I love that when character is praised, that it works like magic.
Stop and think about that for a second.
I mean think about the power that you have, that we all have every day.
You can literally go out and speak words into someone’s life and change who they become.
It’s like some marvelous mystery of the universe that no one can quite put their finger on.
Children who received character praise were subsequently more generous. Of the children who were complimented for being helpful people, 45 percent gave craft materials to cheer up kids at a hospital two weeks later, compared with only 10 percent of the children who were commended for engaging in helpful behavior. When our character is praised, we internalize it as part of our identities. Instead of seeing ourselves as engaging in isolated moral acts, we start to develop a more unified self-concept as a moral person.
-Adam Grant, Originals