Negative Effects of Reward on Intrinsic Motivation—A Limited Phenomenon: Comment on Deci, Koestner, and Ryan (2001)

A major concern in educational settings is that the use of rewards and incentives may destroy students’ intrinsic motivation to perform activities. In collaboration with other researchers, the author conducted a meta-analysis of the literature that showed that negative effects of reward were limited and easily avoidable (Cameron & Pierce, 1994; Eisenberger & Cameron, 1996). Deci, Koestner, and Ryan (2001) suggest that our work was seriously flawed; they present a summary of their meta-analysis on the topic (Deci, Koestner, & Ryan, 1999a) and claim that rewards do substantially undermine intrinsic interest. In this comment, it is argued that there is no inherent negative property of reward. By organizing studies according to cognitive evaluation theory, Deci et al. (1999a) collapsed across distinct reward procedures and were able to obtain pervasive negative effects. When studies are organized according to the actual procedures used, however, negative effects are limited to a specific set of circumstances.

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