The Risks of Rewards

John Condry, was more succinct: rewards, he said, are the “enemies of exploration.”

“What rewards and punishments do is induce compliance, and they do very well. If your objective is to get people to obey an order, to show up on time and do what they’re told, then bribing or threatening them may be sensible strategies. But if your objective is to get long-term quality in the workplace, to help students become careful thinkers and ... See more

Punishment and rewards are actually two sides of the same coin. Both have a punitive effect because they are manipulative.

not receiving a reward one had expected to receive is also indistinguishable from being punished.

“People use rewards expecting to gain the benefit of increasing another person’s motivation and behavior, but in so doing, they often incur the unintentional and hidden cost of undermining that person’s intrinsic motivation toward the activity.”