Why do external rewards sometimes backfire?

Solution Preview

Welcome warmly to BM! Please rate 5/5 for my 1000 words of notes and references. Your business is valuable to me! Thank you so much for using BrainMass.com!

In the first place, as you briefly identify Tauer (2009)'s answers, I offer some brainstorming.

Why do external rewards sometimes backfire?

As the article mentions, they often become counterintuitive. In the article's marker example, "The kids who would receive a reward played with the magic markers significantly less than those children who would not be rewarded. In fact, the kids who would not receive a reward played with the magic markers twice as much as those who would receive a reward." These results show how extrinsic rewards often fade as their sense of novelty wears off.

Rewards often make something less appealing after the initial newness or excitement diminish. The article labels this as "the overjustification effect. Children who received the reward had too much justification for their behavior, and thus had to figure out if they were drawing with the markers because they wanted to draw or because they wanted a reward."

One article examines this issue:

Warneken, F., & Tomasello, M. (2008). Extrinsic Rewards Undermine Altruistic Tendencies in 20-Month-Olds. Developmental Psychology, 44(6), 1785-1788.

The authors contend how the undermining effects of extrinsic rewards on altruistic behaviors come from a study by Fabes, Fultz, Eisenberg, May-Plumlee, and Christopher (1989) which examined older children. That study found that "rewards undermined the subsequent helping behavior of 6- to 12-year-old school children. However, it is not known whether this effect is also present at an age when altruistic behaviors are just beginning to emerge in early ontogeny and children have had less experience with adult rewarding practices. (Indeed, no studies have investigated the undermining effect of extrinsic rewards ...