I agree that the data doesn’t really distinguish this explanation from the effect John Maxwell described, mainly I just linked it because the circumstances seemed reminiscent and I thought he might find it interesting. Its worth noting though that these aren’t competing explanations: your interpretation focuses on explaining the success of the “effort” group, and the other focuses on the failure of the “intelligence” group.
To help decide which hypothesis accounts for most of the difference, there should really have been a control group that was just told “well done” or something. Whichever group diverged the most from the control, that group would be the one where the choice of praise had the greatest effect.
I agree that the data doesn’t really distinguish this explanation from the effect John Maxwell described, mainly I just linked it because the circumstances seemed reminiscent and I thought he might find it interesting. Its worth noting though that these aren’t competing explanations: your interpretation focuses on explaining the success of the “effort” group, and the other focuses on the failure of the “intelligence” group.
To help decide which hypothesis accounts for most of the difference, there should really have been a control group that was just told “well done” or something. Whichever group diverged the most from the control, that group would be the one where the choice of praise had the greatest effect.