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Surely one of the best ways to generate motivation in ourselves and others is by dangling rewards?
的确奖励是催生动力的最好的方法之一。
Yet psychologists have long known that rewards are overrated. The carrot, of carrot-and-stick fame, is not as effective as we've been led to believe. Rewards work under some circumstances but sometimes they backfire. Spectacularly.
然而很久以来心理学家认为奖励的作用被高估了。萝卜加大棒中的萝卜并没有我们相信的那么有效。奖励在一些情形下有用,而在一些情况下却会适得其反。
Here is a story about preschool children with much to teach all ages about the strange effects that rewards have on our motivation.
这里关于学龄前儿童的故事可以让所有人看到奖励对我们的动力的神奇的作用。
It's child's play
这是孩子的游戏。
Psychologists Mark R. Lepper and David Greene from Stanford and the University of Michigan were interested in testing what is known as the 'overjustification' hypothesis—about which, more later (Lepper et al., 1973).
来自斯坦福大学的心理学家马克·R·莱佩尔和密歇根大学的心理学家大卫·格林对过度合理化假设的测验感兴趣,关于这一点,更多信息在(Leeper et al., 1973)
Since parents so often use rewards as motivators for children they recruited fifty-one preschoolers aged between 3 and 4. All the children selected for the study were interested in drawing. It was crucial that they already liked drawing because Lepper and Greene wanted to see what effect rewards would have when children were already fond of the activity.
因为父母经常把奖励作为激励孩子的因素,他们招募了51个年龄在3到四岁的学龄前儿童。所有参与研究的儿童都对绘画感兴趣。这是很关键的,因为莱佩尔和格林想要观察奖励在孩子们喜欢的活动中起到什么样的作用。
The children were then randomly assigned to one of the following conditions:
随后孩子们被随机分配到下面的其中一种情境中:
Expected reward. In this condition children were told they would get a certificate with a gold seal and ribbon if they took part.
期望的奖励。在这种情境中,孩子们被告知,如果她们参与实验的话,就会得到一份带有金色印章和缎带的证书。
Surprise reward. In this condition children would receive the same reward as above but, crucially, weren't told about it until after the drawing activity was finished.
意外惊喜的奖励。在这种情境中,他们同样会得到上面那种情境下的奖励,不过关键一点是,他们是在绘画活动结束之后才被告知这一情况的。
No reward. Children in this condition expected no reward, and didn't receive one.
没有奖励。这一情境中的孩子没有期望的奖励,也不会得到意外的惊喜。
Each child was invited into a separate room to draw for 6 minutes then afterwards either given their reward or not depending on the condition. Then, over the next few days, the children were watched through one-way mirrors to see how much they would continue drawing of their own accord. The graph below shows the percentage of time they spent drawing by experimental condition:
每个孩子被带到一个单独的房间里作画6分钟,随后根据设定的情境给予或不给他们奖励。然而,随后的几天里,通过单向的玻璃镜观察孩子们是多么自愿地持续绘画。下面就是根据实验情境得来的他们作画时间的百分比图标:
As you can see the expected reward had decreased the amount of spontaneous interest the children took in drawing (and there was no statistically significant difference between the no reward and surprise reward group). So, those who had previously liked drawing were less motivated once they expected to be rewarded for the activity. In fact the expected reward reduced the amount of spontaneous drawing the children did by half. Not only this, but judges rated the pictures drawn by the children expecting a reward as less aesthetically pleasing.
就像你看到的那样,在有期望奖励的情境下的孩子们自发的绘画的兴趣已经下降了(而没有奖励或有意外奖励的组在统计数值上没有什么重大的区别)。所以,那些先前喜欢绘画的孩子们,在对他们的活动给予期望的奖励后,他们的动力反而减少了。事实上期望的奖励降低了一半的自发作画的兴趣。不仅如此,对有期望奖励的孩子们的相关的绘画的没有那么有美感。
Rewards reduce intrinsic motivation
奖励减少了内在的动力。