receive with the
questionnaires.
3. WHAT YOUR CHILD WILL DO: After your completion of these questionnaires, your child will
meet with research assistants at the childcare for two 15 minute sessions over two weeks. On each
occasion, your child will use puppets to pretend to draw pictures of everyday objects. They will receive
feedback from a mother puppet. Your child will also answer questions about this task. This takes
approximately 15 minutes, for a total of 30 minutes of participation across the two meetings. Your
child’s participation or lack of participation in this research is completely separate from your child’s
enrollment and standing at _____. After completing these tasks, you will receive additional information
about the nature of the research. You will also receive a summary of the general findings of the research
after the study is completed.
4. POTENTIAL BENEFITS: Your participation in this study is important because it can help us to learn
how to promote the development of children’s motivation at young ages. These results can also
contribute to the understanding of the roles that the mother-child relationship and mothers’ responses to
their child have on their child’s way of dealing with failure.

93

5. POTENTIAL RISKS: This study involves your spending time to complete the questionnaires and
your child spending time away from their usual activities to complete the data collection. Children
typically enjoy the activity, but there is a risk that they may be temporarily uncomfortable during the
puppet activity when the puppet points out pretend mistakes. To ensure that children are comfortable, the
activity ends with the child successfully completing the activity. The potential risks of participating in
this study are minimal for mothers, but include possible feelings of discomfort when answering questions
about your child or your relationship with your child.
6. PRIVACY AND CONFIDENTIALITY: The data for this project will be kept confidential. All of
the questionnaires will be mailed directly to a secure location and will be kept in a locked cabinet. The
identifying information from these questionnaires will be removed and replaced by anonymous ID codes.
All data will be securely stored on a password protected computer without any identifying information.
The only people who will have access to the data will be the researchers and the Institutional Review
Board (IRB) that makes sure that the research is conducted in a safe and appropriate manner. Information
about you will be kept confidential to the maximum extent allowable by law unless there is any evidence
of intent to harm one’s self or others. If we suspect a child is or may be abused or neglected, we must
contact Children’s Protective Health Services immediately. Staff at your child’s school or childcare
setting will not have any access to the data collected from your questionnaires. Staff at your child’s
childcare or school will not have any access to the data collected at their site, unless you give permission
for them to observe the data collection. The results of this study may be published or presented at
professional meetings, but the identities of all research participants will remain anonymous.
7. YOUR RIGHTS TO PARTICIPATE, SAY NO, OR WITHDRAW: Participation in this research
project is completely voluntary. You have the right to say no. You may change your mind at any time
and withdraw. Your withdrawal or incomplete participation excludes you from receiving compensation
for participating. You may choose not to answer specific questions or to stop participating at any time.
Choosing not to participate or withdrawing from this study will not make any difference in the quality of
the services you receive from the childcare or school. Also, choosing not to participate or withdrawing
from this study will not make any difference to any benefits to which you are otherwise entitled.
8. COSTS AND COMPENSATION FOR BEING IN THE STUDY: There is no cost to participating
in this research. You will be compensated for your participation in this study with a $20 gift card to a
local or online store. This card will be mailed to your house after you complete the questionnaires. As a
token of our appreciation, your child will receive two finger puppets at the conclusion of each session for
a total of four finger puppets.
9. CONTACT INFORMATION FOR QUESTIONS AND CONCERNS
consent)

(Required element of

If you have concerns or questions about this study, such as scientific issues, how to do any part of it, or to
report an injury, please contact Romney Stevens at ,517-755-8557 or via e-mail at steve436@msu.edu or
Dr. Evelyn Oka, by phone: 517-432-9615; email: evoka@msu.edu; mail: 620 Farm Lane
Room 439 Erickson Hall, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, 48824
If you have questions or concerns about your role and rights as a research participant, would like to obtain
information or offer input, or would like to register a complaint about this study, you may contact,
anonymously if you wish, the Michigan State University’s Human Research Protection Program at 517355-2180, Fax 517-432-4503, or e-mail irb@msu.edu or regular mail at 408 W. Circle Dr. Rm 207 Olds
Hall, MSU, East Lansing, MI 48824.
10. DOCUMENTATION OF INFORMED CONSENT.

94

Your signature below means that you voluntarily agree to participate in this research study.
________________________________________
Signature

_____________________________
Date

You will be given a copy of this form to keep.

