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Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
1998, Vol. 74, No. 3, 704-714
Copyright 1998 by the Amexican Psychological Association, Inc.
0022-3514/98/$3.00
Can the Promise of Reward Increase Creativity?
Robert Eisenberger and Stephen Arrneli
University of Delaware
Jean Pretz
Wittenberg University
Two experiments, involving 436 preadolescent schoolchildren, investigated how the explicitness of
promised reward affects creativity. In the first study, the nonspecific promise of reward increased
the creativity of picture drawing if children had previously received divergent-thinking training
(generating novel uses for physical objects). In the second study, promised reward increased the
creativity of children's drawings if current task instructions clarified the necessity of creative performance. Promised reward evidently increases creativity if there is currently, or was previously, an
explicit positive relationship between creativity and reward.
The generalization that reward lessens creativity is commonly
accepted as fact. Most literature reviews and textbooks agree
that the powerful incremental effects of reward on conventional
performance simply do not apply to creativity. For example, a
widely cited review concluded that individuals who receive rewards "seem to work harder and produce more activity, but the
activity is of lower quality, contains more errors, and is more
stereotyped and less creative than the work of comparable nonrewarded subjects working on the same problems" (Condry,
1977, pp. 4 7 0 - 4 7 1 ) . According to one social psychology
textbook,
McGraw, 1978; see also Balsam & Bondy, 1983; Reiss & Sushinsky, 1975, 1976; Sternberg & Lubart, 1991).
A considerable body of empirical research seems to support
these arguments. Many studies have found the verbal promise
of reward either to decrease subsequent creativity or to leave
creativity unaffected. We here report findings that, contrary to
what appears established fact, promises of reward can be effectively used to produce large increases in creative performance.
Differing Effects o f Repeated Reward
and P r o m i s e d Reward
When others begin to evaluate our work, hire us to do it, pay us
for it, and so on, the "creative juices" may stop flowing. Instead
of letting our creative processes take over, we begin to think in
terms of the extrinsic reward . . . . As Robert Frost once said, "One
should never write a poem to pay a gas bill." (Gergen & Gergen,
1986, p. 285)
Creative performance concerns the generation of original behavior that meets a standard of quality or utility (e.g., Guilford,
1968; Maltzman, 1960; Shalley, 1991; Wallach & Kogan, 1965;
Winston & Baker, 1985). Divergent thinking, an important component of creative performance, involves producing varied responses to a problem or question that has multiple alternative
solutions (Guilford, 1968; Runco, 1991; Winston & Baker,
1985). Behaviorists traditionally assert that divergent thinking,
like any kind of response people can discriminate, should be
enhanced by systematic reward (e.g., Maltzman, 1960; Pryor,
Haag, & O'Reilly, 1969; Skinner, 1953; Torrance, 1970; Winston & Baker, 1985). Behaviorally oriented experiments generally assess the effects of repeated reward made contingent on
creativity, rather than the effects of the verbal promise of reward
as used in cognitively oriented studies. A review of twenty behaviorally oriented studies concluded that repeated reward for
novel behavior increases its frequency (Winston & Baker,
1985). For example, when Goetz and Baer (1973) gave preschool children verbal approval for each new pattern they created with a set of blocks, the children continually produced new
patterns. When approval was next made contingent on repeating
previously constructed patterns, novelty decreased and was subsequently restored when new patterns were again rewarded.
Such findings have led to suggestions that reward be used to
promote creativity in education (e.g., Chance, 1993; Davis,
1986; Funderbunk, 1977; Goetz, 1989; Torrance, 1965) and
business (e.g., Edwards, 1989; Farr & Ford, 1990).
According to behaviorists, an important consequence of reward for divergent thinking is the development of a generalized
orientation toward divergent thought (Maltzman, 1960). Funder-
A primer for teachers on promoting classroom creativity, published by the National Education Association, warns that the
expectancy of reward greatly interferes with students' creativity
(Tegano, Moran, & Sawyers, 1991 ).
