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The Rewards Controversy
the theory
Extrinsic Rewards Do Undermine Intrinsic Motivation
the faculty
Self-Determination Theory’s history can be traced to a set of early
the conference experiments done by Deci showing that extrinsic rewards such as monetary
payments can undermine people’s intrinsic motivation for the rewarded
activity. This finding was important as it was the first evidence that desired
publications
outcomes such as rewards can have the unintended consequence of
decreasing intrinsic motivation because they limit people’s sense of
controversies self-determination--that is, because people come to feel controlled by the
rewards. Over the past 20 years, nearly 100 published experiments have
questionnaires provided additional support for the initial finding of tangible extrinsic
rewards undermining intrinsic motivation. The finding was very
listserv controversial when it first appeared because it seemed to contradict the
prevailing behaviorist wisdom of that time, which maintained that the
links careful use of rewards (or reinforcements) was the most effective approach
to motivation. Remarkably, three decades later, in spite of very convincing
evidence in support of the fact that rewards can undermine intrinsic
motivation, the controversy continues.
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The earliest experiments on intrinsic motivation in humans were:

Deci, E. L. (1971). Effects of externally mediated rewards on intrinsic

motivation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 18, 105-115.

Deci, E. L. (1972a). Effects of contingent and non-contingent rewards and

controls on intrinsic motivation. Organizational Behavior and Human
Performance, 8, 217-229.

Deci, E. L. (1972b). Intrinsic motivation, extrinsic reinforcement, and

inequity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 22, 113-120.

Kruglanski, A. W., Friedman, I., & Zeevi, G. (1971). The effects of extrinsic
incentive on some qualitative aspects of task performance. Journal of
Personality, 39, 606-617.

Lepper, M. R., Greene, D., & Nisbett, R. E. (1973). Undermining children's

intrinsic interest with extrinsic rewards: A test of the "overjustification"
hypothesis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 28, 129-137.

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Critiques from behaviorists included:

Calder, B. J., & Staw, B. M. (1974). The interaction of intrinsic and extrinsic
motivation: Some methodological notes. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 31, 76-80.

Reiss, S., & Sushinsky, L. W. (1975). Overjustification, competing

responses, and the acquisition of intrinsic interest. Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology, 31, 1116-1125.

Scott, W. E. (1975). The effects of extrinsic rewards on "intrinsic

motivation": A critique. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance,
14, 117-129.

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Replies from motivational researchers (including those listed below)

showed the critiques to be invalid and unwarranted.

Deci, E. L. (1976). Notes on the theory and metatheory of intrinsic

motivation. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 15, 130-145.

Deci, E. L., Cascio, W. F., & Krusell, J. (1975). Cognitive evaluation theory
and some comments on the Calder and Staw critique. Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology, 31, 81-85.

Lepper, M. R., & Greene, D. (1976). On understanding "overjustification": A

reply to Reiss and Sushinsky. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,
33, 25-35.

Ryan, R. M., Mims, V., & Koestner, R. (1983). Relation of reward

contingency and interpersonal context to intrinsic motivation: A review and
test using cognitive evaluation theory. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 45, 736-750.

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Still the behaviorists' critiques continued, with the behaviorists

becoming ever more vituperative while remaining wholly unconvincing.
They included:

Carton, J. S. (1996). The differential effects of tangible rewards and praise

on intrinsic motivation: A comparison of cognitive evaluation theory and
operant theory. The Behavior Analyst, 19, 237-255.

Dickinson, A. M. (1989). The detrimental effects of extrinsic reinforcement

on "intrinsic motivation". The Behavior Analyst, 12, 1-15.

Flora, S. R. (1990). Undermining intrinsic interest from the standpoint of a

behaviorist. The Psychological Record, 40, 323-346.

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Meta-analyses. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s several dozen

experiments investigated the effects of extrinsic rewards on intrinsic
motivation. As might be expected given the number of studies,
meta-analyses were performed to combine the results of these
experiments. Three meta-analyses done between 1988 and 1995 concluded
that expected, tangible rewards made contingent upon doing, completing,
or excelling at an interesting activity will undermine intrinsic motivation for
that activity. These meta-analyses tested specific propositions from Deci
and Ryan's Cognitive Evaluation Theory (a sub-theory contained within
SDT), and all concluded that the studies provided strong support for the
theory. For example, Rummel and Feinberg concluded that, "This
meta-analysis lends support to the adequacy of [cognitive evaluation
theory].", (1988, p. 160). The three meta-analyses were:

Rummel, A., & Feinberg, R. (1988). Cognitive evaluation theory: A

meta-analytic review of the literature. Social Behavior and Personality, 16,
147-164.

Tang, S-H., & Hall, V. C. (1995). The overjustification effect: A

meta-analysis. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 9, 365-404.

Wiersma, U. J. (1992). The effects of extrinsic rewards in intrinsic

motivation: A meta-analysis. Journal of Occupational and Organizational
Psychology, 65, 101-114.

