Hurlock's Study: Praise versus CriticismLearn Management Articles on management-info.biz. Hurlock's Study: Praise versus Criticism article will help answer your questions on Management Articles.We at management-info.biz specialize in Management Articles. Management Articles at management-info.biz provides the most up to date news and articles. If you have questions please do not hesitate to contact us.
In this case the people studied were fourth and fifth grade students and the situation was how they performed in a math class. The variables introduced by the researchers were the type of feedback the students received after they took math exercises and quizzes. Dr. Elizabeth Hurlock wanted to know what reactions there would be when fourth and fifth grade students received different types of feedback on their math performance. She specifically wanted to know if it was more effective to praise, criticize, or ignore students' performance in math. And she wanted to know what would happen when students were subjected to each of those conditions. The outcome was to be decided by how many math problems each student had solved 2, 3, 4, and 5 days after receiving the different types of feedback. For her study Dr. Hurlock divided the students into four groups. In the first group students were identified by name and praised in front of other students for their good performance. Students in the second group were also identified by name in front of other students, but they were criticized for their poor performance. Students in the third group were completely ignored, although they were in the classroom to hear the other students being praised or criticized. A fourth or control group was moved to another room after the first test. Students in this group took the same tests, but they received no comments on their performance whatsoever. Now, here is what Dr. Hurlock learned. Students in the groups that were praised or criticized performed better after the first day. Then their performance changed dramatically. The students who were criticized showed a significant decline in their test scores, and by days 3 and 4, they were performing equally with students in the group that had been completely ignored. By contrast, the students who were praised experienced a major improvement after the second day that was sustained through the end of the study. By the fifth day of the study, the group that received praise showed much better performance than the other groups. Look at the accompanying graph to see the scores of the four groups. It's startling, isn't it? Wouldn't you think that the results of this study should be standard reading for every schoolteacher in America? Sounds like it, doesn't it? But there is just one problem. Dr. Hurlock's study was conducted in 1925, that's eighty years ago! Unfortunately, the study wasn't seen as important in 1925, and, therefore, hasn't changed much behavior in the classroom since. But the results are so convincing that I would like to draw a parallel to managing adults with praise, criticism or indifference. Some managers believe that giving positive reinforcement to employees is an indication of managerial weakness. So in an attempt to appear strong and in command of the situation, they become masters of inflicting emotional pain through criticism, sarcasm or indifference. Those three tactics are called the Three Pillars of Contempt, because the most common reaction to being subjected to them is to feel contempt toward the perpetrator.
With an effective management development program, school teachers and business leaders can discover that reinforcing positive performance with supportive feedback is far better than creating a contemptuous atmosphere with sarcasm, criticism or indifference. Like many things in managing others, how your employees perceive you is what really counts. Your intentions are nice and noteworthy, but they are actually irrelevant. As every psychology student learns, 'perception is reality.' And because it is reality we must be concerned with how we come across to others; in other words, how others see our behaviors is more important that our intentions. To do otherwise is to be foolish and ineffective.
As a manager you need to be aware of the power of positive feedback along with the dangers of trying to motivate others or change behavior with the use of criticism, sarcasm or indifference. Positive reinforcement has been proved by Hurlock's study and many other studies to be the best method of getting your point across to others. It is unfortunate that so many managers haven't been convinced of that fact. Watch your own style of giving feedback for the next few weeks. Monitor how much you offer praise as supportive feedback verses how often you lapse into the Pillars of Contempt. The first step in improvement is always awareness. Increase your awareness and then work to modify your style. |
More Articles:1. The How-To's of Firing Incompetent Employees By Andrew E. Schwartz CATEGORIES OF OFFENSES: Most organizations have two categories of offenses in their policies. One category is for flagrant actions which are cause for immediate termination. Cited as examples of such offenses were theft of company property, gross negligence, and being intoxicated on the job. The second category comprises all other offenses for which some prior notification to the employee is required. In these cases, there is a slow but steady accrual of chronic problems or offenses, no single… 2. Still More Problem-Solving Success Tips By Jeanne Sawyer he ability to solve complicated problems quickly is more important than ever in today’s tough economy. Here's another set of tips and reminders to help you solve messy problems quickly and easily.** Identify and fix the right root causes.Complicated problems have multiple root causes, probably more than you can fix in a reasonable amount of time. Don’t waste time or money on causes that are either insignificant in impact or only peripheral causes of the problem you’re trying to fix.** Choose s… 3. Balancing Your Business: Making Change Easy By Madeline Lewis “Perfect balance in a business exists only in the organizational chart. A living business is always in a state of imbalance, growing here and shrinking there, overdoing one thing and neglecting another.” (Peter F. Drucker)I believe the three major trends in organizational processes are: discontinuation of the old way of doing business (re-engineering); migration and starting a new way of doing business (organizational change).One of the most often sited reasons why many re-engineering project… 4. Give Yourself a Boss' Day Gift, Part 2: Are You the Position or the Person? By Linda LaPointe Are you the position or the person?Bosses can lose their own identity sometimes. It’s easy. It happens a lot. The results are devastating to both the workers and to the supervisor.When we are the boss, there are many dangers in becoming you the ‘position’ instead of you the ‘person’. There are many reasons why supervisors morph into being the serious, alienated, distracted, unapproachable boss. One is that we want so badly to do a good job, and we think one way to do that is to take the job ve… |
||||
