Brad Bushman, professor of communication and psychology, is co-author of a new study finding that parents and other adults heap the highest praise on children who are most likely to be hurt by the compliments.

Bushman, along with lead author Eddie Brummelman, a doctoral student in psychology at Utrecht University in The Netherlands and a visiting scholar at Ohio State, found that while children with high self-esteem seem to thrive with inflated praise, those with low self-esteem actually shrink from new challenges when adults go overboard on praising them.

"Parents seemed to think the children with low self-esteem needed to get extra praise to make them feel better," Bushman said. "It's understandable why adults would do that, but we found in another experiment that this inflated praise can backfire in these children."

In conducting the study, which is scheduled for publication in the journal Psychological Science, Bushman and Brummelman defined inflated praise as a compliment that included an additional adverb or adjective. For example, rather than a simple compliment (e.g. "You are good at this"), inflated praise would include an extra word ("You are incredibly good at this").

While many studies have looked at how praise affects children, this research is novel in that it empirically examines the impact of inflated praise, said Brummelman.

Researchers videotaped parents; counting how many times the parents praised their child, and classified praise as inflated or non-inflated. The most common inflated praise statements included “You answered very fast!” and “Super good!” and “Fantastic!”

They found that parents tended to give more inflated praise if they knew their children had lower self-esteem. During those taped home conversations—which lasted five minutes—parents lauded their child six times on average, and one-quarter of those compliments were deemed “inflated.”

In a subsequent test, children drew a Vincent van Gogh painting then received a note containing inflated, non-inflated or no praise from a “professional painter.” An example of non-inflated praise: “You made a beautiful drawing!” In other words, no fluffy adverb was used.

The kids, aged 8 to 12, next were asked to draw either simple or intricate pictures. Children with self-designated lower confidence chose the easier task if they got excessive praise, the study found. They were more apt to tackle the tougher drawing if they received simple, positive feedback. Kids brimming confidence, meanwhile, were game for harder tasks after hearing extra-flowery raves for their initial work.

The authors theorized that telling children with lower self-esteem they performed “incredibly well” caused those kids to believe they had to match that high standard, making them shrink from trying to repeat the achievement.

The experiments were conducted in the Netherlands—where the parenting culture is similar to that in America, researchers said.

The findings bolster what other psychologists have maintained: Modern parents put excessive weight on high esteem, yet such parenting tactics don’t always inspire children to challenge themselves.