Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A'S, Praise, and Other Bribes

I am extremely grateful to the author, Alfie Kohn, for writing this book. It has changed me forever. That sounds dramatic, but it is the truth. For me, it was paradigm shattering. I view myself, my children, and all people differently now. I can see more clearly what motivates me and all people. I feel more peace with myself, and that who I am and what I do is enough. I need not fear the judgments of others. I also have more compassion for my family and the whole human race. What a marvelously written book that is essential for all people to read. You will never be the same after pondering it's pages.

The author has a wonderful sense of humor....after all, if there be truth in wine there is also truth in viewing ourselves with perspective. As a Sales Manager enduring endless incentives which proved ineffective toward motivation, I applaud the author in helping to preserve dignity (at least the definition thereof). Also, don't read this in a doctor's waiting room if you do not want to be scrutinized as a person that cannot control your bouts of laughter. Well done, Alfie Kohn!!

Alfie Kohn's work challenges traditional educators and business people alike. It's refreshing to have a thought leader like Kohn remind us of the joy of learning and the intrinsic value of work. In education I find too much emphasis being placed on grades. In an ideal world grades should be incidental. When teachers and students focus on the process of learning, grades take care of themselves. Similarly, in business, I find when leaders and workers focus on building the best possible companies for customers to do business with, the money follows. I differ with Kohn's premise that all incentives are 'bad.' We need to have some means of assessing and compensating even if it's 'pass/fail.' A 'total reward system' is appropriate in education just as it is in business, but we get into trouble when we convince ourselves that rewards by themselves motivate people over time. Indeed, 'pay' is simply one element in a complex equation for recognizing and rewarding others. But, the degree to which such systems are fairly and equitably designed determines how empowered organizational members are to focus on the purpose for showing up, whether it's in the classroom or in the workplace. Let's not throw the baby out with the bath water. Alfie Kohn presents a case that is well worth pondering.

As a teacher, I have always argued that we need to maintain highgrade standards in order to motivate our students to do theirbest work. The assumption behind my position is that studentswant to get A's and will work to avoid F's (at least most will). This doesn't seem too radical. As parents, we make similarassumptions. We reward our children when they behave in ways weapprove, and we punish them when they misbehave. We might argueabout whether spanking is a good punishment or whether sending ahigh school student to his or her room is effective, but we agreeabout the efficacy of rewards and punishment.Employers and supervisors would agree. We reward our employeeswith pay raises when they do a good job; some jobs even providemerit pay for their for the best workers.But after reading Punished by Rewards by Alfie Kohn, I have somereservations. According to Kohn, rewards are not onlyineffective; they even prevent the behavior we want to encourage!The book starts off with a review of the psychological school ofdeterminism and the work of B.F. Skinner. It's a bit technicalhere, but it is clearly enough written that most readers can wadethrough it with no problems. Then comes the heart of the argument- offering rewards is actually counter-productive.In one study, for example, pre-kindergarten children were giventhe chance to draw with Magic Markers, something almost allchildren love to do. When one group was told they would receivegold stars if they drew pictures, however, their interest seemedto drop, and when the gold star rewards were withdrawn, many ofthe children quit drawing! The reward took the pleasure out ofthe task, making it a job that was done only for the sake of thereward.What does this say about our summer reading programs, where wegive students hamburgers (or other rewards) for reading. Will itmake reading less desirable? What happens when parents give theirchildren dessert as a reward for eating their Brussel Sprouts?(One experimenter did try to rewards students with BrusselRewards when they ate their cake, but the children didn't fallfor that one!) The same phenomenon occurs in the workplace. Employees who are inmerit pay programs often indicate that their interest in the workthey do drops off, and indeed the quality often falls off after afew months of the merit pay program.So what's the solution? Ah, here is the weakness, as Kohn himselfadmits. If the high school were to tell our students that wewanted the joy of learning to be their reward, I fear the vastmajority would quickly find other joys instead! The enthusiasmthat kindergarten children often exude ("Guess what we learnedtoday!") gets lost somewhere along the way. We can't simply dropour reward/punishment schemes without carefully considering howwe will restructure our homes, schools, and jobs.This is a book that parents, teachers, and employers will allfind interesting. It should cause some interesting debates.

I used Kohn's book as a resource in a Masters (education) thesis. There is so much literature out there that validates his writings. I wish all my children's teachers would read this book, as well as Haim Ginott's books on parenting and teaching (the ones that Faber and Mazlish base their work on) that describe how to do what Kohn proposes. The world would be a better place. In addition, this book really made me look at how I talk with and interact with my own children, as well as how they are treated at school. I immediately stopped using the "token economy" system I had devised to get my kids to do what I wanted them to do (and what they needed to be doing anyway). Kohn was right, the behaviors I was trying to induce did not continue after I stopped using the system, and the kids' biggest worry was how they were gonna get the goodies now!