The Hidden Danger of Rewards!

It seems pretty obvious that if you want to encourage a particular be­havior, you reward it – and if you want to discourage a behavior you pun­ish it. Right? Well, that is certainly how the world seems to work. Parents pay kids for grades, chores, and cooperation. Teachers offer stickers, stars and trips to the prize box for good behavior. Managers give employees bonuses for profit and production. And in the short-term, it seems pretty effective. When you take a closer look, how­ever, it doesn’t work at all. In fact, scientists and researchers have known for years that the carrot-and-stick approach is downright dangerous. Why has it taken so long for families and schools to catch on?

Daniel Pink examines the truth about rewards in a fascinating book called Drive. It turns out that the sci­ence of rewards is pretty scary. In fact, the time-honored system of carrots-and-sticks promotes bad behavior, creates addiction, and encourages short-term thinking at the expense of long-term creativity and growth. If you take a task that someone enjoys - they are “intrinsically motivated” – and offer a reward for it, that person will do less and less of the thing they originally enjoyed. One study rewarded three-year-olds, who loved to draw, for drawing pictures – and over time, the three-year-olds drew less and less.

It turns out that rewards can be useful for repetitive or mechanical tasks. But if you’re trying to encourage creativity, learning, or commit­ment to something greater, the side effects of rewards far outweigh the benefits. Goals imposed by other people, such as grades, sales targets, or standardized test scores often lead to cheating, short-cuts, and a decrease in ingenuity and creativity. Why? By offering a reward, you send a clear signal that the task must be undesirable. If it weren’t, you wouldn’t need a reward, right? And once you’ve offered a reward, you create an expecta­tion that a reward should be forthcoming every time the task is done.

In fact, rewards trigger the exact same systems in the brain that addic­tions do. As Pink puts it, “cash rewards and shiny trophies can provide a delicious jolt of pleasure at first, but the feeling soon dissipates – and to keep it alive, the recipient requires ever larger and more frequent doses.” This is why the child who was thrilled with a quarter to take out the garbage soon wants a dollar – and eventually won’t do the job at all.

Punishment isn’t so great, either, by the way. In one study, parents were told that they would be fined if they were late picking their children up from a child care center. The number of late pick-ups actually skyrocketed. Why? Before, parents made an effort to be on time out of consideration for their child’s teacher. When they were fined, they pushed back a bit – and felt they were entitled to the extra time because they paid for it.

f you really want to encourage hard work, learning, creativity, and commitment, don’t offer a reward. Invite the children and students to get involved for the sheer fun of it. See how creative they can be, and what ideas they have. They’ll actually be more motivated and have more fun if you leave the stickers and prizes out of it.

There is one approach that does seem to work, ac­cording to the research. If you wait until a task is completed and then offer connection and words of genuine encouragement and gratitude, people respond well. If that sounds familiar, it’s because Adlerians have been saying that for decades: connection comes before correc­tion, and encouragement is more powerful than praise and rewards.

If you’re curious about this, I highly recommend Daniel Pink’s book, Drive. You can also search on YouTube for Pink’s name and you’ll turn up some great short videos explaining more on the science of carrots and sticks.

Excerpt from an article by Cheryl Erwin, a mar­riage and family therapist in private prac­tice in Reno, Nevada.

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