Too Many Rewards are Counterproductive

[rhuk]

I feel that blizzard should read this as well as all you loot whores out there.

naggum.no/motivation.html


Heres a quote from the article:

"A related series of studies shows that intrinsic interest in a task -- the sense that something is worth doing for its own sake -- typically declines when someone is rewarded for doing it.

If a reward -- money, awards, praise, or winning a contest -- comes to be seen as the reason one is engaging in an activity, that activity will be viewed as less enjoyable in its own right.

With the exception of some behaviorists who doubt the very existence of intrinsic motivation, these conclusions are now widely accepted among psychologists. Taken together, they suggest we may unwittingly be squelching interest and discouraging innovation among workers, students and artists.

The recognition that rewards can have counter-productive effects is based on a variety of studies, which have come up with such findings as these: Young children who are rewarded for drawing are less likely to draw on their own that are children who draw just for the fun of it. Teenagers offered rewards for playing word games enjoy the games less and do not do as well as those who play with no rewards. Employees who are praised for meeting a manager's expectations suffer a drop in motivation. "

[Aquamonkey]

Nothing new. However, WoW isn't meant to be fulfilling. It's meant to work on conditioning based on a specified reward schedule.

[Banzubie]

So blizzard should remove loot and all rewards from the game?

[rhuk]

In a 1982 study, Stanford psychologist Mark L. Lepper showed that any task, no matter how enjoyable it once seemed, would be devalued if it were presented as a means rather than an end. He told a group of preschoolers they could not engage in one activity they liked until they first took part in another. Although they had enjoyed both activities equally, the children came to dislike the task that was a prerequisite for the other.

[Deleted]

Not carved in stone but as a rule of thumb, low-counter who quote Stanford psychologists in their second post try to sell handbags by post number 11 or 13.