Release date: June 27, 2002
Contact: Deb Hammacher, Associate Director, Media Relations,
at 404-727-0644 or dhammac@emory.edu

Self-beliefs Critical in Academic Success, Says Emory Professor

Self-beliefs play a critical role in academic success, according to Frank Pajares, associate professor of educational studies at Emory University with a background in child psychology. Also the co-author of the forthcoming book "Self-Beliefs and School Success" and co-editor of the book series "Adolescence and Education: Academic Motivation of Adolescents," Pajares offers the following advice for parents and students to maximize success:

For Parents:

• Praise effort not ability. Praising your child for a job well done is an important way of showing love, support and attention. However, praising with statements such as "You are so smart!" can often have the opposite effect you intend. Rather than praising for "ability," make it a habit to praise the "effort" and "persistence" that it took the child to succeed. Praising for "smarts" tells the child that success is a matter of intellectual ability (which kids tend to believe one either does or does not have); praising for effort tells the child that the harder you work, the more you accomplish and the smarter you get.

• Don’t commiserate. When a child encounters difficulty in an academic area or task in which a parent also encountered difficulty as a student, the parent will often attempt to soothe the child’s frustration with well-meaning statements such as, "Don’t feel bad. This runs in the family. I couldn’t spell to save my life." Keep in mind that the message the child hears is that it is perfectly fine, even admirable, to be incompetent in spelling because the parent was. Too often, children may come to take pride in that incompetence and cease their efforts to improve. Instead, challenge your child to improve her own spelling (or math, science, etc.), so that she can teach you a thing or two.

• Beware of bestowing false praise. Of course it is important that children feel positively about themselves and about their capabilities, and parents play a critical role in nurturing their children’s positive self-beliefs. But heed carefully psychologist Erik Erikson’s caution that "children cannot be fooled by empty praise and condescending encouragement. Their identity gains real strength only from wholehearted and consistent recognition of ‘real’ accomplishment ... a strong ego does not need, and in fact is immune to, any attempt at artificial inflation." A parent’s challenge is clear: Praise and encouragement should be delivered honestly and in its proper measure when the child is deserving of them.

For Students:

• "They are able who think they are able," wrote the poet Virgil. The French novelist Alexander Dumas wrote that when people doubt themselves, they make their own failure certain by themselves being the first to be convinced of it. There is now ample research evidence to suggest that Virgil and Dumas were absolutely correct. Good preparation accompanied by confidence maximizes success. Students who approach their academic work with confidence work harder, are more likely to surmount obstacles, prove more resilient after setbacks, and engage tasks with greater serenity and lower anxiety.

• Avoid "self-handicapping." When students fear failure, they can engage in all sorts of "self-handicapping" strategies to avoid feeling the anxiety that accompanies this fear. One of the most common strategies is to put forth low or no effort on an academic task in which the student has very little confidence of success. It is less anxiety-producing to fail knowing you did not try than to fail knowing you tried. When one puts forth little or no effort and fails, it hurts less when one explains the failure by claiming that "I didn’t do well because I didn’t try. I could do well if I wanted to." That sort of self-deception inevitably leads to lower and lower competence, missed opportunities, and a vicious cycle of continued failure.

• Learn to "read" your emotional feelings. We can all get a fairly good sense of our own confidence by the emotional feelings we experience as we contemplate an action. Negative emotional feelings provide cues that something is amiss, even when we are unaware that such is the case. Students who approach an academic course or task with dread and apprehension likely lack confidence in their skills in that area. Moreover, those negative feelings can themselves trigger additional stress and agitation that help ensure the inadequate performance they fear. Worse yet, anxiety and dread can be paralyzing. If you find yourself experiencing undue anxiety when faced with an academic task, take action. Discuss your feelings with a teacher, a parent, or a counselor. Do not ignore it.

Back