{PBR} IS IT EFFECTIVE TO REWARD?
In the real world... rewards must be judged on whether they lead to lasting change—change that persists even when there are no longer any goodies to be gained.—Alfie Kohn
Having addressed the ethical question of behaviorism, Kohn attacks the pragmatic perspective of using rewards to control the behavior of others. What is it that we actually accomplish when we bribe others to comply with our demands?
{Note that this blog series is comprised of my basic notes and personal reflections. If you find these interesting, I highly recommend that you get a copy of Kohn’s book Punished by Rewards, so you can benefit from his full and original arguments.}
{IS IT EFFECTIVE TO REWARD?}
Kohn introduces the chapter with two scenarios that seem—not to imperil but—to affirm the idea that bribes are effective in getting children to do chores and homework. ‘The plan worked,’ Kohn seems to concede, ‘and that, most of us say, is all we need to know.’
Kohn, however, is not satisfied. The short-term plan worked: the children cleaned the kitchen or completed math homework. But Kohn is more interested in the long-term effects—how the promise of a special outing or a little cash affected the way the children did the task, and how it may have displaced intrinsic motivations or changed their attitude toward the activity.
‘We pay a substantial price for their success,’ Kohn says of rewards, but he is not willing even to accept the results as success. Do rewards really change behavior and improve performance?
Discussion—Consider the two opening stories. What was the parent’s immediate hope for the child’s behavior? What long term hopes do you suppose the parent has? How did the solution of bribery affect both? What other solutions could the parent have used, and what might have been their short and long-term effects?
{DO REWARDS CHANGE BEHAVIOR?}
Kohn divides the great question, Do rewards change behavior? into three questions that allow us to more closely examine the issues at stake. Kohn asks, For whom are rewards effective?—For how long are rewards effective?—At what exactly are rewards effective?
For whom are rewards effective? Kohn answers quite briefly.—For those who are, according to one behaviorist study, ‘necessarily dependent on powerful others’ for the things they need and want—animals, mental patients, prisoners and children. Others may also respond to rewards, ‘but it is much more difficult to make this happen in a predictable, systematic way,’ because they have the power to go elsewhere to have their needs and wants met if they don’t like the current conditions.
For how long are rewards effective? The quick answer, Kohn says, is that rewards work best in the short-term. As a motivating factor, rewards work as long as they are provided.
‘Virtually every behavior for which children are rewarded, from brushing their teeth to acting altruistically, is something we’d like them to keep doing when they are no longer rewarded...
If it does make sense to measure the effectiveness of rewards on the basis of whether they produce lasting change, the research suggests they fail miserably.’ [p 37]
Kohn’s first subject is token economy programs, with which I myself first became familiar during my work in a public kindergarten classroom. Having observed the fruits of this system, I can nod vigorously when Kohn cites studies concluding that changed behavior lasts only as long as the subject is in the program. Sadly amusing was Kohn’s remark that ‘reinforcement programs used each morning generally don’t even have much effect on patient’s behavior during the afternoon!’ There were three token economy systems in the kindergarten classroom, and it was instructive to see the children navigate all of them.
Kohn goes on to cite the spectacular failure of rewards to help study subjects lose weight, quit smoking or use seat-belts. With a reward at stake, subjects were much more likely to lie about their progress, to use unsustainable or unhealthy strategies, and to rebound when the program ended.
And this is the biggest reason we don’t see permanent change: extrinsic rewards displace the real {intrinsic} reasons for doing something. If you bribe children to read, they may increase their page count. You are not, however, feeding their love of reading, but their love of the reward. They lose interest in reading itself, which becomes the obstacle to the reward; and when the reward stops coming, it often happens that the appetite for rewards has dwarfed the appetite for knowledge {which is, of course, the actual point of reading}.
‘[T]he desire of knowledge is commonly deprived of its proper function in our schools by the predominance of other springs of action, especially of emulation, the desire of place, and avarice, the desire of wealth, tangible profit... But so besotted is our educational thought that we believe children regard knowledge rather as repulsive medicine than as inviting food. Hence our dependence on marks and prizes, athletics, alluring presentation, any jam we can devise to disguise the powder... [H]e whose mind goes on crutches of emulation and avarice loses that one stimulating power which is sufficient for his intellectual needs. This atrophy of the desire of knowledge is the penalty our scholars pay because we have chosen to make them work for inferior ends. [They] do not read unless with the stimulus of a forthcoming examination...’
—Charlotte M. Mason
Mama pointed out that love of reading {as an example} will not necessarily be destroyed by bribes. That is true: we are individuals with different needs and strengths. We would be making the same mistake as the behaviorists if we assumed that all people will respond the same way to the same treatment. {Realistically, they will not even be getting the same treatment—even in institutionalized education—because they have different teachers and different home lives. This recognition is one reason why socialists want to eliminate home and other ‘outside’ influences—in order that schools may produce a more homogenous and therefore more controllable mass product.} All this does not mean, however, that the system is harmless. Some children will get through school with their love of reading intact despite the corrosive effects of bribery. Sadly, many more will never have that love of reading for delight and knowledge.
At what, exactly are rewards effective?
{DO REWARDS IMPROVE PERFORMANCE?}
TO BE CONTINUED.....
• What does getting paid for brushing his teeth, teach a child about the value of taking care of himself? •
January 17, 2014