Punished by Rewards: The Trouble With Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, As, Praise, and Other Bribes [Hardcover]

Alfie Kohn (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 2001

The basic strategy we use for raising children, teaching students, and managing workers can be summarized in six words: Do this and you'll get that. We dangle goodies (from candy bars to sales commissions) in front of people in much the same way we train the family pet. Drawing on a wealth of psychological research, Alfie Kohn points the way to a more successful strategy based on working with people instead of doing things to them. "Do rewards motivate people?" asks Kohn. "Yes. They motivate people to get rewards." Seasoned with humor and familiar examples, Punished By Rewards presents an argument unsettling to hear but impossible to dismiss.

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Kohn, the author of other iconoclastic books, among them You Know What They Say: The Truth About Popular Beliefs ( LJ 8/90), here shows how rewards of all sorts undermine our efforts to teach students, manage workers, and raise children. Although aimed at a general audience, the book is based on extensive research and documented with almost 100 pages of notes and references. The first six review the behaviorist tradition and lay out in a clear and convincing manner Kohn's central argument that "pop behaviorism" is dangerously prevalent in our society. Here Kohn discusses why rewards, including praise, fail to promote lasting behavior change or enhance performance and frequently make things worse. The remaining six chapters examine the effect of rewards and alternatives to them in companies, schools, and the home. Recommended for all types of libraries.
- Mary Chatfield, Angelo State Univ., San Angelo, Tex.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

The idea that competition and reward are effective motivators forms the bedrock of our educational, economic, and managerial systems. Kohn, though, has strongly attacked the belief that competition is healthy and has documented its negative effects in No Contest: The Case against Competition (1986). Now he challenges the widely held assumption that incentives lead to improved quality and increased output in the workplace and in schools. He notes that the system of rewards and punishment is based on Pavlovian and Skinnerian behavioral theories, which are supported largely by experiments with laboratory animals. Kohn derides rewards as bribes and offers instead the proposition that collaboration (teamwork), content (meaningfulness), and choice (autonomy) will serve to motivate both students and workers. He marshals impressive theoretical support and, at the same time, uses humor disarmingly to argue his case. David Rouse --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Replica Books (August 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0735101388
• ISBN-13: 978-0735101388
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #741,135 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Alfie Kohn writes and speaks widely on human behavior, education, and parenting. He is the author of twelve books and hundreds of articles. Kohn has been described by Time Magazine as "perhaps the country's most outspoken critic of education's fixation on grades and test scores." He has appeared twice on "Oprah," as well as on "The Today Show," NPR's "Talk of the Nation," and on many other TV and radio programs. He spends much of his time speaking at education conferences, as well as to parent groups, school faculties, and researchers. Kohn lives (actually) in the Boston area - and (virtually) at www.alfiekohn.org.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

40 of 45 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars An interesting and well-documented analysis of behaviorism November 3, 1999

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

Alfie Kohn, in his book Punished by Rewards, uses extensive documentation to support his conclusion that behaviorism is an ineffective tool when dealing with people, whether employees, students, or children. He argues that the using the carrot method of "do this and you'll get that" leads to extrinsic motivation, where the reward is obtained by any means. This leads to less intrinsic motivation and people ultimate lose interest or care about the quality of work, or amount of learning achieved. He seems to want to over-turn the mainstream theory that the only way to achieve success is by one person over-powering another through their authority and bribes. Current beliefs in education include: teacher-centered classrooms, behavior-management programs, and learning achieved through bribes and grades. Mr. Kohn wishes to completely change this method of thinking, and instead create a "3C" classroom, with: collaboration, content, and choice. These classrooms eliminate rewards as the basis for learning, and instead create classrooms where kids want to learn for the sake of knowledge itself. The teachers and students work together, often through cooperative learning groups, to obtain knowledge and understanding relevant and interesting to the students in their day-to-day lives.

I think that Mr. Kohn's theory was well researched, explained, and is believable. He clearly explains the basic problem existing throughout American society with the use of rewards. As a future teacher, thinking about ideas to use in the classroom, I am eager to try his methods with "kids today." I would definitely recommend this book to anyone dealing with kids, who wants them to start caring about each other, or the material they are learning, rather than just doing the work to get the "A" and then forgetting about it. I support his assessment of education strategies today, especially the honors students on the "fast-track" to college. Having just graduated with such a group, I know all about the all-night crams, cheating, copying, and generally doing anything besides learning the material to obtain the grade. Although I agree with the problem he addresses, I wonder if his solution of a school without grades is feasible. He does not require this as part of his "formula for success," merely suggests it. Additionally, I would like to see the argument and supporting evidence against his theory. Obviously, he believes that the mainstream theory does this constantly in the real world, so he need not show the opposite side. However, I was left wondering what studies and success stories the behaviorists might pull out to prove his theory wrong.

