Undermining children's intrinsic interest with extrinsic reward: A test of the "overjustification" hypothesis.

Abstract

A field experiment was conducted with children to test the overjustification hypothesis suggested by self-percepti on theory—the proposition that a person's intrinsic interest in an activity may be decreased by inducing him to engage in that activity as an explicit means to some extrinsic goal. Children showing intrinsic interest in a target activity during base-line observations were exposed to one of three conditions: In the expected-award condition, subjects agreed to engage in the target activity in order to obtain an extrinsic reward; in the unexpected-award condition, subjects had no knowledge of the reward until after they had finished with the activity; and in the no-award condition, subjects neither expected nor received the reward. The results supported the prediction that subjects in the expected-award condition would show less subsequent intrinsic interest in the target activity than subjects in either of the other two conditions. The process by which man seeks to understand his environment—to discern the causes of events which surround him and explain the behavior of others toward him—has been of central concern to social psychology for many years (e.g., Brunswik, 1934; Heider, 1958;