Carrots and sticks don't work as effective motivators according to research studies. A study by Lepper, Green and Nisbett found that preschoolers who were awarded for drawing during free time ended up drawing less afterwards compared to those who weren't awarded. Similarly, studies on adults found tangible rewards negatively impacted intrinsic motivation. Goals imposed from an external source can undermine creativity, whereas personally meaningful goals tend to be more constructive. Contingent rewards are also linked to diminished overall performance, crushed creativity, and can encourage unethical behaviors.

1. Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us Chapter 2 - Seven Reasons Why Carrot and Sticks Don’t Work

2. The Truth About Baseline Rewards People have to earn a living. This is part of stabilizing the first drive.

3. The Rule of Law with Carrots and Sticks Can achieve the opposite of their intended aims. Can you give an example of how a carrot and stick approach back fired in your professional career?

4. A Lesson From Mark Twain The Story of Aunty Polly’s fence and human motivation. The Sawyer Effect: the hidden cost of rewards; “diminishing intrinsic motivation can send performance, creativity and upstanding behavior toppling like dominoes; practices that can either turn play into work or turn work into play.”

5. Lepper, Green and Nisbett Preschool Study “Three researchers watched a classroom of preschoolers for several days and identified the children who chose to spend their “free play” time drawing. Then they fashioned an experiment to test the effect of rewarding an activity these children enjoyed.”

6. Lepper, Green and Nisbett Preschool Study (cont.) First Group: award group; received a Good Player certificate; promise of award known to them for play Second Group: Unexpected award group; received a Good Player certificate but the certificate was unknown to them Third Group: No award group; the certificate was unknown to them and they were not awarded a Good Player certificate for play

7. Which group performed the best? “Children previously in the ‘unexpected-award’ and ‘no award’ groups drew just as much, and with the same relish as they had before the experiment. But children in the first group-the ones who’d expected and then received an award-showed much less interest and showed much less time drawing.”

8. Adults v. Children How do you think adults faired in similar situated scenarios? Answer: Believe it or not, similar results occurred with adults. Studies conducted in 128 reward experiments have shown “ that tangible rewards tend to have a substantially negative effect on intrinsic motivation.”

9. Discussion What other types of institutions might reduce intrinsic motivation? Schools Families Athletic teams Reward focuses on the short term and can cause long-term damage.

10. Alfie Kohn Author of Punished by Rewards He writes and speaks widely on human behavior, education, and parenting. Kohn has been described in Time magazine as "perhaps the country's most outspoken critic of education's fixation on grades [and] test scores." His criticisms of competition and rewards have helped to shape the thinking of educators -- as well as parents and managers -- across the country and abroad.

11. The Candle Problem Devised by psychologist Karl Drucker in the 1930’s Imagine you are sitting at a table next to a wooden wall and the experimenter give you the following materials: A candle Some tacks A book of matches Your job is to attach the candle to the wall so that the wax doesn’t drip on the table. How would you solve this problem?

12. Creativity The purpose of the candle activity is to overcome “functional fixedness.” The idea is to overcome algorithmic thinking to take a path that is heuristic instead. Let’s hear what Daniel Pink has to say about creativity on the job.

13. Discussion How can be creative on your job? Generally, contingent rewards actually hinder the creative process.

14. Other Studies on Motivation Dan Ariely’s studies on performance in Mandurai, India: recruited 87 participants and asked them to play several games-tossing tennis balls at a target, recalling a string of digits for different amounts of rupees. London School of Economic study of 51 corporate pay-for performance plans led to a negative impact on overall performance.

15. Other Studies on Motivation (cont.) Harvard Business School professor, Teresa Amabile did a study with 23 professional U.S. artists and found artists who did noncommissioned work performed better.

16. Other Studies on Motivation (cont.) How Extrinsic Motivation Effects Good Behavior: 1. British sociologist Richard Titmuss, studied blood donation in UK How Extrinsic Motivation Effect Ethics: How might the following goals be damaging? Sales targets Quarterly returns Standardized test scores

17. Discussion Can having goals still be a good thing? A: “Goals that people set for themselves and that are devoted to attaining mastery are usually healthy,” –Daniel Pink

18. The Addictive Nature of Reward Study done by Russian economist, Anton Suvorov called Principal-Agent Theory. Principal=Motivator Agent=Motivatee Trash scenario “By offering a reward, a principal signals to an agent that the task is undesirable.”

19. Carrots and Sticks: The Seven Deadly Flaws They can extinguish intrinsic motivation. They can diminish performance. They can crush creativity. They can crowd out good behavior. They can encourage cheating, shortcuts and unethical behavior. They can become addictive. They can foster short-term thinking.