Overall, I believe that each teacher needs to create an individual learning environment in his or her classroom. Creating a "perfect mold" for all successful teachers will lead to cookie-cutter teaching. The diversity of American teaching should be as diverse as American society. Teachers need to sort through the various theories and beliefs, and pick out those which best suite their style and ability of teaching. No matter how revolutionary and possibly effective Mr. Kohn's theories might be, some teachers may simply fail when trying to implement them. This does not make them bad teachers, only people with different beliefs on what education is and how to effectively relate learning to students. I, however, hope to find a way to implement Mr. Kohn's ideas in my classroom, because I think that some of them might help me move my students from empty minds to fill with knowledge into excited and active learners.

34 of 47 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars This book is dangerous August 13, 1999

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

While no one will argue that talking to people and working with them to understand their motivation is important, these positive points in this book are far outweighed by the negative ones. The author misrepresents the whole field of behavior therapy when he states that it can be boiled down to "If you do this, then you get that". He also misrepresents the research on the effects of reinforcement on creativity, performance, and intrinsic motivation. It is much more complex than he suggests and does not lead to the conclusions he makes. The really scary thing is that for some situations (such as children with aggressive and disruptive behaviors) behavior therapy works and works better than anything else. Yet, after reading this book, parents and teachers might not even consider this approach, causing themselves and the children they care about continuing grief. I wish someone would write a good critique of this book to help set the record straight, but I haven't found one.

13 of 19 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting conception of reward systems...... October 13, 1999

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

Khon, Alfie (1993). Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's as Praise, and Other Bribes. New York, Houghton Mifflin Company.

Punished by Rewards, by Alfie Kohn, is a book that explains the negative aspects of receiving rewards. The author describes in great detail the effects that rewards have on people of all ages. The book is concerned with operant conditional learning. The basis of the book reflects the favoring of behaviorism. This is because behaviorists believe that everything we do can be explained by the principle of reinforcement and the learning of how rewards work. The book is mainly about the reasons why rewards are not effective and proving that rewarding a person can be negative. The author's purpose in writing this book was to open a new perspective to people's minds. He wanted to show that rewards are not the only way to help a person succeed. A good amount of people feel that rewards are beneficial and can be a positive way to influence a person. Kohn wanted to show proof that rewards could be almost classified as a punishment by making a person lazy or less motivated. He gave many examples, experimental statistics, and facts to back up his theory. One consisted on a series of ten studies that found with preschoolers working for toys, older children for grades, and adults for money, that they all try to avoid challenges (65). Another example found that kids are constantly fearful of getting things wrong, which is why they do as little as they can get away with (159). At first, I could not decide if I supported the author or not. I am in favor of the reward system just because I think that a person should be rewarded. On the other hand, the author gave many examples to support his theory of no rewards. One idea that I did agree with was at the beginning of the book. "The more rewards are used, the more they seem to be needed" (17). I do agree that if you constantly give a person rewards, they will always want something in order to complete a task. But on the other hand, I disagree with idea that all rewards are negative or bad. I feel that some rewards can either motivate students to excel or help promote employees to increase in power at a workplace. The author has a list of seven suggestions to minimize the salience of grades: 1. limit the number of assignments of which you give a letter or number grade, or better yet, stop the practice altogether 2. limit the number of gradations 3. reduce the number possible grades to two, A and Incomplete 4. never grade students while they are still learning something 5. never grade for effort 6. never grade on a curve 7. bring students in on evaluation processes I would recommend this book to some people, but mainly teachers. This could possibly be beneficial in that, it could bring about new ideas to motivate a classroom. The teacher can decide on a new learning technique, if the present routine is not suitable or helpful for the children. It can help teachers by giving them opinions and criticisms from different areas of learning. An example would be "not to praise people, only what people do" (109). Saying something about what the person has done makes more sense than just saying "good job" to a person; being more specific is beneficial.