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1 | STUDIES FIND REWARD OFTEN NO MOTIVATOR |
2 | ||
3 | Creativity and intrinsic interest diminish if task is done for gain | |
4 | ||
5 | By Alfie Kohn | |
6 | Special to the Boston Globe | |
7 | [reprinted with permission of the author | |
8 | from the Monday 19 January 1987 Boston Globe] | |
9 | ||
10 | In the laboratory, rats get Rice Krispies. In the classroom the top | |
11 | students get A's, and in the factory or office the best workers get | |
12 | raises. It's an article of faith for most of us that rewards promote | |
13 | better performance. | |
14 | ||
15 | But a growing body of research suggests that this law is not nearly as | |
16 | ironclad as was once thought. Psychologists have been finding that | |
17 | rewards can lower performance levels, especially when the performance | |
18 | involves creativity. | |
19 | ||
20 | A related series of studies shows that intrinsic interest in a task - | |
21 | the sense that something is worth doing for its own sake - typically | |
22 | declines when someone is rewarded for doing it. | |
23 | ||
24 | If a reward - money, awards, praise, or winning a contest - comes to | |
25 | be seen as the reason one is engaging in an activity, that activity | |
26 | will be viewed as less enjoyable in its own right. | |
27 | ||
28 | With the exception of some behaviorists who doubt the very existence | |
29 | of intrinsic motivation, these conclusions are now widely accepted | |
30 | among psychologists. Taken together, they suggest we may unwittingly | |
31 | be squelching interest and discouraging innovation among workers, | |
32 | students and artists. | |
33 | ||
34 | The recognition that rewards can have counter-productive effects is | |
35 | based on a variety of studies, which have come up with such findings | |
36 | as these: Young children who are rewarded for drawing are less likely | |
37 | to draw on their own that are children who draw just for the fun of | |
38 | it. Teenagers offered rewards for playing word games enjoy the games | |
39 | less and do not do as well as those who play with no rewards. | |
40 | Employees who are praised for meeting a manager's expectations suffer | |
41 | a drop in motivation. | |
42 | ||
43 | Much of the research on creativity and motivation has been performed | |
44 | by Theresa Amabile, associate professor of psychology at Brandeis | |
45 | University. In a paper published early last year on her most recent | |
46 | study, she reported on experiments involving elementary school and | |
47 | college students. Both groups were asked to make "silly" collages. | |
48 | The young children were also asked to invent stories. | |
49 | ||
50 | The least-creative projects, as rated by several teachers, were done | |
51 | by those students who had contracted for rewards. "It may be that | |
52 | commissioned work will, in general, be less creative than work that is | |
53 | done out of pure interest," Amabile said. | |
54 | ||
55 | In 1985, Amabile asked 72 creative writers at Brandeis and at Boston | |
56 | University to write poetry. Some students then were given a list of | |
57 | extrinsic (external) reasons for writing, such as impressing teachers, | |
58 | making money and getting into graduate school, and were asked to think | |
59 | about their own writing with respect to these reasons. Others were | |
60 | given a list of intrinsic reasons: the enjoyment of playing with | |
61 | words, satisfaction from self-expression, and so forth. A third group | |
62 | was not given any list. All were then asked to do more writing. | |
63 | ||
64 | The results were clear. Students given the extrinsic reasons not only | |
65 | wrote less creatively than the others, as judged by 12 independent | |
66 | poets, but the quality of their work dropped significantly. Rewards, | |
67 | Amabile says, have this destructive effect primarily with creative | |
68 | tasks, including higher-level problem-solving. "The more complex the | |
69 | activity, the more it's hurt by extrinsic reward," she said. | |
70 | ||
71 | But other research shows that artists are by no means the only ones | |
72 | affected. | |
73 | ||
74 | In one study, girls in the fifth and sixth grades tutored younger | |
75 | children much less effectively if they were promised free movie | |
76 | tickets for teaching well. The study, by James Gabarino, now | |
77 | president of Chicago's Erikson Institute for Advanced Studies in Child | |
78 | Development, showed that tutors working for the reward took longer to | |
79 | communicate ideas, got frustrated more easily, and did a poorer job in | |
80 | the end than those who were not rewarded. | |
81 | ||
82 | Such findings call into question the widespread belief that money is | |
83 | an effective and even necessary way to motivate people. They also | |
84 | challenge the behaviorist assumption that any activity is more likely | |
85 | to occur if it is rewarded. Amabile says her research "definitely | |
86 | refutes the notion that creativity can be operantly conditioned." | |
87 | ||
88 | But Kenneth McGraw, associate professor of psychology at the | |