These views are consistent with the common presumption
that people are most creative when left free to guide their own
behavior (Eisenberger & Cameron, 1996). Reward is often assumed to reduce creativity by causing tasks to be "defined more
narrowly . . . simply as a means to an end rather than as an
opportunity for exploration and play" (Amabile & Cheek, 1988,
p. 60). Such extrinsic motivation is argued to distract attention
from the activity, thereby reducing the spontaneity and flexibility
of performance (Amabile, 1983, 1990; Amabile & Cheek, 1988;
Amabile, Hennessey, & Grossman, 1986; Condry, 1977;
Robert Eisenberger and Stephen Armeli, Psychology Department, University of Delaware; Jean Pretz, Psychology Department, Wittenberg
University.
This research was supported by Grant MH 51600 from the National
Institute of Mental Health.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Robert
Eisenbergel; Psychology Department, University of Delaware, Newark,
Delaware 19716-2577. Electronic mail may be set to [email protected].
704
PROMISED REWARD AND CREATIVITY
bunk (1977) reported that giving children verbal approval for
constructing novel drawings increased the subsequent originality of uses that the students suggested for common physical
objects (see also Glover, 1980; Maltzman, 1960). As with other
types of responding, people generalize rewarded divergent thinking more to activities that are similar to the initial task, than to
activities that are dissimilar (Goetz, 1982, 1989).
Recent cognitive interpretations, in contrast, suppose that the
expectation of reward lessens creativity. These researchers usually use the verbal promise of reward as a simpler and more
convenient way than repeated reward to elicit reward expectancies. These investigations often report a decremental effect of
reward on creativity. For example, Kruglanski, Friedman, and
Zeevi (1971) required college students to list possible rifles for
a paragraph. The rifles produced by college students who were
promised reward were judged to be less creative than titles
produced by unrewarded students. Loveland and OUey (1979)
found that the promise of reward for completing a drawing task
reduced the diversity of forms incorporated into the drawings.
Like behaviorists, cognitive investigators have suggested that
rewarded creativity should influence creativity on subsequent
tasks. However, cognitive interpretations predict a decrease of
generalized creativity, rather than the increase that behavioral
views predict (Hennessey & Amabile, 1988; McGraw &
McCuUers, 1979; Schwartz, 1982). Amabile and her colleagues
had children paint pictures before constructing collages. Half
the children received a positive evaluation of their paintings
before they began the collages. The remaining children received
no evaluation. The researchers intended verbal reward for painting to establish a reward expectancy during the collage task.
As predicted, the children initially rewarded for painting later
produced collages judged to be less creative (Hennessey &
Amabile, 1988).
Why should promised reward produce such different findings
from repeated reward presentation contingent on creative behavior? Almost all behavioral studies of divergent thinking have
had the ultimate goal of developing practical, effective behavior
modification procedures. Therefore, explicit directions and/or
performance feedback that convey the requirement of novel performance have always supplemented the reward contingency
(cf. Goetz, 1989). Behaviorists studying creativity generally
acknowledge that their experiments do not distinguish the incentive effects of reward from the informational properties of the
task instructions, informative feedback, and the reward contingency itself (Winston & Baker, 1985; Zimmerman, 1985).
Amabile ( 1983, p. 127) maintained that such information, rather
than the incentive properties of reward, is entirely responsible
for the enhanced creativity reported in behavioral studies. If
informational effects were controlled, this interpretation holds,
repeated reward would lessen creativity in accord with findings
that the promise of reward reduces creativity.
Incremental Effects of Repeated Reward
Recent evidence indicates that creativity can be increased by
repeated reward presentation, controlling for the effects of the
informational properties of experimental instructions and performance feedback. Conditions under which repeated reward
should increase creativity were derived by Eisenberger and
705
Selbst (1994) from learned industriousness theory (Eisenberger,
1992), which holds that reinforcement reduces the unpleasantness of any type of physical or cognitive effort, including the
effort required for divergent thought. Learned industriousness
theory characterizes effort as an unpleasant sensation produced
by the intense or repeated performance of any activity. Various
ways of increasing the degree of required performance in a
given task (e.g., requiring greater accuracy, speed, or novelty)
are assumed to contribute to experienced effort. High levels of
performance required in different tasks would produce similar
sensations of effort. Thus, learned reactions to the effort required in any one task would influence both the subsequent
performance of that task and the performance of other tasks.
