Why Praise Disappears

Generic praise — "Great job!" — evaporates instantly. It feels good for 3 seconds and changes nothing. Specific praise reshapes behavior because it names the exact move worth repeating: "Your edit tightened the intro; the client opened with that line."

Most praise is too generic to be believed. "You're a rockstar" could apply to anyone, so the brain files it as noise. The fix is precision. When you point to the exact move someone made, they know you were paying attention, and attention makes praise real.