Summary of the Core Content
This article explores the negative consequences of incentivizing education. Through experimental data, real-life examples, and personal experiences, it reveals a counterintuitive truth: rewards that we commonly use—such as material incentives, praise, and grades—seem to motivate people but can actually weaken their intrinsic motivation, deprive them of autonomy, and even make them lose their passion for the things they are doing. Drawing on the book *The Harm of Rewards*, the author points out that while rewards may enhance “quantitative performance” (e.g., doing things faster or more), they can damage “qualitative performance” (such as creativity and in-depth thinking), ultimately leading to a sense of emptiness. Even those who are “winners” within an exam-oriented system (for example, outstanding students from Peking University) may end up feeling meaningless.
Detailed Analysis
1. Rewards Are Not a Panacea; Sometimes They Can Be Counterproductive
Many people believe that rewards make people work harder, but experimental results show the opposite:
- In a 1961 facial recognition experiment, children who received rewards made more mistakes.
- Later studies found that children given rewards took longer to complete complex tasks (such as playing chess or creating collage art) and used more chaotic methods; they also performed worse on other tasks a week later.
- A 2014 authoritative study confirmed that rewards are only effective for “simple, repetitive tasks” (e.g., lifting bricks faster), but they hinder performance on tasks that require thinking and creativity (such as writing articles or solving math problems).
More importantly, rewards can diminish your interest in the activity itself. For example, if you reward a child for drinking their favorite drink, they may stop liking the drink because the reward makes the act of drinking a means to obtain the reward, rather than an act driven by genuine enjoyment.
2. Rewards Turn What You Enjoy into a “Mandatory Task”
The essence of a reward is an exchange, and it subtly changes your motivation for doing something:
- Library Example: A child reads books for baseball cards but eventually decides that reading itself is not fun and only the baseball cards are interesting; as a result, they stop enjoying extracurricular reading.
- Author’s Personal Experience: Singing was once her joy, but after becoming a blogger, she started singing popular songs and following trending topics for traffic (a form of reward), eventually losing her interest in singing altogether. The “traffic” turned singing into a tool to gain attention.
Rewards also bring hidden punishments: the anxiety of not receiving what you want. You begin to cater to the system’s expectations, guessing what it wants rather than what you truly desire. For instance, to get high scores, you may give up on extracurricular books that interest you and only focus on exam-related content; to gain followers, you may say things you don’t believe in—gradually losing your ability to make independent choices.
3. Praise and Grades: seemingly Kind Rewards, but Actually More Harmful
Many people think that praise is a better form of reward than material incentives, but both praise and grades are still forms of incentivization and can be even more detrimental:
- The Traps of Praise: Parents may praise children for being “smart” to encourage them to do things they don’t like (e.g., participating in competitions), using affirmation to control their choices.
- The Monopoly of Grades: Grades are the ultimate reward in education; they determine what school you attend and define what is considered good. For example, if you excel in art, adults may tell you to focus on exams; if you do well academically, you receive recognition, while poor grades lead to neglect.
This reward system binds your self-worth to external indicators: “If my grades are bad, I’m not good enough.” As a result, even outstanding students from Peking University (who win in the exam-oriented system) may suffer from a sense of emptiness. Without grades as a reference, they don’t know why they should learn, because they have always used them to prove their worth, not out of a love for learning itself.
4. Breaking Free from the Reward Trap: You Can Live a Meaningful Life Without Always Seeking Excellence
The author shares her mother’s educational approach, which offers a alternative:
- Her mother didn’t require her to copy the standard answers from dictionaries; instead, she encouraged her to understand the meanings in context, even if they differed from the dictionary.
- Her mother read books and told stories with her, allowing her to enjoy the process of thinking, not just to get good grades or praise.
The author noticed that students who performed well academically from a young age were more concerned about others’ opinions and lived with more anxiety. In contrast, she, who didn’t have to study for grades, was able to truly enjoy the learning process as an adult.
Finally, the author ends with a modified line from the drama *I Am Kim Sam-soon*: “Love as if no one is responding; sing as if no one is listening; live as if today were the end of the world—live for your own pleasure, not for rewards.”
The core message of this article is to remind us not to let rewards steal our passion and autonomy. True motivation comes from within, from our genuine enjoyment of the activities we engage in.
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