BOOK REVIEW: ‘Punished by Rewards’ By Alfie Kohn

EFFECTIVE SUMMARY

Alfie Kohn in his work ‘Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A’s, Praise and Other Bribes’, shines a light on how our school systems and parenting have holistically shaped our entire capitalist workforce, and vice versa.

The main features which the book focuses on are:

• The effects of motivating adults in the workplace solely through extrinsic means, such as through money and threats of dismissal
• How parental upbringing and schooling deeply impact how children perceive work, learning, competition/cooperation with others
• Prioritising the need for others to change the way they think towards motivators, such as pay rises and performance benefits
• Establishing that the source of the problem is in how we use rewards and punishments and external motivators

Kohn's ultimate project is to somehow remove the desire of the labourer to work only for money; for students to be eager to learn without the fuss over grades; and for parents to adopt a more diplomatic approach to instructing and raising their children.

Arguably, these things can happen once we shift our focus from ‘bribing’ others to do what we want(which is effectively forcing) – through pay motivators for adults, grades for the students, and treats for kids – to encouraging them. For intrinsic motivators, that is, the personal and real motivator, will always and in any case far outlast extrinsic ones.

As Kohn writes, which sums the books’ premise:

“In short, just because we are interested in an object that is being used as a reward doesn’t mean that the practice of using it as a reward is itself innocuous. In fact, the more you want what has been dangled in front of you, the more you may come to dislike whatever you have to do to get it.”

REVIEW/ASSESMENT

Now, to understand the aim of the book and hence the necessity of reading it, we need to be stirred awake to our immediate context. What is the underlying problem of the workplace ethic? Why do none of our students want to learn? What is the reason for our abundance of unmotivated, uncreative and dispassionate children? Finally, is there a connection between these problems?

I will address each of these problems separately, taking them each in context, and showing Kohns insights into them.

The Workplace

It begins with the word. Work. We don’t like it and we don’t find any interest in it. But we put up with it because at the end of the month we get a decent sum of money. One even works extra hours, even though he needs the time, just to get more money.

The entire job marketplace revolves around how one exploits one’s labour to maximise money gain. But clearly this is unhealthy simply because one’s focus isn’t even on the work – it’s on the money. Also, there is the added problem of ‘performance bonuses’: “If I work harder”, the labourer thinks to himself, “and do better than my colleges, perhaps my boss will notice and increase my salary. Heck, he might even promote me!” And so (1) we become self-conscious of our performance, which inevitably diminishes motivation and the quality of our work, and (2) we completely forgo the purpose of our job as though it were secondary.

Money as a reward has almost possessed the labourer and has functioned as an incredibly powerful distraction. But, although the intention of the employers is to increase the productivity of the workers, and though it effectively does – if money is used as a reward, no motivation will be kindled in the worker. Alfie Kohn writes:

“In many workplaces, incentive plans are used as a substitute for management: pay is made contingent on performance and everything else is left to take care of itself.”

“Another way of framing this issue is to say that while authority figures can unilaterally dispense rewards, they must acknowledge their lack of absolute control with respect to things like motivation.”

“Rewards don’t bring about the changes we are hoping for, but the point here is also that something else is going on: the more rewards are used, the more they seem to be needed.”

Hence, we have sunk ourselves so deep into the rabbit hole of using money motivators, that we have come to believe them as actually necessary!

Schooling and Education

Anyone who has been through the schooling system, even university schooling, knows instinctually that teachers and authorities in these corporations do not care about the interest of the students. We know this to be true because students do not understand why they are learning – all they have been taught to do is to be hostile towards other students and do whatever it takes to that grade ‘A’ on their report. Deep down though, none of them know the reason they strive for it except the fact that it garners respect from peers, praise from teachers, and approval from parents. There is no desire to learn, only to do the minimum that it takes to get the best grade: there is no – ah, here it is – reward for going above and beyond. Alfie stresses these points:

“The available research shows that encouraging children to become fully involved with what they’re working on and to stop worrying about their performance contributes to ‘a motivational pattern likely to promote long-term and high-quality involvement in learning.’”

“If we expect children to want to learn something, we have to give them a clue as to why they should be motivated. Besides, it is a simple matter of respect to offer such explanations.”

“Even an elementary school student could tell you that how much work people do, or how long they do it, is less important than what they are doing. (‘It is not enough to be busy; the question is, what are we busy about?’ is how Thoreau put it.) This point, however, seems to be lost on critics who think the most important way to improve our educational system is to increase the length of the school year (or the school day) or to pile on more homework.”

The teachers have been abusing us this entire time: “if you learn these 50 facts for your history test”, they tell us, “and you study hard you’ll get a good mark I promise you, I might even give the top students a big sticker…You’re falling behind the class, look at the grades you’ve been getting, you have to study, study, study! See how much of the textbook you need to memorise?...If you want to improve your grades, you need to work on these sets of questions, and if you work harder you’ll get a better rank, perhaps top of the class.”

