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