Learned industriousness theory states that if someone is rewarded for putting a large amount of cognitive or physical effort
into an activity, the sensation of high effort takes on secondary
reward properties that lessen effort's innate aversiveness. This
reduced aversiveness of effort would increase the person's general readiness to expend effort in goal-directed tasks. For example, rewarding a high degree of performance by primary school
students in their spelling assignments increased the effort they
subsequently applied to math problems (Eisenberger, Heerdt,
Hamdi, Zimet, & Bruckmeir, 1979). In contrast, low effort,
when rewarded, would acquire secondary reward properties and
become more preferred to high effort than before. Further, when
high effort receives no greater reward than low effort, it would
lose previously established secondary reward properties and become more aversive. The net result of rewarding low effort
would be the reduction of the general inclination to expend high
effort to obtain reward.
Considerable evidence indicates that rewarded high effort
does produce a generalized increase of industriousness. Raising
the degree of required performance involving one or more tasks
increased the subsequent vigor and persistence of various other
activities, including rats' lever pressing and runway traversal
(Eisenberger, Carlson, Guile, & Shapiro, 1979; Eisenberger,
Carlson, & Frank, 1979; Eisenberger & Masterson, 1986), depressed mental patients' card sorting (Eisenberger et al., 1979);
learning disabled and typical preadolescent students' handwriting, drawing, and mathematics performance (Eisenberger &
Adometto, 1986; Eisenberger et al., 1979; Eisenberger, Mitchell, & Masterson, 1985; Eisenberger, Mitchell, McDermitt, &
Masterson, 1984); and college students' manipulatory behavior
(Nation, Cooney, & Gartrell, 1979; Pittenger & Pavlik, 1988),
perceptual identifications (Eisenberger & Leonard, 1980), essay
writing (Eisenberger, Masterson, & McDermitt, 1982; Eisenberger, McDermitt, Masterson, & Over, 1983), anagram solving
(Boyagian & Nation, 1981; Eisenberger, Kuhlman, & Cotterell,
1992), and resistance to cheating (Eisenberger & Masterson,
1983; Eisenberger & Shank, 1985). Research has shown that
lengthened training produces durable generalized industriousness both with animals (Eisenberger, Weiel; Masterson, &
Theis, 1989) and humans (Eisenberger et al., 1984).
Learned industriousness theory assumes that individuals learn
which dimensions of performance (e.g., accuracy, speed, or
novelty) are rewarded, and generalize high or low effort more
to the rewarded performance dimensions than to other dimensions in subsequent tasks. For instance, preadolescent learning
disabled students, rewarded for reading with high accuracy, sub-
706
EISENBERGER, ARMELI, AND PRETZ
sequently produced more accurate drawings and stories than did
children rewarded for reading with high speed or for merely
completing the reading task. In comparison, students who were
rewarded for high reading speed later constructed stories more
quickly than did children who had been rewarded for high reading accuracy or for merely completing the reading task (Eisenberger et al., 1984). Applied to creative performance, learned
industriousness theory assumes that individuals learn there is a
positive relationship between divergent thinking and reward
when such a contingency exists, and generalize rewarded divergent thinking to new tasks.
Eisenberger and Selbst (1994) suggested that repeated reward
might influence creativity through the combined action of
learned industriousness and the attention-eliciting properties of
the reward. With a reward that is not overly distracting, the
reinforcement of divergent thinking would reduce the aversiveness of such performance and increase the tendency to think
divergently in subsequent tasks. However, a large, salient reward
might eliminate this effect by attracting attention away from
the task, thereby preventing the discrimination that the reward
depends on creative performance. A large, salient reward might
also create a strong generalized reward expectancy that would
draw attention during subsequent tasks to the reward itself, at
the expense of flexible, creative performance (cf. Hennessey &
Amabile, 1988).
