CVSROOT: /web/www
Module name: www
Changes by: Pavel Kharitonov <ineiev> 12/01/05 16:32:49
Removed files:
philosophy : motivation.html
Log message:
Remove the article RT #713936
CVSWeb URLs:
http://web.cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewcvs/www/philosophy/motivation.html?cvsroot=www&r1=1.15&r2=0
Patches:
Index: motivation.html
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-<!--#include virtual="/server/header.html" -->
-<title>Studies Find Reward Often No Motivator - GNU Project - Free Software
Foundation (FSF)</title>
-<!--#include virtual="/server/banner.html" -->
-<!--#include virtual="/philosophy/po/motivation.translist" -->
-<h2>Studies Find Reward Often No Motivator</h2>
-
-<h3>Creativity and intrinsic interest diminish if task is done for gain</h3>
-
-<p>
-by <strong>Alfie Kohn</strong>
-<br />
-Special to the Boston Globe
-<br />
-[reprinted with permission of the author from the Monday, 19 January
-1987, Boston Globe. Also granted translation rights by kind courtesy
-of the author in 2003. ed.]</p>
-
-<p>
-In the laboratory, rats get Rice Krispies. In the classroom the top
-students get A's, and in the factory or office the best workers get
-raises. It's an article of faith for most of us that rewards promote
-better performance.</p>
-
-<p>
-But a growing body of research suggests that this law is not nearly as
-ironclad as was once thought. Psychologists have been finding that
-rewards can lower performance levels, especially when the performance
-involves creativity.</p>
-
-<p>
-A related series of studies shows that intrinsic interest in a task
-— the sense that something is worth doing for its own sake
-— typically declines when someone is rewarded for doing it.</p>
-
-<p>
-If a reward — money, awards, praise, or winning a contest
-— comes to be seen as the reason one is engaging in an activity,
-that activity will be viewed as less enjoyable in its own right.</p>
-
-<p>
-With the exception of some behaviorists who doubt the very existence
-of intrinsic motivation, these conclusions are now widely accepted
-among psychologists. Taken together, they suggest we may unwittingly
-be squelching interest and discouraging innovation among workers,
-students and artists.</p>
-
-<p>
-The recognition that rewards can have counter-productive effects is
-based on a variety of studies, which have come up with such findings
-as these: Young children who are rewarded for drawing are less likely
-to draw on their own that are children who draw just for the fun of
-it. Teenagers offered rewards for playing word games enjoy the games
-less and do not do as well as those who play with no rewards.
-Employees who are praised for meeting a manager's expectations suffer
-a drop in motivation.</p>
-
-<p>
-Much of the research on creativity and motivation has been performed
-by Theresa Amabile, associate professor of psychology at Brandeis
-University. In a paper published early last year on her most recent
-study, she reported on experiments involving elementary school and
-college students. Both groups were asked to make “silly”
-collages. The young children were also asked to invent stories.</p>
-
-<p>
-The least-creative projects, as rated by several teachers, were done
-by those students who had contracted for rewards. “It may be
-that commissioned work will, in general, be less creative than work
-that is done out of pure interest,” Amabile said.</p>
-
-<p>
-In 1985, Amabile asked 72 creative writers at Brandeis and at Boston
-University to write poetry. Some students then were given a list of
-extrinsic (external) reasons for writing, such as impressing teachers,
-making money and getting into graduate school, and were asked to think
-about their own writing with respect to these reasons. Others were
-given a list of intrinsic reasons: the enjoyment of playing with
-words, satisfaction from self-expression, and so forth. A third group
-was not given any list. All were then asked to do more writing.</p>
-
-<p>
-The results were clear. Students given the extrinsic reasons not only
-wrote less creatively than the others, as judged by 12 independent
-poets, but the quality of their work dropped significantly. Rewards,
-Amabile says, have this destructive effect primarily with creative
-tasks, including higher-level problem-solving. “The more
-complex the activity, the more it's hurt by extrinsic reward,”
-she said.</p>
-
-<p>
-But other research shows that artists are by no means the only ones
-affected.</p>
-
-<p>
-In one study, girls in the fifth and sixth grades tutored younger
-children much less effectively if they were promised free movie
-tickets for teaching well. The study, by James Gabarino, now
-president of Chicago's Erikson Institute for Advanced Studies in Child
-Development, showed that tutors working for the reward took longer to
-communicate ideas, got frustrated more easily, and did a poorer job in
-the end than those who were not rewarded.</p>
-
-<p>
-Such findings call into question the widespread belief that money is
-an effective and even necessary way to motivate people. They also
-challenge the behaviorist assumption that any activity is more likely
