IP: Studies Find Reward Often No Motivator

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

> From: "the terminal of Geoff Goodfellow" <geoff () iconia com>
> To: "Dave e-mail pamphleteer Farber" <farber () cis upenn edu>
>
> Dave: A most interesting article, which to me is the very spirit of The How and
> The Why the Internet, Linux, etc. came to and continue to be so great. For
> myself, it is the very core of why I enjoy activities such as DJ'ng (which i
> don't accept money for) and even why I enjoy playing the stock market so much
> (just to do it for its own sake, not for the money!). I believe the word for
> these activites is "Autotelic", meaning "self goals" (as opposes to extotelic
> "external goals", such as money or other reward). -Geoff
>
> http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/motivation.html
>
> Studies Find Reward Often No Motivator
> Creativity and intrinsic interest diminish if task is done for gain
> By Alfie Kohn
> Special to the Boston Globe
> [reprinted with permission of the author
> from the Monday, 19 January 1987, Boston Globe]
>
> In the laboratory, rats get Rice Krispies. In the classroom the top students
> get A's, and in the factory or office the best workers get raises. It's an
> article of faith for most of us that rewards promote better performance.
>
> But a growing body of research suggests that this law is not nearly as ironclad
> as was once thought. Psychologists have been finding that rewards can lower
> performance levels, especially when the performance involves creativity.
>
> A related series of studies shows that intrinsic interest in a task - the sense
> that something is worth doing for its own sake - typically declines when
> someone is rewarded for doing it.
>
> If a reward - money, awards, praise, or winning a contest - comes to be seen as
> the reason one is engaging in an activity, that activity will be viewed as less
> enjoyable in its own right.
>
> With the exception of some behaviorists who doubt the very existence of
> intrinsic motivation, these conclusions are now widely accepted among
> psychologists. Taken together, they suggest we may unwittingly be squelching
> interest and discouraging innovation among workers, students and artists.
>
> The recognition that rewards can have counter-productive effects is based on a
> variety of studies, which have come up with such findings as these: Young
> children who are rewarded for drawing are less likely to draw on their own that
> are children who draw just for the fun of it. Teenagers offered rewards for
> playing word games enjoy the games less and do not do as well as those who play
> with no rewards. Employees who are praised for meeting a manager's expectations
> suffer a drop in motivation.
>
> Much of the research on creativity and motivation has been performed by Theresa
> Amabile, associate professor of psychology at Brandeis University. In a paper
> published early last year on her most recent study, she reported on experiments
> involving elementary school and college students. Both groups were asked to
> make ``silly'' collages. The young children were also asked to invent stories.
>
> The least-creative projects, as rated by several teachers, were done by those
> students who had contracted for rewards. ``It may be that commissioned work
> will, in general, be less creative than work that is done out of pure
> interest,'' Amabile said.
>
> In 1985, Amabile asked 72 creative writers at Brandeis and at Boston University
> to write poetry. Some students then were given a list of extrinsic (external)
> reasons for writing, such as impressing teachers, making money and getting into
> graduate school, and were asked to think about their own writing with respect
> to these reasons. Others were given a list of intrinsic reasons: the enjoyment
> of playing with words, satisfaction from self-expression, and so forth. A third
> group was not given any list. All were then asked to do more writing.
>
> The results were clear. Students given the extrinsic reasons not only wrote
> less creatively than the others, as judged by 12 independent poets, but the
> quality of their work dropped significantly. Rewards, Amabile says, have this
> destructive effect primarily with creative tasks, including higher-level
> problem-solving. ``The more complex the activity, the more it's hurt by
> extrinsic reward,'' she said.
>
> But other research shows that artists are by no means the only ones affected.
>
> In one study, girls in the fifth and sixth grades tutored younger children much
> less effectively if they were promised free movie tickets for teaching well.
> The study, by James Gabarino, now president of Chicago's Erikson Institute for
> Advanced Studies in Child Development, showed that tutors working for the
> reward took longer to communicate ideas, got frustrated more easily, and did a
> poorer job in the end than those who were not rewarded.
