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author | Glenn Morris <rgm@gnu.org> |
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date | Thu, 05 Mar 2009 07:09:33 +0000 |
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26119 | 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 | |
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10 Verbatim copying and distribution is permitted in any medium |
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11 provided this notice is preserved. |
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26119 | 13 In the laboratory, rats get Rice Krispies. In the classroom the top |
14 students get A's, and in the factory or office the best workers get | |
15 raises. It's an article of faith for most of us that rewards promote | |
16 better performance. | |
17 | |
18 But a growing body of research suggests that this law is not nearly as | |
19 ironclad as was once thought. Psychologists have been finding that | |
20 rewards can lower performance levels, especially when the performance | |
21 involves creativity. | |
22 | |
23 A related series of studies shows that intrinsic interest in a task - | |
24 the sense that something is worth doing for its own sake - typically | |
25 declines when someone is rewarded for doing it. | |
26 | |
27 If a reward - money, awards, praise, or winning a contest - comes to | |
28 be seen as the reason one is engaging in an activity, that activity | |
29 will be viewed as less enjoyable in its own right. | |
30 | |
31 With the exception of some behaviorists who doubt the very existence | |
32 of intrinsic motivation, these conclusions are now widely accepted | |
33 among psychologists. Taken together, they suggest we may unwittingly | |
34 be squelching interest and discouraging innovation among workers, | |
35 students and artists. | |
36 | |
37 The recognition that rewards can have counter-productive effects is | |
38 based on a variety of studies, which have come up with such findings | |
39 as these: Young children who are rewarded for drawing are less likely | |
40 to draw on their own that are children who draw just for the fun of | |
41 it. Teenagers offered rewards for playing word games enjoy the games | |
42 less and do not do as well as those who play with no rewards. | |
43 Employees who are praised for meeting a manager's expectations suffer | |
44 a drop in motivation. | |
45 | |
46 Much of the research on creativity and motivation has been performed | |
47 by Theresa Amabile, associate professor of psychology at Brandeis | |
48 University. In a paper published early last year on her most recent | |
49 study, she reported on experiments involving elementary school and | |
50 college students. Both groups were asked to make "silly" collages. | |
51 The young children were also asked to invent stories. | |
52 | |
53 The least-creative projects, as rated by several teachers, were done | |
54 by those students who had contracted for rewards. "It may be that | |
55 commissioned work will, in general, be less creative than work that is | |
56 done out of pure interest," Amabile said. | |
57 | |
58 In 1985, Amabile asked 72 creative writers at Brandeis and at Boston | |
59 University to write poetry. Some students then were given a list of | |
60 extrinsic (external) reasons for writing, such as impressing teachers, | |
61 making money and getting into graduate school, and were asked to think | |
62 about their own writing with respect to these reasons. Others were | |
63 given a list of intrinsic reasons: the enjoyment of playing with | |
64 words, satisfaction from self-expression, and so forth. A third group | |
65 was not given any list. All were then asked to do more writing. | |
66 | |
67 The results were clear. Students given the extrinsic reasons not only | |
68 wrote less creatively than the others, as judged by 12 independent | |
69 poets, but the quality of their work dropped significantly. Rewards, | |
70 Amabile says, have this destructive effect primarily with creative | |
71 tasks, including higher-level problem-solving. "The more complex the | |
72 activity, the more it's hurt by extrinsic reward," she said. | |
73 | |
74 But other research shows that artists are by no means the only ones | |
75 affected. | |
76 | |
77 In one study, girls in the fifth and sixth grades tutored younger | |
78 children much less effectively if they were promised free movie | |
79 tickets for teaching well. The study, by James Gabarino, now | |
80 president of Chicago's Erikson Institute for Advanced Studies in Child | |
81 Development, showed that tutors working for the reward took longer to | |
82 communicate ideas, got frustrated more easily, and did a poorer job in | |
83 the end than those who were not rewarded. | |
84 | |
85 Such findings call into question the widespread belief that money is | |
86 an effective and even necessary way to motivate people. They also | |
87 challenge the behaviorist assumption that any activity is more likely | |
88 to occur if it is rewarded. Amabile says her research "definitely | |
89 refutes the notion that creativity can be operantly conditioned." | |
