Praise or Acknowledgment: Which is More Helpful?

Praise or Acknowledgment: Which is More Helpful?

 

Acknowledgment is expression of the recognition of what is, a statement of fact. Human emotional health as social creatures requires that we experience the visibility of ourselves to others that we receive through acknowledgment.

 

Praise is an opinion, an evaluation, a comparison, approval. Too often, people mistake acknowledgment for praise, and “not wanting to give the person a swelled head,” they withhold both praise and acknowledgment. Praise tends to make the recipient dependent on the opinion of the other, if true acknowledgment isn’t forthcoming.

 

Praise/approval is the sugar-laden soda pop life-damaging substitute that we turn to when life-enhancing fruit and vegetable juices of acknowledgment are not available. If acknowledgment is available, praise might be nice, but it’s not felt as necessary. 

 

Acknowledgment points at facts which the recipient can see also. The recipient forms an accurately positive self-image on the basis of their own perception of themselves.

 

(For some wisdom about the damaging effects of approval in the absense of acknowledgment see healthysenseofself.com and the book Healthy Sense of Self by my friend Antoinetta Vogels—helping create the book is a past ministry of the church.)

 

Toxic and Non-toxic Praise

 

It’s helpful to further distinguish two kinds of praise. In response to something you did I can use “I-statements” such as “I love what you did. I respond with elation to the elegance and wisdom I see in it. I acknowledge you as a wise person.” I can say a similar thing as “you-statements:” “You are so wise; I approve of you.” 

 

The first is closer to acknowledgment because it is statement of the fact of my response to what you did. The second is praise because it is my opinion of who you are. 

 

The first is healthful because you can form your own perception of what you did, perhaps seeing something in it you didn’t see before. The second is unhealthful because there’s nothing you can do except try to create more such approval from me about yourself.

By Rev. Alia Zara Aurami-Sou, Ph.D.

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