>
> Such findings call into question the widespread belief that money is an
> effective and even necessary way to motivate people. They also challenge the
> behaviorist assumption that any activity is more likely to occur if it is
> rewarded. Amabile says her research ``definitely refutes the notion that
> creativity can be operantly conditioned.''
>
> But Kenneth McGraw, associate professor of psychology at the University of
> Mississippi, cautions that this does not mean behaviorism itself has been
> invalidated. ``The basic principles of reinforcement and rewards certainly
> work, but in a restricted context'' - restricted, that is, to tasks that are
> not especially interesting.
>
> Researchers offer several explanations for their surprising findings about
> rewards and performance.
>
> First, rewards encourage people to focus narrowly on a task, to do it as
> quickly as possible and to take few risks. ``If they feel that 'this is
> something I have to get through to get the prize,' they're going to be less
> creative,'' Amabile said.
>
> Second, people come to see themselves as being controlled by the reward. They
> feel less autonomous, and this may interfere with performance. ``To the extent
> one's experience of being self-determined is limited,'' said Richard Ryan,
> associate psychology professor at the University of Rochester, ``one's
> creativity will be reduced as well.''
>
> Finally, extrinsic rewards can erode intrinsic interest. People who see
> themselves as working for money, approval or competitive success find their
> tasks less pleasurable, and therefore do not do them as well.
>
> The last explanation reflects 15 years of work by Ryan's mentor at the
> University of Rochester, Edward Deci. In 1971, Deci showed that ``money may
> work to buy off one's intrinsic motivation for an activity'' on a long-term
> basis. Ten years later, Deci and his colleagues demonstrated that trying to
> best others has the same effect. Students who competed to solve a puzzle
> quickly were less likely than those who were not competing to keep working at
> it once the experiment was over.
>
> Control plays role
>
> There is general agreement, however, that not all rewards have the same effect.
> Offering a flat fee for participating in an experiment - similar to an hourly
> wage in the workplace - usually does not reduce intrinsic motivation. It is
> only when the rewards are based on performing a given task or doing a good job
> at it - analogous to piece-rate payment and bonuses, respectively - that the
> problem develops.
>
> The key, then, lies in how a reward is experienced. If we come to view
> ourselves as working to get something, we will no longer find that activity
> worth doing in its own right.
>
> There is an old joke that nicely illustrates the principle. An elderly man,
> harassed by the taunts of neighborhood children, finally devises a scheme. He
> offered to pay each child a dollar if they would all return Tuesday and yell
> their insults again. They did so eagerly and received the money, but he told
> them he could only pay 25 cents on Wednesday. When they returned, insulted him
> again and collected their quarters, he informed them that Thursday's rate would
> be just a penny. ``Forget it,'' they said - and never taunted him again.
>
> Means to an end
>
> In a 1982 study, Stanford psychologist Mark L. Lepper showed that any task, no
> matter how enjoyable it once seemed, would be devalued if it were presented as
> a means rather than an end. He told a group of preschoolers they could not
> engage in one activity they liked until they first took part in another.
> Although they had enjoyed both activities equally, the children came to dislike
> the task that was a prerequisite for the other.
>
> It should not be surprising that when verbal feedback is experienced as
> controlling, the effect on motivation can be similar to that of payment. In a
> study of corporate employees, Ryan found that those who were told, ``Good,
> you're doing as you /should/'' were ``significantly less intrinsically
> motivated than those who received feedback informationally.''
>
> There's a difference, Ryan says, between saying, ``I'm giving you this reward
> because I recognize the value of your work'' and ``You're getting this reward
> because you've lived up to my standards.''
>
> A different but related set of problems exists in the case of creativity.
> Artists must make a living, of course, but Amabile emphasizes that ``the
> negative impact on creativity of working for rewards can be minimized'' by
> playing down the significance of these rewards and trying not to use them in a
> controlling way. Creative work, the research suggests, cannot be forced, but
> only allowed to happen.
>
> Alfie Kohn, a Cambridge, MA writer, is the author of ``No Contest: The Case
> Against Competition,'' recently published by Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, MA.
> ISBN 0-395-39387-6.
>
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