affects individuals' actions (e.g.
, strategies), creativity may result when highly salient re-
cognitions (e.g., cognitive interference), and
affect (e.g., positive mood) while perform-
ing. We suggest, then, that positive and nega-
tive effects are related over time and occur
within a self-regulatory process (Sansone &
Harackiewicz, 1996; Sansone, Weir, Harpster,
& Morgan, 1992).
Eisenberger and Cameron (1996) pro-
vided a service in cautioning investigators
and practitioners against oversimplifyingwhat
is in fact a very complex and complicated
process and in calling for "a greater synthesis
of relevant findings involving reinforcement,
social cognition, and personality" (p. 1164).
In so doing, however, they oversimplified
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
the message from the original research as
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
well as the current state of knowledge about
this complicated process.
REFERENCES
Eisenberger, R., & Cameron, J. (1996). Detri-
mental effects of reward: Reality or myth?
American Psychologist, 51, 1153-1166.
Harackiewicz, J. M., Abrahams, S., &
Wageman, R. (1987). Performance evalua-
tion and intrinsic motivation: The effects of
evaluative focus, rewards, and achievement
orientation. Journal of Personality and So-
cial Psychology, 53, 1015-1023.
Harackiewicz, J. M., Barron, K. E., & Elliot,
A. J. (1998). Rethinking achievement goals:
When are they adaptive for college students
and why? Educational Psychologist, 33,
1-21.
Harackiewicz, J. M,, Manderlink, G.. &
Sansone, C. (1984). Rewarding pinball wiz-
ardry: Effects of evaluation and cue value
on intrinsic interest. Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology, 47, 287-300.
Harackiewicz, J. M., & Sansone, C. (1991).
Goals and intrinsic motivation: You can get
there from here. In M. Maehr & P. Pintrich
(Eds.), Advances in motivation and achieve-
ment (Vol. 7, pp. 21-49). New York: JAI
Press.
Lepper, M. R., Keavney, M., & Drake, M.
(1996). Intrinsic motivation and extrinsic
rewards: A commentary on Cameron and
Pierce's meta-analysis. Review ~[ Educa-
tional Research, 66, 5-32.
Sansone, C., & Harackiewicz, J. M. (1996). I
don't feel like it: The function of interest in
self-regulation. In L. Martin & A. Tesser
(Eds.), Striving and .feeling: Interactions
between goals, affect, and self-regulation
(pp. 203-228). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Sansone, C., Sachau, D. A., & Weir, C. (1989).
Effects of instruction on intrinsic interest:
The importance of context. Journal of Per-
sonality and Social Psychology, 57, 819-
829.
Sansone, C., Weir, C., Harpster, L., & Mor-
gan, C. (1992). Once a boring task always a
boring task? Interest as a self-regulatory
mechanism. Journal t~f Personality and
Social Psychology, 63, 379-390.
674
Correspondence concerning this comment
should be addressed to Carol Sansone, De-
partment of Psychology, University of Utah,
390 South 1530 East, Room 502, Salt Lake
City, UT 84112-0251. Electronic mail may be
sent to psycs@freud.sbs.utah.edu.
I I I portant studies by suggesting that some cre-
Reward, Intrinsic Motivation,
and Creativity
Beth A. Hennessey
Wellesley College
Teresa M. Amabile
Harvard University
Eisenberger and Cameron's (November
1996) provocative article reiterated the points
made in Cameron and Pierce (1994), with
one important addition--an examination of
the impact of reward on creativity. The claim
was made that any detrimental effects of re-
ward on creativity can be avoided and that
creativity can be easily increased by the use
of rewards (p. 1153). However, Eisenberger
and Cameron overlooked or failed to ad-
equately explain several demonstrations of
lower creativity on rewarded activities as com-
pared with nonrewarded activities. Moreover,
the evidence that they provided of increased
creativity under reward is more informative
about relatively simple human behaviors
(e.g., filling in circles, word generation) than
about actual creative performance. Thus, the
operationalization of creativity is key to our
critique.
Eisenberger and Cameron (1996) failed
to discuss a number of published experi-
ments that examine a variety of creative ac-
tivities (writing, storytelling, artwork, and
problem solving), which revealed that prod-
ucts made by participants working for re-
ward are reliably assessed by expert judges
as less creative than products made by par-
ticipants not working for reward (Amabile,
Hennessey, & Grossman, 1986; Hennessey,
1989; Kruglanski, Friedman, & Zeevi, 1971).
