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Analysis Of The Article ' Five Reasons For Stop Saying ' Good Job

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Introductory Psychology Writing Assignment
Praise
Praising a child is what adults do en route for reinforcing a behavior the adult wants that child to continue doing. Operant conditioning is when one behaves a certain way and then is reinforced or punished for their actions. Praise is a form of positive reinforcement, when introducing an incentive that will likely increase or maintain a desired result. People are split as to whether or not praise is helpful to a child’s development. Some believe Praise inhibits motive and increases the child’s uncertainty in their own abilities. On the other hand, there are people who believe praise is a useful tool for adults to teach children how to behave in modern society.
Alfie Kohn wrote an article titled “Five Reasons to Stop Saying ‘Good Job.’” In this article he states his beliefs about praise and how it is not a beneficial tool. Kohn feels that praise is in fact hurting today’s children. He explains his five reasons on why praise should not be used(Kohn, 2001).
Kohn’s first reason is that praise is used to manipulate the children. Kohn says that praise is “sugar-coated control” (Kohn, 110, 2001) adults use to pressure their child into good behavior. Kohn’s second reason is that praising children creates “praise junkies” (Kohn, 111, 2001). He believes that the child will no longer perform an activity for the proper reasons, instead of doing a difficult task to be able to say that they could their motives altered to only desire the

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