Practice what you preach: How adults’ actions, outcomes, and testimony affect preschoolers’ persistence
Name
PracticePreach_openaccessMIT.pdf
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379.98 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
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Author(s)
Leonard, Julia Anne
Garcia, Andrea
Schulz, Laura E
Alternative Title
How Adults’ Actions, Outcomes, and Testimony Affect Preschoolers’ Persistence
Date Issued
September 2019
Journal
Child Development
Publisher
Wiley
Citation
Leonard, Julia A. et al. "Practice what you preach: How adults’ actions, outcomes, and testimony affect
preschoolers’ persistence." Child Development (September 2019): 1-18 © 2019 Society for Research in Child Development
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
Across four experiments, we looked at how 4‐ and 5‐year‐olds' (n = 520) task persistence was affected by observations of adult actions (high or low effort), outcomes (success or failure), and testimony (setting expectations—“This will be hard,” pep talks—“You can do this,” value statements—“Trying hard is important,” and baseline). Across experiments, outcomes had the biggest impact: preschoolers consistently tried harder after seeing the adult succeed than fail. Additionally, adult effort affected children’s persistence, but only when the adult succeeded. Finally, children’s persistence was highest when the adult both succeeded and practiced what she preached: exerting effort while testifying to its value.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.13305