Eisenberger and Cameron proposed several
behavioral mechanisms to explain such detri-
mental effects of reward on subsequent in-
trinsic motivation, including satiation, nega-
tive contrast, and learned helplessness. How-
ever, none of these mechanisms are relevant
to demonstrations of decreased creativity in
an activity that is itself performed for ex-
pected reward; there was no prior activity that
might have led to any such effects. Eisenberger
and Cameron also proposed that some dem-
onstrations of negative effects of reward on
wards attract attention toward goal-relevant
stimuli and away from the task itself. Yet
negative effects have been obtained even in
studies where the reward was delivered prior
to task engagement (e.g., Amabile et al., 1986;
Hennessey, 1989). Finally, Eisenberger and
Cameron dismissed the results of many im-
ativity investigators have rewarded a tow
degree of divergent thinking. However, the
studies cited above did not reward divergent
thinking but, instead, offered a reward for
doing a complex activity. These studies, and
others explicitly focused on intrinsic motiva-
tion, suggest that creativity depends in large
part on intrinsic motivation and that both can
be undermined by reward and other extrinsic
motivators. Moreover, the conditions under
which these effects occur are not highly
restricted.
On the basis of their own research,
Eisenberger and Cameron (1996) claimed
that generalized creativity can be boosted by
small or nonsalient rewards. In the "learned
industriousness" investigations they de-
scribed (pp. 1161-1162), however, the gen-
eralization creativity task was administered
under conditions in which participants most
likely expected future reward for unusual
responses--where the same experimenter
was presenting the second task in the same
setting as the rewarded task immediately after
that rewarded task. In addition, creativity
was operationalized as the simple statistical
infrequency of responses. Although this
simple measure can legitimately be termed
originality or divergent thinking, it does not
adequately capture the elements of creativity
as it is generally defined in the literature:
novelty combined with appropriateness,
value, or usefulness.
The operationalization of creativity as
statistical infrequency by Eisenberger and
Cameron (1996) is also problematic because
of its low ecological validity. Many of the
investigations showing detrimental effects of
reward base their results on the reliable, sub-
jective assessment of creativity by judges
who are both familiar with the domain of the
target products and blind to experimental con-
dition. This consensual assessment is much
closer to real-world judgments of creativity
in the classroom, the corporation, or the art
gallery.
Finally, Eisenberger and Cameron's
(1996) suggestion that creativity can be in-
creased simply by telling people that they
should be original (and rewarding them for
being original) is likely to be fruitless. There
is experimental evidence that telling people to
be creative fails to increase judge-rated cre-
ativity even when participants expect expert
evaluation on creativity (Amabile, t979).
June 1998 • A m e r i c a n Psychologist
 Moreover, it is unlikely that in real-world
situations, where high levels of creativity are
desired, anyone knows a priori what behav-
iors to reward as creative. The most appro-
priate interpretation of Eisenberger and
Cameron's results is that they demonstrate
increased divergent thinking under the ex-
pectation of reward for divergent thinking.
Recent research has revealed certain very
specific situations under which reward can
have either no impact or even a positive im-
pact on intrinsic motivation and creativity.
Such effects have been termed motivational
synergy, and it has been suggested that they
fit well with Deci and Ryan's (1985) cogni-
tive evaluation theory. In one series of stud-
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
ies designed to investigate this phenomenon,
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
researchers were successful at "imlnunizing"
elementary school students against the usu-
ally deleterious effects of expected reward.
These children, who were helped to focus on
intrinsic motivation and were taught explicit
techniques for viewing external incentives as
secondary to their own interest and learning,
were able to maintain baseline levels of in-
trinsic motivation and creativity and some-
times even showed increases in creativity
when promised a reward for task participa-
tion (Hennessey & Zbikowski, 1993). Be-
yond the confines of the experimental labora-
tory, researchers have also interviewed many
professional artists who believe that a con-
tracted-for reward can enable them to do
exciting work (Amabile, Phillips, & Collins,
1993). Moreover, when working adults feel
that incentive systems signal the value of
their contribution, their motivation and cre-
ativity of performance can be enhanced
(Amabile & Gryskiewicz, 1987).
Thus, we agree with Eisenberger and
Cameron's (1996) position that it is a mistake
to categorically assert that rewards will al-
ways lessen task interest and creativity. How-
ever, it is important to understand that the
instances of motivational synergy that we
have outlined here are unusual. The children
who were able to distance themselves from
the negative effects of reward had received
specialized training, and there was little, if
any, longevity of these effects (Hennessey &
Zbikowski, 1993). Similarly, the artists and
other adults whom researchers interviewed
and studied (Amabile & Gryskiewicz, 1987;
Amabile et al., 1993) were highly trained
professionals who had reached the pinnacles
of their fields. It is erroneous and misleading
to conclude, as do Eisenberger and Cameron,
that the detrimental effects of reward occur
under limited conditions that are easily
avoided. Rewards may support intrinsic mo-
tivation and creativity if presented in an espe-
cially careful manner. Nonetheless, the pre-
ponderance of evidence demonstrates that
working for reward, under circumstances that
J u n e 1998 • A m e r i c a n P s y c h o l o g i s t
are likely to occur naturally in classrooms
and workplaces every day, can be damaging
to both intrinsic motivation and creativity.
