More Motivation Studies

In Punished by Rewards (Houghton Mifflin, 1993) Alfie Kohn documents many research studies that reveal the nega-tive effects of introducing extrinsic rewards to what had been an intrinsically rewarding activity. The process is often insidious. A child discovers the joy of playing the piano. She takes lessons and has the fun of performing richer, more challenging pieces of music. Her instructor suggests she enter a statewide competition. She does so and does well. Now her parents’ car is emblazoned with a bumper-sticker telling the world they are the proud parents of a state finalist. The child has gone from the pure joy of music to a very cheapened experience of playing to get a plastic trophy and to earn bragging rights for her parents. It won’t be long, the research tells us, before she stops playing entirely. Why?

One of the implications of our being motivated by external stimuli is stress or pressure. Stress is a major element in our society and a leading factor in poor health. A good case can be made that many of the problems in our society, including health problems, crime, and the divorce rate, are linked to our failing to deal effectively with the stresses and pressures in our lives.

Some people today argue that the world is raging out of control. They want the government to crack down, force people to live better. It is said that what we need is more accountability and tighter control. But those who are familiar with the criminal justice system know that the threat of punishment has not significantly impacted major crimes. We think if our laws sound tough and rigid, there is a certain reassurance that things will get better.

Another approach begins not with control, but with asking why people are behaving irresponsibly in the first place. Why are there violent criminals? Why do people engage in unhealthy behaviors such as smoking and drug use? Why do people get hopelessly in debt? Why do parents ignore their children in order to amass a fortune? This approach takes the individuals’ perspective and focuses on the motivation under-lying their irresponsibility, explaining the social and personal factors that influence that motivation, and then addressing the factors that can lead people to live more responsibly.

If you were to take a university level class on human motivation within the first week the professor would introduce the important distinction between whether a behavior is auto-nomous or controlled. "Autonomous" carries the idea to act in accord with one’s self, that is, being free to choose one’s actions. We noted that most people work to make money. In other words, they do what they do in order to "make a living." There is nothing inherently wrong with this, after all, as Paul said, "A servant is worthy of his hire."

Even so, there is a difference between the person who works primarily for the money he or she will earn and the person who works primarily because he loves what he is doing and the money is truly secondary. In the history of the church, both Scripture and rational moral reflection have emphasized that not every self-interested motive is necessarily a selfish motive. Paul’s teaching in Philippians 2:4 is typical. He says that we as believers should "look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others."

Edward Deci’s experiments in the early 1970s often focused on the matter of introducing extrinsic rewards to what had been an intrinsically motivated activity. In a 1971 experiment Deci divided college students into two groups, one a control group and the other an experimental one. The task assigned was the solution of a mechanical spatial-relations puzzle called Soma. This puzzle involved differently shaped pieces that could be arranged into varying configurations. The task given to the students was to match a picture with the materials provided.