90 | |
91 But Kenneth McGraw, associate professor of psychology at the | |
92 University of Mississippi, cautions that this does not mean | |
93 behaviorism itself has been invalidated. "The basic principles of | |
94 reinforcement and rewards certainly work, but in a restricted context" | |
95 - restricted, that is, to tasks that are not especially interesting. | |
96 | |
97 Researchers offer several explanations for their surprising findings | |
98 about rewards and performance. | |
99 | |
100 First, rewards encourage people to focus narrowly on a task, to do it | |
101 as quickly as possible and to take few risks. "If they feel that | |
50969 | 102 'this is something I have to get through to get the prize,' they're |
26119 | 103 going to be less creative," Amabile said. |
104 | |
105 Second, people come to see themselves as being controlled by the | |
106 reward. They feel less autonomous, and this may interfere with | |
107 performance. "To the extent one's experience of being | |
108 self-determined is limited," said Richard Ryan, associate psychology | |
109 professor at the University of Rochester, "one's creativity will be | |
110 reduced as well." | |
111 | |
112 Finally, extrinsic rewards can erode intrinsic interest. People who | |
113 see themselves as working for money, approval or competitive success | |
114 find their tasks less pleasurable, and therefore do not do them as | |
115 well. | |
116 | |
117 The last explanation reflects 15 years of work by Ryan's mentor at the | |
118 University of Rochester, Edward Deci. In 1971, Deci showed that | |
119 "money may work to buy off one's intrinsic motivation for an activity" | |
120 on a long-term basis. Ten years later, Deci and his colleagues | |
121 demonstrated that trying to best others has the same effect. Students | |
122 who competed to solve a puzzle quickly were less likely than those who | |
123 were not competing to keep working at it once the experiment was over. | |
124 | |
125 Control plays role | |
126 | |
127 There is general agreement, however, that not all rewards have the | |
128 same effect. Offering a flat fee for participating in an experiment - | |
129 similar to an hourly wage in the workplace - usually does not reduce | |
130 intrinsic motivation. It is only when the rewards are based on | |
131 performing a given task or doing a good job at it - analogous to | |
132 piece-rate payment and bonuses, respectively - that the problem | |
133 develops. | |
134 | |
135 The key, then, lies in how a reward is experienced. If we come to | |
136 view ourselves as working to get something, we will no longer find | |
137 that activity worth doing in its own right. | |
138 | |
139 There is an old joke that nicely illustrates the principle. An | |
140 elderly man, harassed by the taunts of neighborhood children, finally | |
141 devises a scheme. He offered to pay each child a dollar if they would | |
142 all return Tuesday and yell their insults again. They did so eagerly | |
143 and received the money, but he told them he could only pay 25 cents on | |
144 Wednesday. When they returned, insulted him again and collected their | |
145 quarters, he informed them that Thursday's rate would be just a penny. | |
146 "Forget it," they said - and never taunted him again. | |
147 | |
148 Means to and end | |
149 | |
150 In a 1982 study, Stanford psychologist Mark L. Lepper showed that any | |
151 task, no matter how enjoyable it once seemed, would be devalued if it | |
152 were presented as a means rather than an end. He told a group of | |
153 preschoolers they could not engage in one activity they liked until | |
154 they first took part in another. Although they had enjoyed both | |
155 activities equally, the children came to dislike the task that was a | |
156 prerequisite for the other. | |
157 | |
158 It should not be surprising that when verbal feedback is experienced | |
159 as controlling, the effect on motivation can be similar to that of | |
160 payment. In a study of corporate employees, Ryan found that those who | |
161 were told, "Good, you're doing as you /should/" were "significantly | |
162 less intrinsically motivated than those who received feedback | |
163 informationally." | |
164 | |
165 There's a difference, Ryan says, between saying, "I'm giving you this | |
166 reward because I recognize the value of your work" and "You're getting | |
167 this reward because you've lived up to my standards." | |
168 | |
169 A different but related set of problems exists in the case of | |
170 creativity. Artists must make a living, of course, but Amabile | |
171 emphasizes that "the negative impact on creativity of working for | |
172 rewards can be minimized" by playing down the significance of these | |
173 rewards and trying not to use them in a controlling way. Creative | |
174 work, the research suggests, cannot be forced, but only allowed to | |
175 happen. | |
176 | |
177 /Alfie Kohn, a Cambridge, MA writer, is the author of "No Contest: The | |
178 Case Against Competition," recently published by Houghton Mifflin Co., | |
179 Boston, MA. ISBN 0-395-39387-6. / |