# Punished by Rewards

By Simon Hørup Eskildsen · 2022-06-13 · Book by Alfie Kohn, rated 5/5 · https://sirupsen.com/books/punished-by-rewards

I really loved this book. Certainly one of those where the world's seen a little
different once you finish it.

The book's hypothesis is essentially that the most widely believed ideas about
how to motivate people by rewards and punishment is completely flawed. Yes,
they may help get things done short-term, but it completely tampers with the
long-term motivations. As soon as you dangle the metaphorical carrot in front of
a child to read books, you pivot the motivation from intrinsic to extrinsic.
The author goes to such extremes he thinks we should abandon school grades,
which are another example of rewards. Rewards pretty much only work for very
small, mundane tasks. Beyond that, use them carefully and consider that you
may open a door you can never close.

> Do rewards motivate people? Absolutely. They motivate people to get rewards.

> "a parent who says to a child, “If you finish your math homework, you may
> watch an hour of TV” is teaching the child to think of math as something that
> isn’t much fun." (Alfie Kohn, Punished by Rewards)

I am not completely sure how the research stands up 20 years later but as the
hypothesis in the book relies on fairly simple experiments, I'd imagine fair
well.