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comment by kleinbl00

I want to raise a successful daughter. I do not believe that this study says what it says it studies.

(1) The sample size is even smaller than you'd be led to believe.

This is not 400 kids being asked a bunch of questions. This is 96 kids being asked two questions, 144 other kids being asked three other questions, 64 other kids being asked questions that have nothing to do with the result of the study

    "Sixty-four children aged 6 and 7 (half boys, half girls) were introduced to two novel games, one said to be for “children who are really, really smart” and the other for“children who try really, really hard” (counterbalanced; see the supplementary materials). Children were then asked four questions to measure their interest in these games (e.g., “Do you like this game, or do you not like it?”)"

and then 96 kids were asked one question. None of these kids were asked all the questions, and there was no longitudinal study of shifting attitudes at all.

2) Sure, it's peer-reviewed, but it's a grad student study. Peers are easy and they don't necessarily know any more than you do.

3) The p-values aren't great. I mean, I suhuuucked at statistics. But half of their conclusions are supported by P of .046, .056.

It's super hawt right now to talk about not calling kids "smart" and instead calling them "motivated" but this is literally a study of 5, 6 and 7 year olds being asked to evaluate "smarts" by how people in pictures are dressed, and it gathered less data than a PoliticsUSA weekend straw poll.