The Reward Trap: How Incentives Can Quietly Kill Interest
In the early nineteen seventies, researchers discovered a counterintuitive truth: rewarding people for things they already enjoy can actually make them stop doing them. This episode explores the overjustification effect, from Stanford nursery schools to the debate over paying kids to read, revealing why our deepest assumptions about motivation might be backward.
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Preschoolers who expected a gold seal certificate spent half as much time drawing as those who received nothing.
Paying college students one dollar per puzzle caused them to stop playing once the money was withdrawn.
Self-Perception Theory suggests that external prizes can trick us into believing an enjoyable activity is actually work.
Bribing children with pizza parties for reading often leads them to choose shorter books and skip passages.
Rewards that feel controlling kill interest, while informational rewards that celebrate milestones can actually support performance.
Surprise rewards given after a task do not damage intrinsic motivation like promised incentives do.
- 01Intro1 min
- 02The Felt-Tip Marker Mystery3 min
- 03The Psychology of Self-Perception3 min
- 04The Reading Dilemma3 min
- 05Nuance in the Incentive Engine2 min
- 06Outro1 min
- Overjustification effect - Wikipedia
- Self-Perception Theory: We Act, Then Believe (Daryl Bem)
- bro0796X_ch05_143-193
- Journal ol Personality and Social Psychology
- Daryl J. Bem - ia600601.us.archive.org
- Overjustification Effect: Why Rewards Backfire - Yu-kai Chou
- The overjustification effect: when rewards backfire
- Overjustification Effect and the Felt Tip Marker Study
- Extrinsic vs. Intrinsic Motivation: What's the Difference?
- [PDF] Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivations: Classic Definitions and New ...
- Intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation in high school physical ... - PMC
- Examining the Motivational Impact of Intrinsic Versus Extrinsic Goal ...
- Negative Effects of Extrinsic Rewards on Intrinsic Motivation
- Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation | Psychology | Research ...
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