Rewards, Intrinsic Motivation, and Creativity: A Case Study of Conceptual and Methodological Isolation.

Three decades of research have failed to produce general agreement concerning the effects of reward on creativity. We believe that the problem stems not from any great complexity of research findings, but primarily from the clash between romantic and behav- iorist worldviews concerning basic human nature. Iso- lation of these research camps has produced narrow perspectives and failures to correct persisting method- ological flaws. Research correcting these flaws sug- gests that rewards for novel performance increase intrinsic motivation and creativity, whereas rewards for conventional performance decrease intrinsic moti- vation and creativity. Creative motivational orienta- tion, enhanced by rewards, strongly affects innovative performance.

[1]  J. P. Guilford,et al.  Intelligence, creativity, and their educational implications , 1968 .

[2]  T. M. Amabile.  The social psychology of creativity , 1984 .

[3]  R. Eisenberger,et al.  Promised Reward and Creativity: Effects of Prior Experience , 1999 .

[4]  Linda Rhoades,et al.  Does Pay for Performance Increase or Decrease Perceived Self-Determination and Intrinsic Motivation? , 1999 .

[5]  W D Pierce,et al.  Effects of reward on intrinsic motivation--negative, neutral and positive: comment on Deci, Koestner, and Ryan (1999) , 1999, Psychological bulletin.

[6]  James D. Watson,et al.  The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA , 1968 .

[7]  A. Winston,et al.  Behavior Analytic Studies of Creativity: A Critical Review , 1985, The Behavior analyst.

[8]  J. Glover,et al.  Procedures to increase some aspects of creativity. , 1976, Journal of applied behavior analysis.

[9]  B. Skinner,et al.  Science and human behavior , 1953 .

[10]  R. Sternberg.  Handbook of Creativity: Subject Index , 1998 .

[11]  Teresa M. Amabile,et al.  Reward, Intrinsic Motivation, and Creativity , 1998 .

[12]  Edward L. Deci,et al.  Intrinsic Motivation and Self-Determination in Human Behavior , 1975, Perspectives in Social Psychology.

[13]  R. Eisenberger,et al.  Can salient reward increase creative performance without reducing intrinsic creative interest? , 1997, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[14]  Teresa M. Amabile,et al.  Reality, intrinsic motivation, and creativity. , 1998 .

[15]  Teresa M. Amabile,et al.  Immunizing Children against the Negative Effects of Reward. , 1989 .

[16]  Jean E. Pretz,et al.  Can the promise of reward increase creativity , 1998 .

[17]  M. Mumford.  Where Have We Been, Where Are We Going? Taking Stock in Creativity Research , 2003 .

[18]  Einstein: The Life and Times , 1972 .

[19]  N. Macrae.  John Von Neumann , 1992 .

[20]  R. Eisenberger,et al.  Detrimental effects of reward. Reality or myth? , 1996, The American psychologist.

[21]  R. Sternberg,et al.  It Doesn't Hurt to Ask: Effects of Instructions to Be Creative, Practical, or Analytical on Essay-Writing Performance and Their Interaction With Students' Thinking Styles , 2001 .

[22]  Richard S. Mansfield,et al.  The Psychology of Creativity and Discovery: Scientists and Their Work , 1981 .

[23]  E. Deci,et al.  The support of autonomy and the control of behavior. , 1987, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[24]  R. Eisenberger,et al.  Incremental effects of reward on creativity. , 2001, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[25]  Teresa M. Amabile,et al.  Children's Artistic Creativity , 1982 .

[26]  Teresa M. Amabile,et al.  Creativity In Context: Update To The Social Psychology Of Creativity , 1996 .

[27]  T. Amabile,et al.  The conditions of creativity. , 1988 .

[28]  Arie W. Kruglanski,et al.  The effects of extrinsic incentive on some qualitative aspects of task performance1 , 1971 .

[29]  Barry Schwartz,et al.  Reinforcement-Induced Behavioral Stereotypy: How Not To Teach People To Discover Rules , 1982 .

[30]  Kenneth O. McGraw,et al.  Evidence of a detrimental effect of extrinsic incentives on breaking a mental set. , 1979 .

[31]  Robert Kanigel,et al.  The man who knew infinity: a life of the genius Ramanujan , 1991 .

[32]  R. Sternberg,et al.  An Investment Theory of Creativity and Its Development , 1991 .

[33]  Mark A. Runco,et al.  Flexibility and Originality in Children's Divergent Thinking , 1986 .

[34]  James Gleick.  Complexities of Feynman. (Book Reviews: Genius. The Life and Science of Richard Feynman.) , 1992 .

[35]  F. Masterson,et al.  Accuracy versus speed in the generalized effort of learning-disabled children. , 1984, Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior.

[36]  R. Eisenberger,et al.  Does reward increase or decrease creativity , 1994 .

[37]  J. Rousseau,et al.  The Confessions and Correspondence, Including the Letters to Malesherbes , 1995 .

[38]  A. Maslow.  Toward a psychology of being, 2nd ed. , 1968 .

[39]  R. Feynman,et al.  The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard Feynman , 1999 .

[40]  C. Rogers.  Toward a theory of creativity. , 1954 .

[41]  J. Condry.  Enemies of exploration: Self-initiated versus other-initiated learning. , 1977 .

[42]  E. Deci,et al.  A meta-analytic review of experiments examining the effects of extrinsic rewards on intrinsic motivation. , 1999, Psychological bulletin.

[43]  M. Csíkszentmihályi.  Implications of a Systems Perspective for the Study of Creativity , 1998 .

[44]  Teresa M. Amabile,et al.  Effects of external evaluation on artistic creativity. , 1979 .

[45]  M. Csíkszentmihályi.  Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience , 1990 .

[46]  Richard S. Crutchfield,et al.  Conformity and creative thinking. , 1962 .

[47]  R. Koestner,et al.  Effect of Expected Rewards on Children's Creativity , 1999 .

[48]  Teresa M. Amabile,et al.  Motivation and creativity. , 1998 .

[49]  M. Ironsmith,et al.  Promoting Children's Creativity: Effects of Competition, Self-Esteem, and Immunization. , 1996 .