95

Appendix E: Research Participant Information and Parental Permission Form
You are being asked for permission for your child to participate in a research project. Researchers are
required to provide a parental permission form to inform you about the study, to convey that participation
is voluntary, to explain risks and benefits of participation, and to empower you to make an informed
decision. You should feel free to ask the researchers any questions you may have.
Study Title: Children’s Mastery-Oriented Responses to Failure: The Effects of Parental Strategy
Feedback and Attachment Security
Researcher and Title: Romney Stevens, M. A., Doctoral Candidate in School Psychology
Department and Institution: Department of Counseling, Educational Psychology, & Special Education at
Michigan State University
Address and Contact Information:
1. PURPOSE OF RESEARCH: You are being asked for permission for your child to participate in a
research study of the effects of praise and the parent-child relationship on young children’s responses to
failure. This study is being conducted collaboratively by Romney Stevens, a graduate student at
Michigan State University. Your child has been selected as a possible participant in this study because
they are between the ages of 4-6. You are receiving this information because your child attends _____.
From this study, the researchers hope to learn how feedback affect’s children’s motivation, especially on
difficult tasks. The researchers also hope to learn how the relationship between mothers and their
children is related to children’s responses to failure. In the entire study, about 50 mother-child dyads are
being asked to participate. In the entire study, about 50 mother-child dyads are being asked to participate.
Your child’s participation in this study will take about 30 minutes, divided into two 15-minute segments.
2. WHAT YOUR CHILD WILL DO: After your completion of a number of questionnaires, your child
will meet privately with two research assistants at the childcare on two separate occasions. On each
occasion, your child will use puppets to act out scenes that involve drawing pictures and receiving
feedback from a mother puppet. Your child will also answer questions about acting out these scenes.
This procedure will last approximately 15 minutes, for a total of 30 minutes of participation across the
two meetings. Your child’s participation or lack of participation in this research is completely separate
from your child’s enrollment and standing at _____. After completing these tasks, you will receive
additional information about the nature of the research. You will also receive the findings of the research
after the research is complete.
3. POTENTIAL BENEFITS: Your child’s participation in this study is important because it can help us
to learn how to promote the development of children’s motivation at young ages. These results can also
contribute to the understanding of the roles that the mother-child relationship and mothers’ responses to
their child have on their child’s way of dealing with failure.
4. POTENTIAL RISKS: This study involves your child spending time away from their usual activities
to complete data collection. Children typically enjoy the puppet activity, but there is a risk that they may
be temporarily uncomfortable during the puppet activity when the puppet points out mistakes. To ensure
that children are comfortable, the activity ends with the child successfully completing the activity.
5. PRIVACY AND CONFIDENTIALITY: The data for this project will be kept confidential. All of
the questionnaires will be mailed directly to a secure location and will be kept in a locked cabinet. The
personal information from these questionnaires will be removed and replaced by id codes. All data will
be securely stored on a password-protected computer without any identifying information. The only
people who will have access to the data will be the researchers and the Institutional Review Board (IRB)
that makes sure that the research is conducted in an appropriate manner. Information about you will be

96

kept confidential to the maximum extent allowable by law unless there is any evidence of intent to harm
one’s self or others. If we suspect a child is or may be abused or neglected, we must contact Children’s
Protective Health Services immediately. Staff at your child’s childcare or school will not have any access
to the data collected at their site, unless you give permission for them to observe the data collection. The
results of this study may be published or presented at professional meetings, but the identities of all
research participants will remain anonymous.
6. YOUR RIGHTS TO PARTICIPATE, SAY NO, OR WITHDRAW: Participation in this research
project is completely voluntary. Your child has the right to say no. Your child may change their mind at
any time and withdraw. Withdrawal or incomplete participation excludes your child from receiving
compensation for participating. You may choose not to answer specific questions or to stop participating
at any time. Choosing not to participate or withdrawing from this study will not make any difference in
the quality of the services you receive from the childcare or school. Also, choosing not to participate or
withdrawing from this study will not make any difference to any benefits to which you are otherwise
entitled.
7. COSTS AND COMPENSATION FOR BEING IN THE STUDY: There is no cost to participating
in this research. As a token of our appreciation, your child will receive two finger puppets at the
conclusion of each session for a total of four finger puppets.

8. CONTACT INFORMATION FOR QUESTIONS AND CONCERNS
If you have concerns or questions about this study, such as scientific issues, how to do any part of it, or to
report an injury, please contact Romney Stevens via mail at , via e-mail at steve436@msu.edu, or via
phone at 517-755-8557.
If you have questions or concerns about your role and rights as a research participant, would like to obtain
information or offer input, or would like to register a complaint about this study, you may contact,
anonymously if you wish, the Michigan State University’s Human Research Protection Program at 517355-2180, Fax 517-432-4503, or e-mail irb@msu.edu or regular mail at 408 W. Circle Dr. Rm 207 Olds
Hall, MSU, East Lansing, MI 48824.
9. DOCUMENTATION OF PARENTAL PERMISSION.
____________________________________
Child’s name

______________
Child’s age

____________________________
Your relationship to the child
Your signature below means that you voluntarily agree to allow your child to participate in this research
study.
________________________________________
Signature

_____________________________
Date

You will be given a copy of this form to keep.

