Punished by Rewards

Takeaway: Do not reward or punish people (employees, children, students) for doing what we want them to do. It’s wrong, and it doesn’t actually work.

Rewards

Examples of rewards: incentive plans (pay for performance instead of base salary; bonuses), school grades, rewarding children for good behavior

Why rewards don’t work

• They do work! Beautifully! But only in the very short term, and in very shallow sense. You say “you’ll get $100 for every new customer”, and they’ll do exactly what’s necessary to get that customer, and nothing else
• They work only for as long as you keep rewarding. (Why would a child keep doing something, if previously you offered a reward for this?)
• They make you focus narrowly. They won’t do the right thing if you’re not looking, they’ll cheat, take shortcuts, cause long-term harm for short-term gain — as long as what they do qualifies for the reward
• They make you lose intrinsic motivation. When you’re rewarded for doing something, it causes you to not want to do it for its own sake. This is true even for children offered a minor reward for playing with toys.
• People think that rewards work, and in fact, are the only thing that does work. But this is reversal of cause and effect. People who are beaten with a carrot completely lose motivation to do anything for its own sake, and neet that carrot to keep doing the thing in question. It’s extrinsic motivators that make people “extrinsically oriented”.

Punishment

• Punishment doesn’t teach anything good. The only lesson it teaches is one about power and authority, and that things are “bad” only as long as you get caught. It breeds resentment, and doesn’t make anyone understand why something is wrong
• Reward and punishment are two sides of the same coin, not polar opposites. If you offer someone a reward for doing something, and then withdraw that reward, it has almost the exact same psychological effect as being punished.

Control and manipulation

• Incentives (rewards and punishment) are fundamentally about controlling other humans. There’s no other way of saying that. It’s not about “motivating” someone, it’s about getting them to do exactly what you want. It’s manipulative, and humans respond very badly to being manipulated — to having their autonomy to make their own choices taken away from them.
• “Good behavior” (in the context of children and students) is really about obedience, and not being a nuisance to adults. Let’s drop the euphemism.

Competition

• Competition is hostile. When we create a competitive atmosphere in a workplace (by offering rewards for performance, or appraising on a curve), we turn people against each other. Competition is about me vs them, me winning and them losing. If people compete, they don’t collaborate. Are you sure this is what you want?

Solving problems

• Instead of incentivizing people do get them to do what we want, talk to them, and work with them. Shocker, I know, but there can be a 100 different reasons for why an employee performs poorly, or a child acts inappropriately. Carrots and sticks alike are very blunt tools, and don’t solve the underlying problem. Talk to people (yes, children are people too), explain your issue, the reasons why something is not ok, find the root causes, and collaborate to figure out solutions.