-to occur if it is rewarded. Amabile says her research
-“definitely refutes the notion that creativity can be operantly
-conditioned.”</p>
-
-<p>
-But Kenneth McGraw, associate professor of psychology at the
-University of Mississippi, cautions that this does not mean
-behaviorism itself has been invalidated. “The basic principles
-of reinforcement and rewards certainly work, but in a restricted
-context” — restricted, that is, to tasks that are not
-especially interesting.</p>
-
-<p>
-Researchers offer several explanations for their surprising findings
-about rewards and performance.</p>
-
-<p>
-First, rewards encourage people to focus narrowly on a task, to do it
-as quickly as possible and to take few risks. “If they feel
-that ‘this is something I have to get through to get the
-prize,’ they're going to be less creative,” Amabile
-said.</p>
-
-<p>
-Second, people come to see themselves as being controlled by the
-reward. They feel less autonomous, and this may interfere with
-performance. “To the extent one's experience of being
-self-determined is limited,” said Richard Ryan, associate
-psychology professor at the University of Rochester, “one's
-creativity will be reduced as well.”</p>
-
-<p>
-Finally, extrinsic rewards can erode intrinsic interest. People who
-see themselves as working for money, approval or competitive success
-find their tasks less pleasurable, and therefore do not do them as
-well.</p>
-
-<p>
-The last explanation reflects 15 years of work by Ryan's mentor at the
-University of Rochester, Edward Deci. In 1971, Deci showed that
-“money may work to buy off one's intrinsic motivation for an
-activity” on a long-term basis. Ten years later, Deci and his
-colleagues demonstrated that trying to best others has the same
-effect. Students who competed to solve a puzzle quickly were less
-likely than those who were not competing to keep working at it once
-the experiment was over.</p>
-
-<h3 id="sec1">Control plays role</h3>
-
-<p>
-There is general agreement, however, that not all rewards have the
-same effect. Offering a flat fee for participating in an experiment
-— similar to an hourly wage in the workplace — usually
-does not reduce intrinsic motivation. It is only when the rewards are
-based on performing a given task or doing a good job at it —
-analogous to piece-rate payment and bonuses, respectively — that
-the problem develops.</p>
-
-<p>
-The key, then, lies in how a reward is experienced. If we come to
-view ourselves as working to get something, we will no longer find
-that activity worth doing in its own right.</p>
-
-<p>
-There is an old joke that nicely illustrates the principle. An
-elderly man, harassed by the taunts of neighborhood children, finally
-devises a scheme. He offered to pay each child a dollar if they would
-all return Tuesday and yell their insults again. They did so eagerly
-and received the money, but he told them he could only pay 25 cents on
-Wednesday. When they returned, insulted him again and collected their
-quarters, he informed them that Thursday's rate would be just a penny.
-“Forget it,” they said — and never taunted him
-again.</p>
-
-<h3 id="sec2">Means to an end</h3>
-
-<p>
-In a 1982 study, Stanford psychologist Mark L. Lepper showed that any
-task, no matter how enjoyable it once seemed, would be devalued if it
-were presented as a means rather than an end. He told a group of
-preschoolers they could not engage in one activity they liked until
-they first took part in another. Although they had enjoyed both
-activities equally, the children came to dislike the task that was a
-prerequisite for the other.</p>
-
-<p>
-It should not be surprising that when verbal feedback is experienced
-as controlling, the effect on motivation can be similar to that of
-payment. In a study of corporate employees, Ryan found that those who
-were told, “Good, you're doing as you <em>should</em>”
-were “significantly less intrinsically motivated than those who
-received feedback informationally.”</p>
-
-<p>
-There's a difference, Ryan says, between saying, “I'm giving you
-this reward because I recognize the value of your work” and
-“You're getting this reward because you've lived up to my
-standards.”</p>
-
-<p>
-A different but related set of problems exists in the case of
-creativity. Artists must make a living, of course, but Amabile
-emphasizes that “the negative impact on creativity of working
-for rewards can be minimized” by playing down the significance
-of these rewards and trying not to use them in a controlling way.
-Creative work, the research suggests, cannot be forced, but only
-allowed to happen.</p>
-
-<p>
-Alfie Kohn, a Cambridge, MA writer, is the author of “No
-Contest: The Case Against Competition,” published by Houghton
-Mifflin Co., Boston, MA. ISBN 0-395-39387-6. For more information on
-this topic, see the author's website (www.alfiekohn.org) and his book
-PUNISHED BY REWARDS (rev. ed., Houghton Mifflin, 1999).</p>
-
-</div>
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-Updated:
-<!-- timestamp start -->
-$Date: 2011/09/20 08:15:40 $
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