These things have been so ingrained in us that we can’t even see the problem anymore with this system of thinking. We don’t realise that by setting grades as the sole measure of success, other students become stumbling blocks and literally enemies by virtue of comparison. Hence Alfie Kohn explains:

"Understanding and intellectual growth are derived not only from the relationship between student and teacher, or between student and text, but also from the relationship between one student and another.”

“My purpose here is mostly just to affirm that anyone thinking about learning and motivation, anyone interested in educational reform, must attend to the relationships among students in the classroom and consider the importance of collaboration.”

With respect to schooling then, Alfie suggests that grades have secondary importance, and that by showing the students the purpose of learning said content, that is assuming the content is worth learning about, students are significantly more likely to engage in learning.

Parenting and Children

Now, one may think that I should have addressed this first, thinking that if we solve this problem then the others will solve themselves in suit – but this is as fruitless as asking whether the egg came before the chicken. It is the problem coming from both directions that has resulted in our pervasive, narrow thinking manifesting as toxic ideology.

Parenting is absolutely crucial however, because if we can develop clear headed individuals who approach education with a sober intellect, the schooling system will have a null effect on them; and so when they enter the workplace, they will then understand the purpose of money. They work because they are (1) intrinsically motivated and (2) understand and appreciate the value they bring to the economy and society through their work/occupation.

This means that we cannot raise our children on a reward/punishment basis. We cannot always threaten to take our their phone and electronics if they don’t clean their room when we tell them to; or forbid them from doing things that actually don’t have a strong basis on anything; or assume their interests in things, refusing to hear about what they like to do, and so on. We are all guilty of this or have experienced this. The mindset needs to change.

Kohn writes on parenting thus, with interesting advice:

“When “Do this and you’ll get that” is the rule rather than the exception in our lives, we come to feel, in the words of one expert in motivation, ‘that psychic energy invested in new directions is wasted unless there is a good chance of reaping extrinsic rewards for it . . . [which means we] end up no longer enjoying life.’”

“There is nothing wrong with trying to deal with troublesome behavior, and some of what follows addresses this matter directly. But an approach that focuses on coping with problems does little to help children grow into good people, and may actually interfere with that goal. On the other hand, if we are effective in promoting positive values and skills, we may reduce the number of problems requiring intervention on a daily basis. To concentrate on those values and skills may be a way of feeding two birds from one feeder, so to speak.”

“My impression is that the commitment to punishing children typically reflects a fear that the failure to respond this way will mean that they “got away with something.” If we dig still further, we find that this perception upsets us for two reasons. First, it implies that the child has “won.” Our authority has been challenged, and the more we construe a relationship as a battle for power, the more wildly we will lash out to preserve that power. Second, we are concerned the child will come away thinking he can repeat whatever it was he did. This concern, in turn, betrays a particular assumption about children’s motives, namely that a child is inclined to do what he can get away with and will keep doing it until forcibly restrained. Ultimately, our need to punish (or dread of not punishing) is predicated on a tacit theory of human nature.”

Evaluation

This book is certainly thought provoking and would do anyone well to read it, simply because this catastrophe of pop behaviourism (‘Do this and you’ll get that’ mentality) is ubiquitous. The sooner we becomes conscious of this, the more reflective we will be towards everything that we do, and how we would deal with situations, such as parenting, work-placement, parenting, etc.

Now, this book has no flaws at all because it almost gives us no direct solutions, especially to the workplace problem – but arguably the way we integrate it is completely personal, and if the method were set in stone there would be a contradiction, for the whole purpose of this book was to open up new possibilities.

It is a great read. Not only does it give us ample evidence of how people react to the reward/punishment system, but how people are fundamentally opposed to it. It shows us that intrinsically all motivation should and does come first and primarily from the self.

I will end with this powerful analogy by Kohn:

“An old joke captures this phenomenon as well as any study could. It is the story of an elderly man who endured the insults of a crowd of ten-year-olds each day as they passed his house on their way home from school. One afternoon, after listening to another round of jeers about how stupid and ugly and bald he was, the man came up with a plan. He met the children on his lawn the following Monday and announced that anyone who came back the next day and yelled rude comments about him would receive a dollar. Amazed and excited, they showed up even earlier on Tuesday, hollering epithets for all they were worth. True to his word, the old man ambled out and paid everyone. “Do the same tomorrow,” he told them, “and you’ll get twenty-five cents for your trouble.” The kids thought that was still pretty good and turned out again on Wednesday to taunt him. At the first catcall, he walked over with a roll of quarters and again paid off his hecklers. “From now on,” he announced, “I can give you only a penny for doing this.” The kids looked at each other in disbelief. “A penny?” they repeated scornfully. “Forget it!” And they never came back again. The old man’s plan was sly but also elegantly simple. He rewarded the children for something they had been doing voluntarily, something they thought was fun, and right away they came to see themselves as harassing him in order to get paid. As soon as the reward was no longer there, neither were they. This, of course, was the whole idea: to sap their intrinsic motivation. But that is also what millions of us—well-meaning parents, teachers, and managers—are doing to the people we reward, whether we realize it or not: killing off their interest in the very things we are bribing them to do.”