summaryrefslogtreecommitdiff
path: root/talermerchantdemos/blog/articles/en/motivation.html
diff options
context:
space:
mode:
Diffstat (limited to 'talermerchantdemos/blog/articles/en/motivation.html')
-rw-r--r--talermerchantdemos/blog/articles/en/motivation.html282
1 files changed, 282 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/talermerchantdemos/blog/articles/en/motivation.html b/talermerchantdemos/blog/articles/en/motivation.html
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..45cca5d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/talermerchantdemos/blog/articles/en/motivation.html
@@ -0,0 +1,282 @@
+<!--#include virtual="/server/header.html" -->
+<!-- Parent-Version: 1.77 -->
+<title>Studies Find Reward Often No Motivator - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation</title>
+
+<!--#include virtual="/server/gnun/initial-translations-list.html" -->
+<!--#include virtual="/server/banner.html" -->
+
+<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.]</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&mdash;the sense that something is worth doing for its own sake&mdash;typically declines when someone is rewarded for doing it.</p>
+
+<p>
+If a reward&mdash;money, awards, praise, or winning a contest&mdash;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 &ldquo;silly&rdquo;
+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. &ldquo;It may be
+that commissioned work will, in general, be less creative than work
+that is done out of pure interest,&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;The more
+complex the activity, the more it's hurt by extrinsic reward,&rdquo;
+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
+&ldquo;definitely refutes the notion that creativity can be operantly
+conditioned.&rdquo;</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. &ldquo;The basic principles
+of reinforcement and rewards certainly work, but in a restricted
+context&rdquo; &mdash;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. &ldquo;If they feel
+that &lsquo;this is something I have to get through to get the
+prize,&rsquo; they're going to be less creative,&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;To the extent one's experience of being
+self-determined is limited,&rdquo; said Richard Ryan, associate
+psychology professor at the University of Rochester, &ldquo;one's
+creativity will be reduced as well.&rdquo;</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
+&ldquo;money may work to buy off one's intrinsic motivation for an
+activity&rdquo; 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&mdash; similar to an hourly wage in the workplace&mdash;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&mdash;analogous to piece-rate payment and bonuses, respectively&mdash;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.
+&ldquo;Forget it,&rdquo; they said &mdash;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, &ldquo;Good, you're doing as you <em>should</em>&rdquo;
+were &ldquo;significantly less intrinsically motivated than those who
+received feedback informationally.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>
+There's a difference, Ryan says, between saying, &ldquo;I'm giving you
+this reward because I recognize the value of your work&rdquo; and
+&ldquo;You're getting this reward because you've lived up to my
+standards.&rdquo;</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 &ldquo;the negative impact on creativity of working
+for rewards can be minimized&rdquo; 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>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><em>Alfie Kohn, a Cambridge, MA writer, is the author of &ldquo;No
+Contest: The Case Against Competition,&rdquo; 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).</em></p>
+
+</div><!-- for id="content", starts in the include above -->
+<!--#include virtual="/server/footer.html" -->
+<div id="footer">
+<div class="unprintable">
+
+<p>Please send general FSF &amp; GNU inquiries to
+<a href="mailto:gnu@gnu.org">&lt;gnu@gnu.org&gt;</a>.
+There are also <a href="/contact/">other ways to contact</a>
+the FSF. Broken links and other corrections or suggestions can be sent
+to <a href="mailto:webmasters@gnu.org">&lt;webmasters@gnu.org&gt;</a>.</p>
+
+<p><!-- TRANSLATORS: Ignore the original text in this paragraph,
+ replace it with the translation of these two:
+
+ We work hard and do our best to provide accurate, good quality
+ translations. However, we are not exempt from imperfection.
+ Please send your comments and general suggestions in this regard
+ to <a href="mailto:web-translators@gnu.org">
+ &lt;web-translators@gnu.org&gt;</a>.</p>
+
+ <p>For information on coordinating and submitting translations of
+ our web pages, see <a
+ href="/server/standards/README.translations.html">Translations
+ README</a>. -->
+Please see the <a
+href="/server/standards/README.translations.html">Translations
+README</a> for information on coordinating and submitting translations
+of this article.</p>
+</div>
+
+<!-- Regarding copyright, in general, standalone pages (as opposed to
+ files generated as part of manuals) on the GNU web server should
+ be under CC BY-ND 3.0 US. Please do NOT change or remove this
+ without talking with the webmasters or licensing team first.
+ Please make sure the copyright date is consistent with the
+ document. For web pages, it is ok to list just the latest year the
+ document was modified, or published.
+
+ If you wish to list earlier years, that is ok too.
+ Either "2001, 2002, 2003" or "2001-2003" are ok for specifying
+ years, as long as each year in the range is in fact a copyrightable
+ year, i.e., a year in which the document was published (including
+ being publicly visible on the web or in a revision control system).
+
+ There is more detail about copyright years in the GNU Maintainers
+ Information document, www.gnu.org/prep/maintain. -->
+
+<p>Copyright &copy; 1987 Alfie Kohn.</p>
+
+<p>Verbatim copying and distribution is permitted in any medium
+provided this notice is preserved.</p>
+
+<!--#include virtual="/server/bottom-notes.html" -->
+
+<p class="unprintable">Updated:
+<!-- timestamp start -->
+$Date: 2014/04/12 12:40:27 $
+<!-- timestamp end -->
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+</body>
+</html>