Praise always feels good to hear, but not all praise motivates us to try new things, challenge ourselves or deal with failure.
http://kut.org/post/why-all-praise-not-created-equal-0
I couldn't find a transcript of this so I don't have any excerpts from it, but it talks about how different kinds of compliments or praise can have very different results. They specifically talk about how damaging the '70s philosophy of giving everyone a 'participation' trophy was (who'd a thought?) because they were being told 'that is the best you can do'. It is worth a 7:20 listen.
nacl