When a Reward Lowers Motivation - The Conditions Under Which Rewards Erode the Will to Act
The Reward Went In and the Activity Stopped
A child was drawing on their own. It was good, so you set a deal: one sticker per finished drawing. At first they drew happily. When the stickers stopped, so did the drawing.
The same happens to adults. Someone who ran for pleasure starts competing over times, then quits when the time they wanted does not come. Someone who loved reading sets a target number of books and can no longer read.
If you assume a reward raises the will to act, this outcome cannot be explained. What actually happens is a substitution. The will that kept the activity going because the activity itself was interesting is called Intrinsic Motivation, and adding a reward from outside can move the reason for acting over there, so the original one stops being consulted.
The Conditions Under Which a Reward Replaces the Will
Reasons for doing something come from roughly two sources.
One is finding the activity itself interesting, or feeling that it means something. Drawing is fun, running feels good, you want to know what is in the book.
The other is gaining something as a result of the activity. A sticker arrives, a record improves, a target gets met.
The problem is that the second can push the first into the background. Once the reason for acting moves outside, the inside reason stops being consulted. And when the outside reward stops, the inside reason does not return either.
The condition is clear: an outside reward brought into an activity that already ran on a reason from the inside.
Conversely, for an activity you never take up on your own, a reward costs nothing: there is nothing to lose. Work you dislike, procedures that are necessary but not interesting. Here a reward simply helps you get started, and the frame of Operant Conditioning, where what follows a behavior changes how often it recurs, applies straightforwardly.
When You Attach It to Something Already Enjoyed
So the first thing to check is which of the two reasons the activity runs on at this point.
Starting without being told, losing track of time, carrying on even when it does not go well. If you see these, the inside reason is at work. Bringing a reward in here is a loss.
Not doing it unless told, stopping partway, throwing it aside when results do not come. If you see these, the state calls for support from outside. Use a reward.
The mistake happens most easily when you try to grow a good behavior. You see a child doing something of their own accord, want more of it, and add a reward. The intention is kind; the result erodes the self-starting.
What to add here is not a reward but an environment. Put the tools in place, secure the time, make a spot for finished work. Support that makes an activity easier to keep up does not replace its reason.
The Difference Between Praise and a Reward
What gets confused with a reward most often is verbal acknowledgment. Its nature is different.
A reward is exchanged for the behavior. Do it and you get it; do not and you do not. That exchange moves the reason for acting outside.
Verbal acknowledgment can work as information rather than exchange. How you praise, though, changes the effect.
Praise that evaluates the result moves closer to a reward. "You are good at this." "Well done." When this form continues, obtaining the verdict becomes the goal and likely-to-fail challenges get avoided.
Praise that refers to the process or the ingenuity supports the reason on the inside. "How did you come up with this combination of colors?" "Your lines got finer than they were." It shows interest rather than granting a verdict.
The simplest form is to ask a question. What did you draw, which part was hard. Turning interest toward the work can act more strongly than acknowledgment.
What to Watch For in a Child's Study
In a study setting, the design of the reward changes the outcome greatly.
What to avoid is a reward tied to the result. Attach money to a test score and interest turns toward methods of getting the score. Interest in the content being learned does not grow.
What is usable is a reward tied to the behavior. Sat at the desk, worked the length of time that was set. Because behavior is under the person's own control, achieving it is possible, and interest in the content is less likely to suffer.
A design that removes the reward in stages is also needed. Once the behavior settles in as a habit, lower how often it comes. A habit carries on without one.
Most important is leaving room to choose. Where the person picks what to do, when, and how, the reason on the inside is easier to preserve. Specify everything and drive it with rewards, and the experience of choosing for oneself never accumulates. Ways of drawing out the will to learn put this room to choose at their center.
If You Use It on Your Own Habits
The same principle applies when you set a reward for yourself.
First, check whether you like the activity. Attach a reward to something you like and the reason you liked it thins out. If you like exercise, you last longer by not tightening records and targets.
For activities you dislike but need, a reward is fine. Handling paperwork, cleaning, booking a checkup. Putting them in the order of doing something you like once they are done makes starting lighter.
Choose what the reward consists of as well. Something unrelated to the activity, such as sweets or shopping, easily becomes the goal itself. Something on the extension of the activity, such as a good bath after a run or time in a tidied room, keeps activity and reward close, so the replacement is less likely. Sweets and shopping feel strong as rewards because the brain's Reward System responds to that stimulus in its own right, detached from the activity you were trying to support.
There is also a method of using a record in place of a reward. Days kept up, quantity covered. Rising numbers can themselves become the support, working without anything handed over from outside. Combined with how to build up a daily routine, a form that does not lean on rewards comes into view.