REFERENCES
Amabile, T. M. (1979). Effects of external
evaluation on artistic creativity. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 37,
221-233.
Amabile, T. M., & Gryskiewicz, S. S. (1987).
Creativity in the R&D laboratory (Tech.
Rep. No. 30). Greensboro, NC: Center for
Creative Leadership.
Amabile, T. M., Hennessey, B. A., &
Grossman, B. S. (1986). Social influences
on creativity: The effects of contracted-for
reward. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 50, 14-23.
Amabile, T. M., Phillips, E. D., & Collins,
M. A. (1993, August). Social and personal
influences on progressional artists' creativ-
ity. Paper presented at the 101st Annual
Convention of the American Psychological
Association, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Cameron, J., & Pierce, W. D. (1994). Rein-
forcement, reward, and intrinsic motiva-
tion: A meta-analysis. Review t~f Educa-
tional Research, 64, 363-423.
Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (1985). Intrinsic
motivation and self-determination in hu-
man behavior. New York: Plenum.
Eisenberger, R., & Cameron, J. (1996). Detri-
mental effects of reward: Reality or myth?
American Psychologist, 51, 1153-1166.
Hennessey, B. A. (1989). The effects of ex-
trinsic constraints on children's creativity
while using a computer. Creativity Research
Journal, 2, 151-168.
Hennessey, B. A., & Zbikowski, S. (1993).
Immunizing children against the negative
effects of reward: A further examination of
intrinsic motivation training techniques.
Creativity Research Journal, 6, 297-308.
Kruglanski, A. W., Friedman, I., & Zeevi, G.
(1971). The effects of extrinsic incentive
on some qualitative aspects of task perfor-
mance. Journal of Personality, 39, 606-
617.
Correspondence concerning this comment
should be addressed to Beth A. Hennessey,
Department of Psychology, Wellesley Col-
lege, Wellesley, MA 02181. Electronic mail
may be sent to bhennessey@wellesley.edu.
A Whole Much Less Than
the Sum of Its Parts
Mark R. Lepper
Stanford University
Eisenberger and Cameron (November 1996)
addressed the literature concerning "detri-
mental effects of reward," concluding that
"our analysis of a quarter century of accumu-
lated research provides little evidence that
reward reduces intrinsic task interest"
(p. 1162). Their summary was, in turn, based
primarily on the findings from a previous
meta-analysis of this literature by Cameron
and Pierce (1994), reiterated in Figures 1
and 2 of Eisenberger and Cameron's article.
The methodology of Cameron and
Pierce's (1994) meta-analysis and the con-
clusions drawn from it have been criticized in
the educational literature (e.g., Kohn, 1996;
Lepper, Keavney, & Drake, 1996; Ryan &
Deci, 1996). Because the same putative find-
ings were presented in Eisenberger and
Cameron' s (1996) article without details con-
cerning their derivation, however, it seems
important to alert readers to at least some of
the difficulties in Cameron and Pierce's
article.
Perhaps the most striking and distress-
ing aspect of Cameron and Pierce's (1994)
meta-analysis concerns their treatment of ex-
periments that reported significant, even com-
plete "crossover," interactions between their
reward variables and other factors not in-
cluded in their analysis. To take one example,
in three separate experiments (Calder & Staw,
1975; Loveland & Olley, 1979; McLoyd,
1979), identical extrinsic rewards were pre-
d i c t e d - a n d found--to produce precisely
opposite effects as a function of the initial
interest value of the activity being rewarded.
In each experiment, superfluous extrinsic re-
wards not only undermined interest in ini-
tially attractive activities but also enhanced
interest in initially boring or unattractive ac-
tivities, despite major procedural differences
across these studies.
Indeed, if one considers effect sizes for
reward separately within initial high-interest
and initial low-interest conditions, the ro-
bustness of the observed interaction is evi-
dent. A Q statistic testing whether these six
effect sizes came from a single population
clearly confirmed that they did not (Q =
24.10, p < .001). The overall effect size for
the negative reward effect in the high-interest
conditions of these three studies was -1.03,
which differed significantly from 0 (p < .001),
whereas the overall effect size in the low-
interest conditions of these same studies was
+0.86, which also differed significantly from
0 (p < .005) but in the opposite direction.
None of these estimates, however, ap-
peared in Cameron and Pierce's (1994) analy-
sis. Instead, these replicable competing ef-
fects were "averaged," within studies, across
initial task interest, before these studies were
even entered into their table of "raw" effect
sizes. Not surprisingly, this procedure yielded
an obviously nonsignificant average "effect
size" of-0.02 for reward in these three stud-
675