Just a moment...

“When money is used as an external reward for some activity, the subjects lose intrinsic interest for the activity,” he wrote.5 Rewards can deliver a short-term boost—just as a jolt of caffeine can keep you cranking for a few more hours. But the effect wears off—and, worse, can reduce a person’s longer-term motivation to continue the project.

it. It is simply a matter of rewarding curiosity instead of punishing it: encouraging questions (however imperfect they may be), asking children to give presentations on subjects they love, rewarding them for taking initiative. . . . The neuroscience of motivation is extremely clear: the desire to do action X must be associated with an expected rew

“Punishment works best to prevent actions whereas incentives work best to encourage them.”

Remember: When children didn’t expect a reward, receiving one had little impact on their intrinsic motivation. Only contingent rewards—if you do this, then you’ll get that—had the negative effect. Why? “If-then” rewards require people to forfeit some of their autonomy.

McGregor had a key insight that has since been validated time and again: both are true. If you view people with mistrust (Theory X) and subject them to all sorts of controls, rules, and punishments, they will try to game the system, and you will feel your thinking is validated. Meet people with practices based on trust, and they will return your tr