The Practicing Predicament

The Practicing Predicament

            Have you ever played a musical instrument? To those of you who answered yes, you may be able to understand the inner joy or satisfaction that comes along with playing your piano, clarinet, violin, or other instrument. For those of you who answered no, it might not be hard to imagine this feeling based off of other hobbies that give you similar pleasure. Do we experience less happiness when we are rewarded for our behavior compared to when we do it merely to please ourselves? Concepts from the readings last week point to justified psychological reasoning on why this may ultimately be true.

            When I was about five years old, I began playing the piano. It started as a simple curiosity, I was probably intrigued by my older sister, who had just begun taking lessons, and my dad, who would sit down and play ever since I was born. In this way, my initial motivation for playing was intrinsic, in that I wanted to engage in the activity because I found it interesting. It was just fun to me, I never considered it work. A couple months after my mom noticed my interest, I began to take lessons once a week. I was so excited for the opportunity to become better at something that was already so fun to me, and in the beginning I really did enjoy the lessons. I learned how to read music, understand rhythms, and soon became proficient at beginner-level songs.

However, the structure of the lesson and the requirements from week to week ultimately diminished my initial joy. More specifically, my piano teacher gave me a calendar to mark down how much time I practiced each day, suggesting that I practice about twenty minutes a day for five days a week. If I had met this goal, I would get a “piano note,” a blue decorated little sheet of paper, which could then be used to get a candy bar, stuffed animal, or other reward once I had four or five of them. To me, the practicing requirements seemed completely reasonable, what I didn’t really like was having to document every single time I sat down and played. I used to just sit down and play whenever I walked by the piano because it was fun and easy, but soon I found myself thinking practicing was more of chore and had to be a long and involved process. I would practice for the “piano note” and to make my teacher happy, but I missed the original joy that playing elicited in me.

This example from my own life illustrates the overjustification effect, the way in which I believed my motivation was caused by mainly extrinsic reasons, the “piano notes,” rather than intrinsic reasons, my inner desire to play. In a study done by Warneken and Tomasello, researchers investigated what affect rewards would have on twenty-month-old infants. The study involved thirty-six babies who were divided into three conditions: reward, praise, and neutral. If the participant helped the research assistant pick up a dropped item, they were either given a toy cube, praised verbally, or received no feedback at all. Results demonstrated that children were more likely to help in later trials if no material reward was given. Interestingly enough, children helped equally often after having experienced verbal praise or a neutral response. This study is important in pointing out how young children have a strong tendency to help but it is diminished by material rewards.

Overall, these findings and my own life example point to important implications for reward programs in education settings and society in general. Because overjustification is only observed in people with an initially high interest, targeting those individuals with no interest in a particular subject with rewards can be very beneficial. In addition, rather than rewarding someone for completing a task, known as a task-contingent reward, rewards can be offered based on how well people perform the task, a performance-contingent reward. Positive feedback is important in promoting behaviors, but we must take caution that it does not actually have the opposite effect than we had originally desired.

Warneken, F., & Tomasello, M. (2014). Extrinsic Rewards Undermine Altruistic

Tendencies in 20-Month-Olds. Motivation Science, 1(S), 43-48. doi:10.1037/2333-8113.1.S.43

- Tricia Gianfagna