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they didn’t like them. Expecting to receive the award at the session had undermined their initial interest in the
markers.
Figure 7.10Undermining Intrinsic Interest
Mark Lepper and his colleagues (1973) found that giving rewards for playing with markers, which the children
naturally enjoyed, could reduce their interest in the activity.
Source: Adapted from Lepper, M. R., Greene, D., & Nisbett, R. E. (1973). Undermining children’s intrinsic interest
with extrinsic reward: A test of the “overjustification” hypothesis. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 28(1),
129 –137.
This research suggests that, although giving rewards may in many cases lead us to perform an activity more
frequently or with more effort, reward may not always increase our liking for the activity. In some cases reward may
actually make us like an activity less than we did before we were rewarded for it. This outcome is particularly likely
when the reward is perceived as an obvious attempt on the part of others to get us to do something. When children
are given money by their parents to get good grades in school, they may improve their school performance to gain the
reward. But at the same time their liking for school may decrease. On the other hand, rewards that are seen as more
internal to the activity, such as rewards that praise us, remind us of our achievements in the domain, and make us feel
good about ourselves as a result of our accomplishments are more likely to be effective in increasing not only the
performance of, but also the liking of, the activity (Hulleman, Durik, Schweigert, & Harackiewicz, 2008; Ryan & Deci,
2002). [12]