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The controversy heats up. The conclusions of the above three

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meta-analyses were problematic for individuals holding a behaviorist

perspective, so in 1994, the behaviorist team of Cameron and Pierce
published their own meta-analysis in Review of Educational Research,
concluding that, overall, rewards do not decrease intrinsic motivation.
Although the authors implicitly acknowledged that intrinsic motivation is
important for learning and adjustment in educational settings, they
nonetheless stated that "teachers have no reason to resist implementing
incentive systems in the classroom" (p. 397). Cameron and Pierce also
advocated abandoning Deci and Ryan's cognitive evaluation theory which
had been formulated to explain reward effects on intrinsic motivation. In
1996, three commentaries were published in Review of Educational
Research (Kohn, 1996; Lepper, Keavney, & Drake, 1996; Ryan & Deci,
1996) arguing that Cameron and Pierce's meta-analysis was flawed and
that its conclusions were inappropriate. In that same issue, Cameron and
Pierce (1996) responded to the commentaries with an angry diatribe that
failed to address any of the important issues.

Subsequent to that interchange, Eisenberger and Cameron (1996)

published an article in the American Psychologist, summarizing the
Cameron and Pierce (1994) meta-analysis and claiming that the so-called
undermining of intrinsic motivation by extrinsic rewards, which they said
had become accepted as reality, was in fact largely a myth. The American
Psychologist is a very visible outlet with a large readership, so even though
the article and the Cameron and Pierce meta-analysis it referred were
seriously flawed it got a great deal of attention and has been widely cited in
textbooks.

Cameron, J., & Pierce, W. D. (1994). Reinforcement, reward, and intrinsic

motivation: A meta-analysis. Review of Educational Research, 64, 363-423.

Cameron, J., & Pierce, W. D. (1996). The debate about rewards and
intrinsic motivation: Protests and accusations do not alter the results.
Review of Educational Research, 66, 39-52.

Eisenberger, R., & Cameron, J. (1996). Detrimental effects of reward:

Reality of myth? American Psychologist, 51, 1153-1166.

Kohn, A. (1996). By all available means: Cameron and Pierce's defense of

extrinsic motivators. Review of Educational Research, 66, 1-4.

Lepper, M.R., Keavney, M., & Drake, M. (1996). Intrinsic motivation and
extrinsic rewards: A commentary on Cameron and Pierce's Meta-analysis.
Review of Educational Research, 66, 5-32.

Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (1996). When paradigms clash: Comments on

Cameron and Pierce's claim that rewards do not undermine intrinsic
motivation. Review of Educational Research, 66, 33-38.

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The Eisenberger, Cameron, and Pierce meta-analysis is invalid. It

was clear to anyone familiar with the field that the Cameron and Pierce's
meta-analysis contained many errors and inappropriate procedures that
made their conclusions invalid. However, to confirm this, a new
meta-analysis was necessary. Consequently, Deci, Koestner, and Ryan
performed a meta-analysis of 128 experiments examining the effects of
extrinsic rewards on intrinsic motivation, organizing the analyses so as to
provide a test of cognitive evaluation theory. The new meta-analysis
showed that, in fact, tangible rewards do significantly and substantially
undermine intrinsic motivation. It also provided strong support for cognitive
evaluation theory and made clear that there is indeed reason for teachers
to exercise great care when using reward-based incentive systems. The
new meta-analysis was published in Psychological Bulletin (Deci, Koestner,
& Ryan, 1999). Included in that article is an appendix table which lists
every study in the meta-analysis explaining exactly where errors were
made by Cameron and Pierce, and how the new meta-analysis corrected
their errors. That table allows all interested readers to see for themselves in

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precise detail how Cameron and Pierce's meta-analysis was invalid and why
their conclusions were unwarranted. As well, it makes clear that the
Eisenberger and Cameron article in the American Psychologist was without
basis and presented fallacious conclusions.

Deci, E. L., Koestner, R., & Ryan, R. M. (1999). A meta-analytic review of

experiments examining the effects of extrinsic rewards on intrinsic
motivation. Psychological Bulletin, 125, 627-668.
Download this article in .pdf format (for Personal Use Only)

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In conclusion. The finding that expected, tangible rewards undermine

intrinsic motivation was initially very controversial, but during the 30 years
that the evidence has mounted confirming the finding, most psychologist
have accepted it as an important phenomenon. During that period, the
reinforcement perspective of behaviorists has also been losing its centrality
in psychology. Today, relatively few psychologists and practitioners
subscribe to the behaviorist doctrine, yet a few vocal advocates continue to
debate the rewards point which is now beyond debate. Tangible extrinsic
rewards reliably undermine intrinsic motivation under most circumstances,
and, interestingly the most detrimental reward contingency involves giving
rewards as a direct function of people's performance. Those who perform
best get the most rewards and those who perform less well get less (or no)
rewards. This contingency, which is perhaps the one most often used in life,
seems to be the one that is most detrimental to the motivation,
performance, and well-being of the individuals subjected to it.

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