Alfie Kohn's Punished by Rewards: Critique of Incentive Systems

Overview of Kohn's Central Argument

Do you remember receiving a gold star every time you did well in grade school? While you might have delighted in the shiny, gold sticker, did that gold star motivate you to do a stellar job the next time you studied for a quiz? Perhaps. But did it stimulate your interest to learn more about the material being tested? Probably not. According to Alfie Kohn's work Punished by Rewards, teaching and raising children according to a rewards and punishment system is fundamentally dangerous. Although using gold stars and candy bars may work in the short run, ultimately they do not translate into long-term educational success or superior performance at work.

Kohn's analysis extends far beyond the classroom into the workplace. By using such quid pro quo incentive exchanges at work, managers commit the same mistakes as parents and teachers when they reward children much in the same way they reward family pets—with praise and blame. A sales commission is merely another form of gold star or candy bar: an incentive system that teaches nothing about real loyalty to a business or genuine excellence at a job.

Behaviorism and Its Educational Legacy

Kohn traces the roots of reward-based motivation to behaviorism, a theory of teaching animals coined by B.F. Skinner that was rapidly transposed onto the educational system because it proved easy for teachers to use. Skinner used a system of rewards and punishments to condition rats to run mazes; today, educators employ similar methods with classrooms full of children. They are manipulating or doing things "to" children rather than encouraging children to act from their own innate motivation. Although harsh punishment has fallen out of fashion as cruel, Kohn argues that rewards in their own way are just as coercive—a fact sensed by the person being manipulated.

What makes Kohn's critique particularly striking is his observation that behaviorism has become an invisible part of our cultural and educational infrastructure. Few educators or parents recognize reward systems as an explicit learning theory; instead, gold stars and incentive plans seem natural, inevitable, as though they always existed. This invisibility allows the system to persist unchallenged, despite mounting scientific evidence that contradicts its effectiveness.

The Danger of Extrinsic Rewards for Intrinsically Motivated Tasks

According to Kohn, rewards are most dangerous when the occupation or task is already intrinsically interesting to the person completing it. Consider a student who loves to read. He or she is interested in the actual content of the book and enjoys learning about fictional people or real-life events. When a teacher introduces a "reading club" with rewards for every certain number of books read, the nature of the activity shifts. Suddenly, reading becomes not about learning for its own sake but about completing a book to earn points to win pizza.

Such a formerly internally motivated student might now rush through books or select easier ones simply to win more points. Similarly, when a manager uses an incentive program, the worker becomes less interested in the quality of the task or in making a contribution to the organization. Instead, the worker becomes obsessed with achieving a predetermined benchmark of success, the only route to receiving a reward. When people are offered extrinsic rewards for tasks involving creativity, these incentives ultimately tend to reduce performance quality in the long run because people become dependent on the system for positive reinforcement. Without it, workers feel that the lack of a bonus or promotion is like a punishment—a reversal of the original motivation.

But what about tasks that are not intrinsically interesting, like learning multiplication tables or assembling parts in a factory? Is it acceptable to use a rewards system then? Kohn still says no. Rather than defaulting to incentives, it is better to question the value of the task itself and to make it more engaging if it must be taught. When teaching something potentially dull like measurement, instead of placing stickers on tests of high-performing students, Kohn suggests that teachers engage student interest by creating a lab where they measure common objects or measure one another's heights. Using a rewards system becomes a kind of cop-out for really teaching the material so students truly own the knowledge rather than chase the reward.

Rethinking Less Interesting Tasks

Before entering school, most young children are already intrinsically motivated learners—a fact few parents or teachers acknowledge. What is motivational to a young child: the joy of movement, or receiving a 100% on a physical fitness test? But once a rewards system is introduced, the child is far less likely to perform the task independently when that system is withdrawn. The child who loves reading but is placed into a pizza-point reading program may not read during summer vacation because no points will be earned. Reading becomes a chore or a means to an end rather than a source of joy.

Praise, Compliance, and the Social Cost

Kohn acknowledges that some positive feedback is valuable. Students should know when they complete a task correctly, for example. However, praise using moral terms like "good" or "bad," rather than simply showing a student how to improve, is often counterproductive. When students are praised for intellectual ability or rule-following, they are frequently taunted for being "nerds" or "dorks." The same dynamic occurs at work, where excellence becomes associated with being a "brownnoser." Doing something well becomes linked with bending to the will of an authority figure—and who wants to feel manipulated?

This "dork factor" is yet another reason why attempting to manipulate people with incentives ultimately fails and causes lasting harm to their joy and engagement with a discipline. The strategy interferes with creating a cohesive workplace or classroom. Excelling becomes a means of obedience and winning favor from superiors rather than an expression of genuine interest. Performance will continue to decline, Kohn argues, until we question our reliance on a motivation theory derived from laboratory animals.

Why Behaviorism Persists Despite Evidence

Children do begin their lives with a desire to please and get attention from parents, just as everyone seeks recognition for going above and beyond at work. However, adults should not exploit this desire in self-serving ways—to create a quiet classroom or meet a deadline. The reward and punishment system is intrinsically faulty because it sometimes unintentionally punishes students when withdrawn from the system, and it can rupture relationships with peers and colleagues. It provides an easy "out" for educators, encouraging them to ignore underlying reasons for negative behaviors, such as that their own teaching style is dull or uncreative. In the workplace, it discourages risk-taking and creativity because creativity transgresses the hard and fast rules of the reward game.

Why do institutions cling to behaviorist beliefs despite scientific evidence undermining them? Kohn offers several explanations. Almost everyone alive today was educated within behaviorism and reward systems their entire life. Behaviorism also superficially resembles the American system of meritocracy, where everyone receives just desserts. Rewards seem like a natural part of capitalist exchange and monetary transaction. The concept that "I get this if I do this" mirrors religious beliefs in heaven and hell—a simplistic rewards system. Additionally, Kohn suggests that teachers and managers may favor the behaviorist approach because they relish this method of control.