Praise: More Than Just Social Reinforcement

Praise is a common feature of interpersonal interaction. It is used to encourage, socialize, ingratiate, seduce, reward, and influence other people. These assorted usages reflect a widespread belief in the efficacy of praise for altering the behaviour and affective state of the recipient. Despite this assumed power of praise, and despite its salience and frequency in human social interaction, research interest in praise has been sporadic and intermittent, and not united within an all-embracing theoretical model.
In this article we will present an analysis of the effects of praise. We will begin by considering how to define praise. Next, we will examine the view of praise as social reinforcement, a conception which roots praise firmly within an empiricist framework; this appears to have been the predominant theoretical view guiding previous research on praise. We will conclude, however, that this view is conceptually inadequate to account for the empirical evidence. Because of that conclusion, our next step will be to provide a novel examination of the likely processes and consequences involved in praise. The remainder of the article will then be devoted to examining, where it is available, empirical evidence relevant to our analysis.     

Women Whose Children have been Sexually Abused: Reflections on a Debate

Catherine Humphreys, Department of Applied Social Studies, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, UK. Summary Women whose children have been sexually abused have been thesubject of a polarized debate between feminist practitioners/writersand family therapists. This paper explores the development ofthat debate, outlining the key characteristics of work whichwas informed by family systems perspectives and the contrastingunderstandings which feminist perspectives brought to analysisand practice. Both feminist perspectives and family therapyhave changed since the original debate erupted. This articleexplores issues which may have been obscured within feministperspectives. These are, first, the difficulties in the mother-childrelationship and, second, the contribution which aspects offamily therapy can make to progressing the interests of womenand children in the aftermath of child sexual abuse.