This research examined the effects of overhearing an adult praise an unseen child for not needing to work hard on an academic task. Five-year-old Han Chinese children (total N = 270 across three studies; 135 boys, collected 2020–2021) who heard this low effort praise tended to devalue effort relative to a baseline condition in which the overheard conversation lacked evaluative content. In Study 3, low effort praise increased children's endorsement of essentialist beliefs about ability and their interest in becoming the kind of person who does not need to work hard to succeed. The findings show that overhearing evaluative comments about other people, a pervasive feature of daily life, can have a systematic effect on young children's beliefs about achievement.

中文翻译：

---

无意中听到的评价性评论：对努力和能力信念的影响

这项研究调查了无意中听到一个成年人称赞一个看不见的孩子不需要努力完成学业的影响。听到这种低努力赞美的五岁汉族儿童（三项研究总人数N  = 270；135 名男孩，2020-2021 年收集）相对于无意中听到的对话缺乏评价性内容的基线条件倾向于贬低努力。在研究 3 中，低努力表扬增加了儿童对能力本质主义信念的认可，以及他们成为那种不需要努力工作就能成功的人的兴趣。研究结果表明，无意中听到对他人的评价是日常生活中普遍存在的一个特征，它会对幼儿的成就信念产生系统性影响。