Do Rewards Ruin Intrinsic Motivation?

: Resolving the Controversy

by Paul Coyne Ph.D.

A three year old girl had excessive tantrums associated with compliance situa-

tions at home and at preschool. When she was asked or instructed to do behave in a

certain way, she responded with a loud, “No!”, frequently accompanied with kicking and

screaming. At times she banged her head on the floor. The parents asked if I would

come visit and provide some suggestions. I agreed. One of several suggestions made

involved using rewards (reinforcers) to reinforce compliance to instructions. I dusted off

a compliance training handout that instructs parents to provide praise and tangible re-

wards to a child when the child complies. The parents agreed to provide the child with

praise and a sticker when she took her bath, brushed her teeth, put her pajamas on, lis-

tened to story, and hopped into bed. In bed she traded her 5 stickers for a favorite

stuffed animal to sleep with. I demonstrated how to use ‘Sit & Watch’ as a consequence

for noncompliance and tantrums (for example, “I want you to sit and watch how your

brother eats his lunch without screaming.”). I discussed also making morning, after

school and bedtime routines more consistent and predictable.

The Mom mentioned the reward aspect of the program to her preschool teacher, and

friends. She received considerable negative feedback. It seems the preschool teacher

believed that using external rewards had a detrimental effect on children by counteract-

ing their intrinsic motivation. Are you always going to provide rewards for everything she

does?, she was asked, the more your reward kids, the more their self motivation is ru-

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ined. The teacher advised against using any sticker program. The Mom turned to me

and asked why I advocated using extrinsic rewards when others did not.

The teacher’s comments were contrary to the research I’ve read and the training

I received in Child Development. The comments reminded me of statements by Alfie

Kahn the author of Punished by Rewards, and Edward Deci whose research in the

1970s raised the mistaken belief that rewards hurt intrinsic motivation. I was also re-

minded of several posts on The New York Times’ Motherlode Blog that advocated simi-

lar sentiments, such as Lisa Belkin’s 11/14/08 post Does Rewarding Children Backfire?,

Ron Lieber’s 10/3/13 post on The Accumulated Wisdom of Bribing Your Children, and

Natasha Singer’s 11/16/2014 post on ClassDojo. So, I thought I’d post my answer to

her question by summarizing the work of Judy Cameron and David Pierce who offer

strong evidence that providing extrinsic rewards under most circumstances will increase

not decrease intrinsic motivation.

Judy Cameron and W. David Pierce examined the conditions under which the

presentation of rewards either negatively affected or improved intrinsic motivation. They

published the results in their book Rewards and Intrinsic Motivation: Resolving the Con-

troversy and in several subsequent publications. They reviewed over 100 research stud-

ies that investigated the effects of reinforcement on intrinsic motivation, including the

work of Edward Deci and his colleagues. They defined intrinsic motivation by measuring

the time a child spend engaged in a target activity without reinforcement given a choice

of activities to do. Their analysis indicated the following:

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 1) providing rewards for activities that are inherently reinforcing did not reduce

the frequency a person will engage in the activities once the artificial rewards were no

longer provided;

2) Rewards provided for low interest tasks increased the chances the task be-

came more inherently reinforcing once the artificial rewards were no longer forthcoming;

3) rewards (including praise) provided for high interest tasks increased the

chances the task remained inherently reinforcing once the artificial rewards were no

longer forthcoming;

4) When rewards were presented unexpectedly, there was no effect on intrinsic

motivation;

5) When rewards were presented independent of the activity (i.e., regardless of

what the person did), there was no effect on intrinsic motivation;

6) When people were reinforced for doing a task with little regard to the quality of

their work, or with little regard to ensure the reinforcer was considered a reinforcer by

the person, the person tended to do the activity less often in a free-choice period pro-

vided thereafter;

7) When people were reinforced for surpassing a personal goal or surpassing the

performance of others intrinsic motivation increased;

8) When people were reinforced for each unit completed (e.g., here are 10 puz-

zles, I’ll give you 10 cents for each puzzle completed), yet did not obtain the full reward

available (e.g. only completed 6 of 10 puzzles) people tended to do the activity less in a

free choice situation presented thereafter;

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 9) If people were told they could obtain a certain level of reward for doing an ac-

tivity within a certain time limit but did not obtain that level of reward because they ran

out of time, they tended to do the activity less in a subsequent free choice situation.

10) When researchers exposed children to a baseline period where no external

rewards were available for engaging in an inherently enjoyable activity, then began a

equal period where rewards were provided, then returned to baseline where no external

rewards were available, children who were rewarded spent as much (or more) time on

the enjoyable activity during the post reward phase as they did during the initial baseline

period.

11) Negative effects of reward (e.g., #8 & 9) were transitory when task perfor-

mance was reinforced over several occasions.

We spoke to the parents about these issues. Extrinsic reinforcement itself did not

result in a decrease in intrinsic motivation but rather it was the way the promise of the

reward was initiated that mattered. Intrinsic motivation decreased when rewards were

not tied to the quality of the work, or when the person received fewer rewards than

those promised. Tangentially, I suggested they avoid promising a reward when the child

misbehaved in order to entice her to behave well. The promise of a reward can be a re-

ward itself so by doing so they may inadvertently reinforce the child for behaving badly.

I mentioned another point: don’t promise rewards that require a level of performance

beyond the child’s ability.

Cameron and Pierce’s discovery that rewards increase performance on low in-

terest tasks, and simultaneously increase intrinsic motivation is an important finding for

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parents and teachers. Parents and teachers can, without feeling guilty, use external re-

wards to motivate children to learn important academic skills when the child has little

initial interest, and by doing so make the activity more enjoyable. Robert Eisenberger,

author of Learned Industriousness encourages tying rewards to demanding standards

as one way to increase motivation for challenging tasks, such as reading and math. Re-

searchers Stephen Flora and David Flora urge parents to pay children to read. They

examined the reading habits of college students who participated in the ‘Book It’ reading

program. Over 22 million children in Austrailia set reading goals and received money or

coupons for pizzas if their goals were met. Children who were rewarded for reading in-

creased the amount they read as children and maintained their interest in reading as

college students. Dr. Flora states there was no evidence for “the myth that extrinsic re-

wards inhibit internal motivation”.

References

Cameron, J., and Pierce, W. D., Rewards and Intrinsic Motivation: Resolving the Con-
troversy Bergin & Garvey 2002.

Cameron, J., Pierce, W. D. (2005) Banko, M and Gear, A., Achievement Based Rewards
and Intrinsic Motivation: A Test of Cognitive Mediators. Journal of Educational Psychol-
ogy vol 97 No. 4, 641-655.

Eisenberger, R. Learned Industriousness Psychological Review, 99 248-267

Flora, S.R. & Flora D.B., (1999) The Effects of Extrinsic Reinforcement for Reading dur-
ing Childhood on Reported Reading Habits of College Students. The Psychological
Record 49, 3-14.

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