Risks of Rewards ERIC pamphlet PUT RIGHT 2021

While the famous original was good, working on a book, I found enuf way to improve it, I happy to share this version. Okay to copy and share.

Bruce Dickson
6 min readNov 10, 2021

Original: ED376990 1994–12–00 The Risks of Rewards. ERIC Digest. Circa 1992 free online many places.

Alfie Kohn, who research inspired the original article

Many educators are acutely aware how punishment and threats are counterproductive.

Making children suffer in order to alter their future behavior offers temporary compliance, yet this strategy is unlikely to help children become ethical, compassionate feelers, thinkers and Choosers.

Punishment, even euphemistically referred to as “consequences,” tends to generate anger, defiance, and a desire for revenge. Punishment models using of power to get needs met rather than negotiating requests. This tends to rupture significant relationships between adult and child.

To avoid punishing, some parents avoid all consequences. Some — especially K-8 teachers — turn to using rewards. Most of you will know the theory of using stickers and stars to modify child behavior. In schools, praise, awards and privileges, are routinely used to induce children to learn or comply with adult demands (Fantuzzo et al., 1991). Rewards too can elicit temporary compliance in many cases.

Unfortunately, carrots turn out to be no more effective than sticks at helping children to become caring, responsible people or lifelong, self-directed learners.

REWARDS VS. GOOD VALUES

Studies over many years with neuro-typical children have found behavior modification programs are rarely successful at producing long-lasting changes in attitudes or behavior. When rewards stop, people usually return to the way they acted before the program began. More disturbingly, researchers have recently discovered children whose parents make frequent use of rewards tend to be less generous than their peers (Fabes et al., 1989; Grusec, 1991; Alfie Kohn 1990).

Why are both rewards and punishment so ineffective? The answer lies in how extrinsic motivators do not alter the emotional and cognitive COMMITMENTS underlying choices and behavior. [In 2021 we say, rewards~punishments do nothing to support children perceiving any healthy container of values around the reward, the punishment or the desired behavior.] A child promised a treat for learning or acting responsibly is being taught to respond like one of B.F. Skinner’s pigeons, not like an aware being who knows the value of anything. Like the pigeon, the child has every reason to stop doing the rewarded behavior when no reward can be gained.

Research and logic suggest punishment and rewards are not really opposites; rather, they are two sides of the same coin. Both ways manipulate behavior and ignore the absence of any container of healthy values.

Consider a child’s natural questions:

“What do they want me to do?”

“What happens to me if I don’t do it?” and

“What do I get for doing it their way?”

These questions all point to “psyching-out” the wants and needs of the adult. What’s missing? Aiming the child, leading the child, to consider, What do I want? What are my choices? Could performing this request be beneficial to me now, beneficial later when I’m older? Ultimately, in adult language, “Who am I becoming as a person?”

In the paragraph above we are not talking about,”Look both ways before crossing a busy street.” The value is clear, “I want you to survive.” However in parenting and K-8 educating not every behavior is a matter of life and death. Maybe more time to be more thoughtful works better if we want our kids to grow up as self-propelled learners and problem solvers.

REWARDS for ACHIEVEMENT

In one representative study, young children were introduced to an unfamiliar dairy beverage called kefir. Some were just offered it to drink, to try it experimentally. Others were praised lavishly for doing so; a third group was promised treats if they drank enough. As one might predict, those children who received either verbal or tangible rewards consumed more of the beverage than other children. Still a week later, these same children found kefir significantly less appealing than they did before, whereas children who were offered no rewards liked it just as much as, if not more than, they had earlier (Birch et al., 1984).

If we substitute reading or doing math or legible handwriting, for drinking kefir, we begin to glimpse the destructive power of rewards. The data suggest the more we manipulate children to WANT to do something, the more counterproductive it is for them to integrate the behavior into their habit body.

At least two dozen studies show people expecting to receive a reward for completing a task (or for doing it successfully) simply do not perform as well as those who expect nothing (Kohn, 1993). This effect is robust for young children, older children, and adults; for males and females; for rewards of all kinds; and for tasks ranging from memorizing facts to designing collages to solving problems.

In general, the more sophisticated and open-ended thinking required for a task, the worse people tend to do when manipulated to perform the task for a reward. Several plausible explanations exist for this puzzling yet remarkably consistent finding.

The most compelling of these is “motivation” is not a single trait an individual possesses to a greater or lesser degree, like gasoline in a car. Rather, intrinsic motivation (interest in the task for its own sake) is qualitatively different from extrinsic motivation (where completion of the task is perceived as a means to some other end goal) (Deci & Ryan, 1985).

Deci and Ryan (1985) describe the use of rewards as “control through seduction.” Control, whether by threats or bribes, amounts to doing things TO children rather than working WITH them. [See also Dr. William Glasser’s topic of “talking to children” vs. “talking at children” vs. “talking with children”

Hence parents are encouraged to ask not how motivated their children are; but rather, how their children are motivated.

Teachers are encouraged to ask not how motivated their students are; but rather, how their students are motivated.

Rewards, punishment and praise ultimately fray relationships, both among students (leading to reduced interest in working with peers) and between students and adults (insofar as asking for help may reduce the probability of receiving a reward).

Moreover, students who are encouraged to think about grades, stickers, or other “goodies” become less inclined to explore ideas, think creatively, and take chances. At least ten studies have shown people offered a reward generally choose the easiest possible task (Kohn, 1993). By contrast, in the absence of rewards, children are naturally inclined to pick tasks are just beyond their current level of ability [one of the strengths of Montessori kindergartens].

PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS OF THE FAILURE OF REWARDS

If the question is “Do rewards motivate students?”, the answer is, “Absolutely: they motivate students to get rewards.” Unfortunately, sort of motivation often comes at the expense of interest in, and excellence at, learning, growing and becoming self-propelled problem solvers.

THE PROBLEM WITH PRAISE

Finally, the topic of verbal praise as a reward. Positive feedback ought to be good, right? While it can build self-esteem to hear one’s successes mirrored by an adult, most praise from adults is tantamount to a verbal reward.

Rather than leading children to develop their own values criteria for successful learning and ethical behavior, praise creates a growing dependence on securing someone else’s approval, on resonating with someone else’s values — not practicing your own. Praise offers conditional support, conditional on doing what the adult wants or demands. Rather than heightening interest in a task, the learning is devalued insofar as it comes to be seen as a prerequisite for receiving the teacher’s approval (Kohn, 1993).

CONCLUSION

In short, a healthy container of personal values can only be grown from the inside out. Attempts to short-circuit this process by dangling rewards in front of children are at best ineffective, and at worst counterproductive.

Enthusiastic, lifelong learners result from being provided with:

- a safe, caring community,

- a rich, engaging curriculum; and,

- adults willing to explain the values behind why we do certain things, to serve our own future self, to serve others and to make the Earth more wonderful for everyone.

--

--

Bruce Dickson
Bruce Dickson

Written by Bruce Dickson

Health Intuitive, author in Los Angeles, CA

No responses yet