[ciência aberta] How Rewards Can Backfire and Reduce Motivation

Sexta Maio 24 16:28:00 UTC 2013

http://www.spring.org.uk/2009/10/how-rewards-can-backfire-and-reduce-motivation.phpHow
Rewards Can Backfire and Reduce Motivation
[image: no_money] <http://www.flickr.com/photos/neubie/2273635564/>

Surely one of the best ways to generate motivation in ourselves and others
is by dangling rewards?

Yet psychologists have long known that rewards are overrated. The carrot,
of carrot-and-stick fame, is not as effective as we've been led to believe.
Rewards work under some circumstances but sometimes they backfire.
Spectacularly.

Here is a story about preschool children with much to teach all ages about
the strange effects that rewards have on our motivation.
It's child's play

Psychologists Mark R. Lepper and David Greene from Stanford and the
University of Michigan were interested in testing what is known as the
'overjustification' hypothesis—about which, more later (Lepper et al.,
1973)<http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/psp/28/1/129/>
.

Since parents so often use rewards as motivators for children they
recruited fifty-one preschoolers aged between 3 and 4. All the children
selected for the study were interested in drawing. It was crucial that they
already liked drawing because Lepper and Greene wanted to see what effect
rewards would have when children were already fond of the activity.

[image: child_drawing] <http://www.flickr.com/photos/tomono347/3782606365/>

The children were then randomly assigned to one of the following conditions:

   1. Expected reward. In this condition children were told they would get
   a certificate with a gold seal and ribbon if they took part.
   2. Surprise reward. In this condition children would receive the same
   reward as above but, crucially, weren't told about it until after the
   drawing activity was finished.
   3. No reward. Children in this condition expected no reward, and didn't
   receive one.

Each child was invited into a separate room to draw for 6 minutes then
afterwards either given their reward or not depending on the condition.
Then, over the next few days, the children were watched through one-way
mirrors to see how much they would continue drawing of their own accord.
The graph below shows the percentage of time they spent drawing by
experimental condition:

[image: time_spent_drawing2]

As you can see the *expected* reward had decreased the amount of
spontaneous interest the children took in drawing (and there was no
statistically significant difference between the no reward and surprise
reward group). So, those who had previously liked drawing were less
motivated once they expected to be rewarded for the activity. In fact the
expected reward reduced the amount of spontaneous drawing the children did
by half. Not only this, but judges rated the pictures drawn by the children
expecting a reward as less aesthetically pleasing.
Rewards reduce intrinsic motivation

It's not only children who display this kind of reaction to rewards,
though, subsequent studies have shown a similar effect in all sorts of
different populations, many of them grown-ups. In one study smokers who
were rewarded for their efforts to quit did better at first but after three
months fared worse than those given no rewards and no feedback (Curry et
al., 1990 <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2195084>). Indeed those given
rewards even lied more about the amount they were smoking.

Reviewing 128 studies on the effects of rewards Deci et al. (1999, p.
658)<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10589297> concluded
that:

"tangible rewards tend to have a substantially negative effect on intrinsic
motivation (...) Even when tangible rewards are offered as indicators of
good performance, they typically decrease intrinsic motivation for
interesting activities."

Rewards have even been found to make people less creative and worse at
problem-solving<http://www.spring.org.uk/2008/04/do-big-money-bonuses-really-increase.php>
.
Overjustification

So, what's going on? The key to understanding these behaviours lies in the
difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. When we do something
for its own sake, because we enjoy it or because it fills some deep-seated
desire, we are intrinsically motivated. On the other hand when we do
something because we receive some reward, like a certificate or money, this
is extrinsic motivation.

[image: bear2] <http://www.flickr.com/photos/penguinandfish/2267844074/>

The children were chosen in the first instance because they already liked
drawing and they were already intrinsically motivated to draw. It was
pleasurable, they were good at it and they got something out of it that fed
their souls. Then some of them got a reward for drawing and their
motivation changed.

Before they had been drawing because they enjoyed it, but now it seemed as
though they were drawing for the reward. What they had been motivated to do
intrinsically, they were now being given an external, extrinsic motivation
for. This provided *too much *justification for what they were doing and
so, paradoxically, afterwards they drew less.

This is the overjustification hypothesis for which Lepper and Greene were
searching and although it seems like backwards thinking, it's typical of
the way the mind sometimes works. We don't just work 'forwards' from our
attitudes and preferences to our actions, we also work 'backwards', working
out what our attitudes and preferences must be based on our current
situation, feelings or actions (see also: cognitive
dissonance<http://www.spring.org.uk/2007/10/how-and-why-we-lie-to-ourselves.php>
).
When money makes play into work

Not only this but rewards are dangerous for another reason: because they
remind us of obligations, of being made to do things we don't want to do.
Children are given rewards for eating all their food, doing their homework
or tidying their bedrooms. So rewards become associated with painful
activities that we don't want to do. The same goes for grown-ups: money
becomes associated with work and work can be dull, tedious and painful. So
when we get paid for something we automatically assume that the task is
dull, tedious and painful—even when it isn't.

This is why play can become work when we get paid. The person who
previously enjoyed painting pictures, weaving baskets, playing the cello or
even writing blog posts, suddenly finds the task tedious once money has
become involved.

Yes, sometimes rewards do work, especially if people really don't want to
do something. But when tasks are inherently interesting to us rewards can
damage our motivation by undermining our natural talent for self-regulation.

→ This post is part of a series on 10 more brilliant social psychology
studies<http://www.spring.org.uk/2010/01/10-more-brilliant-social-psychology-studies.php>
:

   - Why You Can’t Help Believing Everything You
Read<http://www.spring.org.uk/2009/09/why-you-cant-help-believing-everything-you-read.php>
   - The Truth About
Self-Deception<http://www.spring.org.uk/2009/10/the-truth-about-self-deception.php>
   - How Rewards Can Backfire and Reduce Motivation
   - Why Groups Fail to Share Information
Effectively<http://www.spring.org.uk/2009/08/why-groups-fail-to-share-information-effectively.php>
   - Why Thought Suppression is
Counter-Productive<http://www.spring.org.uk/2009/05/why-thought-suppression-is-counter-productive.php>
   - The Chameleon
Effect<http://www.spring.org.uk/2009/11/the-chameleon-effect.php>
   - How Other People’s Unspoken Expectations Control
Us<http://www.spring.org.uk/2009/12/how-other-peoples-expectations-control-us.php>
   - When Situations Not Personality Dictate Our
Behaviour<http://www.spring.org.uk/2009/12/when-situations-not-personality-dictate-our-behaviour.php>
   - Finding The Surprising Gaps in Your
Self-Knowledge<http://www.spring.org.uk/2010/01/what-are-the-shocking-voids-in-your-self-knowledge.php>
   - Stereotypes: Why We Act Without
Thinking<http://www.spring.org.uk/2010/01/stereotypes-why-we-act-without-thinking.php>

-- 
*Carolina Rossini*
http://carolinarossini.net/
+ 1 6176979389
*carolina.rossini em gmail.com*
skype: carolrossini
@carolinarossini
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