In direct contravention to the core tenets of Motivation 2.0, an incentive designed to clarify thinking and sharpen creativity ended up clouding thinking and dulling creativity. Why? Rewards, by their very nature, narrow our focus.

Two University of Zurich researchers were equally curious: The Swiss nuclear incentive study, titled “The Cost of Price Incentives: An Empirical Analysis of Motivation Crowding-Out,” was conducted by Bruno S. Frey and Felix Oberholzer-Gee. It was published in the American Economic Review 87 (1997): 746–55. forty students sat with number 2 pencils:

Many assume that offering a reward will help people to jump-start a healthy habit, which will then persist after the reward fades away. Not so. Often, as soon as the reward stops (and sometimes before it stops), the behavior stops.