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1.1     ! root        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. /

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