97

Appendix F: Verbal Assent Script
Hi. My name is _____. I go to school. I’m trying to learn about how Mommies work with boys
and girls.
We are going to play with puppets. You will choose a puppet and I will choose a mommy
puppet. You will hear a story and act it out with your puppet. Then I will ask you questions.
You get to choose how to answer the questions. I won’t tell other people how you answer the
questions.
By playing with the puppets, you will help me learn about how mommies work with boys and
girls. You will also get to choose two of these animal finger puppets [hold up puppets] after we
are done playing with the puppets.
Your mom says it’s okay for you to do this, but you can stop at any time. If you have any
questions while we are playing with the puppets, you can ask me.
If you have a question later that you don’t think of now, you can ask [your parents/teacher].
Do you have any questions for me now?
Would you like to start playing with the puppets?

NOTES TO RESEARCHER: The child should answer “Yes” or “No.” Only a definite “Yes”
may be taken as assent to participate.

Name of Child: _____________________________
Yes
 No

Parental Permission on File:



(If “No,” do not proceed
with assent or research procedures.)
Child’s Voluntary Response to Participation:

 Yes

Signature of Researcher: _____________________________

98

 No
Date: __________________

Appendix G: Figures
Figure 1: Distribution of Mean Negative Response to Failure across the Parent Child Reunion
Inventory Attachment Insecurity Scale

99

Figure 2: Distribution of Mean Negative Response to Failure across the Negative Affect Scale

100

Figure 3: Distribution of Mean Affect, Attributions, Motivation, and Persistence across
Condition

101

Figure 4: Distribution of Mean Affect, Attributions, Motivation, and Persistence across Gender

102

Figure 5: Distribution of Mean Affect, Attributions, and Persistence across the Child Behavior
Questionnaire Negative Affect Scale

103

Figure 6: Distribution of Mean Affect, Motivation, and Persistence across the Parent Child
Reunion Inventory Attachment Insecurity Scale

104

Figure 7: Distribution of Mean Attributions for Each Condition across the Parent Child Reunion
Inventory Attachment Insecurity Scale

105

Figure 8: Distribution of Mean Negative Response to Failure Scale across Use of Process Praise
Plus the Suggestion of Considering Alternative Strategies Scale by Attachment Insecurity Group

Low attach. insecurity
Moderate attach. insecurity
High attach. insecurity

106

Figure 9: Distribution of Mean Affect across Praise Condition by Attachment Insecurity Groups

Low attach. insecurity
Moderate attach. insecurity
High attach. insecurity

107

Figure 10: Distribution of Mean Attributions across Praise Condition by Attachment Insecurity
Groups

Low attach. insecurity
Moderate attach. insecurity
High attach. insecurity

108

Figure 11: Distribution of Mean Motivation across Praise Condition by Attachment Insecurity
Groups

Low attach. insecurity
Moderate attach. insecurity
High attach. insecurity

109

Figure 12: Distribution of Mean Persistence across Praise Condition by Attachment Insecurity
Groups

Low attach. insecurity
Moderate attach. insecurity
High attach. insecurity

110

Figure 13: Distribution of Mean Negative Response to Failure Scale across Use of Process Praise
Plus The Suggestion of Considering Alternative Strategies Scale by Gender

111

Figure 14: Distribution of Mean Affect across Praise Condition by Gender

112

Figure 15: Distribution of Mean Attributions across Praise Condition by Gender

113

Figure 16: Distribution of Mean Motivation across Praise Condition by Gender

114

Figure 17: Distribution of Mean Persistence across Praise Condition by Gender

115

Figure 18: Means of Mothers’ Beliefs about the Motivational Effects of Different Praise and

Mean believed motivational effects of statement

Neutral Statements

Person Praise

Process Praise

116

Process Praise plus the
Suggestion of Considering
Alternative Strategies

Neutral Statement

Figure 19: Means of Mothers’ Beliefs about the Response to Failure Effects of Different Praise

Mean believed response to failure effects of statement

and Neutral Statements

Neutral Statement

Person Praise

117

Process Praise

Process Praise plus the
Suggestion of Considering
Alternative Strategies

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118

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