89 | University of Mississippi, cautions that this does not mean | |
90 | behaviorism itself has been invalidated. "The basic principles of | |
91 | reinforcement and rewards certainly work, but in a restricted context" | |
92 | - restricted, that is, to tasks that are not especially interesting. | |
93 | ||
94 | Researchers offer several explanations for their surprising findings | |
95 | about rewards and performance. | |
96 | ||
97 | First, rewards encourage people to focus narrowly on a task, to do it | |
98 | as quickly as possible and to take few risks. "If they feel that | |
99 | 'this is something I hve to get through to get the prize,' the're | |
100 | going to be less creative," Amabile said. | |
101 | ||
102 | Second, people come to see themselves as being controlled by the | |
103 | reward. They feel less autonomous, and this may interfere with | |
104 | performance. "To the extent one's experience of being | |
105 | self-determined is limited," said Richard Ryan, associate psychology | |
106 | professor at the University of Rochester, "one's creativity will be | |
107 | reduced as well." | |
108 | ||
109 | Finally, extrinsic rewards can erode intrinsic interest. People who | |
110 | see themselves as working for money, approval or competitive success | |
111 | find their tasks less pleasurable, and therefore do not do them as | |
112 | well. | |
113 | ||
114 | The last explanation reflects 15 years of work by Ryan's mentor at the | |
115 | University of Rochester, Edward Deci. In 1971, Deci showed that | |
116 | "money may work to buy off one's intrinsic motivation for an activity" | |
117 | on a long-term basis. Ten years later, Deci and his colleagues | |
118 | demonstrated that trying to best others has the same effect. Students | |
119 | who competed to solve a puzzle quickly were less likely than those who | |
120 | were not competing to keep working at it once the experiment was over. | |
121 | ||
122 | Control plays role | |
123 | ||
124 | There is general agreement, however, that not all rewards have the | |
125 | same effect. Offering a flat fee for participating in an experiment - | |
126 | similar to an hourly wage in the workplace - usually does not reduce | |
127 | intrinsic motivation. It is only when the rewards are based on | |
128 | performing a given task or doing a good job at it - analogous to | |
129 | piece-rate payment and bonuses, respectively - that the problem | |
130 | develops. | |
131 | ||
132 | The key, then, lies in how a reward is experienced. If we come to | |
133 | view ourselves as working to get something, we will no longer find | |
134 | that activity worth doing in its own right. | |
135 | ||
136 | There is an old joke that nicely illustrates the principle. An | |
137 | elderly man, harassed by the taunts of neighborhood children, finally | |
138 | devises a scheme. He offered to pay each child a dollar if they would | |
139 | all return Tuesday and yell their insults again. They did so eagerly | |
140 | and received the money, but he told them he could only pay 25 cents on | |
141 | Wednesday. When they returned, insulted him again and collected their | |
142 | quarters, he informed them that Thursday's rate would be just a penny. | |
143 | "Forget it," they said - and never taunted him again. | |
144 | ||
145 | Means to and end | |
146 | ||
147 | In a 1982 study, Stanford psychologist Mark L. Lepper showed that any | |
148 | task, no matter how enjoyable it once seemed, would be devalued if it | |
149 | were presented as a means rather than an end. He told a group of | |
150 | preschoolers they could not engage in one activity they liked until | |
151 | they first took part in another. Although they had enjoyed both | |
152 | activities equally, the children came to dislike the task that was a | |
153 | prerequisite for the other. | |
154 | ||
155 | It should not be surprising that when verbal feedback is experienced | |
156 | as controlling, the effect on motivation can be similar to that of | |
157 | payment. In a study of corporate employees, Ryan found that those who | |
158 | were told, "Good, you're doing as you /should/" were "significantly | |
159 | less intrinsically motivated than those who received feedback | |
160 | informationally." | |
161 | ||
162 | There's a difference, Ryan says, between saying, "I'm giving you this | |
163 | reward because I recognize the value of your work" and "You're getting | |
164 | this reward because you've lived up to my standards." | |
165 | ||
166 | A different but related set of problems exists in the case of | |
167 | creativity. Artists must make a living, of course, but Amabile | |
168 | emphasizes that "the negative impact on creativity of working for | |
169 | rewards can be minimized" by playing down the significance of these | |
170 | rewards and trying not to use them in a controlling way. Creative | |
171 | work, the research suggests, cannot be forced, but only allowed to | |
172 | happen. | |
173 | ||
174 | /Alfie Kohn, a Cambridge, MA writer, is the author of "No Contest: The | |
175 | Case Against Competition," recently published by Houghton Mifflin Co., | |
176 | Boston, MA. ISBN 0-395-39387-6. / |