I read this article on psyblog about how rewards can sometimes backfire or reduce motivation. Two people from the University of Michigan did a study with 51 preschoolers between the ages of 4 and 3. These ages were chosen because this is usually the age where parents are most likely to bribe their child to get them to do a desired task.
The preschoolers were divided into three groups: 1)expected a certificate for drawing, 2)surprised with a reward which was a certificate for drawing, and 3) no reward. For this study to be successful it was imperative that the children like to draw. The students were told to draw for six minutes and then depending on what group they were in received a reward or not. Over the next few days they observed the children through one way mirrors to see if they would have the motivation to draw on their own and if the promised reward would be an incentive to draw, or would they neglect drawing all together.
The study showed that approximately 5% of the children in group one had the motivation to draw. So promised rewards might not be very motivating. Approximately 15% of the students from group three that did not receive a reward took the initiative to draw. Surprisingly 20% of the students from group two were more motivated to draw with a surprise reward. According to the article the same results were true in a different study with smokers trying to quit.
The article goes on to discuss what happens when you add another variable into the situation. The variable they are talking about is money. The article explains that often when we use rewards we give them out for people who have completed a hard, painful, or even somewhat tedious task. An example of this would be work ... even though we need money to pay for food, clothing, shelter, and other necessities in order to survive. What the article is referring to is when you pay people to do something that they enjoy they tend to lose interest for it because subconsciously or psychologically we tend to associate rewards for accomplishing tedious, painful, or hard things. I found it interesting because I personally have never associated rewards in that sense before.
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Wow, very interesting. I never really stopped to think about rewards in this way. What really shocked me was the number of those that received rewards lost interest in doing a task. In the end I guess it does make sense that a person becomes rather bored with something that they used to enjoy. I’m sure I would get sick of working on the same thing for a long period of time too, even if was receiving a reward.
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