To test the effects of reinforcement and reward-produced distraction on creativity, Eisenberger and Selbst (1994) gave preadolescent schoolchildren monetary rewards for either a high degree or a low degree of divergent thought. They asked children
in the high-divergent-thought condition to form six different
words from a string of letters; they repeated this procedure
several times with additional strings of letters. In the low-divergent-thought condition, the researchers asked the children to
construct a single word from each letter string. Reward salience
was manipulated by giving the children no monetary reward, a
small monetary reward, or a large monetary reward. To ensure
that all the groups received equal information about appropriate
performance, Eisenberger and Selbst gave all participants verbal
instructions concerning required task performance and told them
"correct" each time they fulfilled the reward contingency. The
addition of a monetary reward thus added no new information
concerning the appropriateness of creative performance.
To assess the generalized effects of rewarded divergent thinking, Eisenberger and Selbst (1994) next presented the children
with pages containing primed rows of empty circles and asked
them to draw pictures using the circles as basic elements of
their drawings. Creative performance on the drawing task involved both novelty (making the drawing unusual) and quality
(using the circle as a basic component of the drawing). The
researchers assessed creativity by the unusualness of the subject
matter in comparison to the drawings produced by all the children. The results were consistent with both the industriousnesslearning and the attention-eliciting properties of reward. A small
monetary reward for high divergent thought increased later creativity in circle drawings above that of the unrewarded children.
The same small monetary reward for low divergent thought
decreased the creativity of the circle drawings. A large monetary
reward, which had been predicted to distract attention from the
novelty requirement, eliminated these effects. Consistent with
this interpretation, a second study found that when salience of
the large reward was lessened by removing it from view during
high-divergent-thought training, the large reward increased the
creativity of subsequent drawings.
These findings indicate that rewarded high divergent thinking
has an incremental effect on generalized creativity that diminishes or disappears when salient rewards distract attention from
the reward contingency. The failure of a large, salient reward to
increase generalized creativity suggests that (a) salient reward
can attract attention at the expense of the recipient's understanding that the reward depends on creative performance, and (b)
salient reward can create a strong generalized reward expectancy
that draws attention, during subsequent tasks, at the expense
of applying cognitive resources to creative performance (cf.
Hennessey & Amabile, 1988; Sternberg & Lubart, 1991).
Learned industriousness theory predicts that salient reward,
as well as nonsalient reward, will increase generalized creativity
if presented in a way that allows people to clearly discriminate
the necessity of novel performance. Common divergent thinking
tasks explicitly request variety rather than novelty. Researchers
may ask participants to think of various uses for common physical objects (Guilford, 1968; Runco & Okuda, 1988; Wallach &
Kogan, 1965) or to form multiple words from strings of letters
(Eisenberger & Selbst, 1994). In such tasks, people typically
begin by generating familiar solutions, easily retrievable from
memory, followed only later by novel solutions (Christensen,
Guilford, & Wilson, 1957; Eisenberger & Selbst, 1994; Milgram & Rabkin, 1980; Runco, 1986; Wallach, 1988, p. 117;
Ward, 1969). For instance, a person who is asked to give multiple uses for a hat is likely to respond "wearing it" before
providing a novel use such as "using it for a flower pot." With
such procedures, novel performance is the indirect product of
the requirement that participants give multiple solutions to the
same problem (M. Csikszentmihalyi, personal communication,
November 1993). Many people who are given standard divergent thinking tasks, especially with the distraction of salient
reward, may fail to identify a relationship between novel performance and reward.
The requirement of novel performance for reward can be
made more explicit with a divergent thinking task that requires
every response to be novel. Eisenberger and Armeli (1997)
required children to give unusual uses for common physical
objects (cf. Glover, 1980; Torrance, 1974; Yamamoto, 1964).
Different groups of children received no monetary reward, a
small monetary reward, or a large monetary reward on a series
of trials. When researchers used a large monetary reward rather
than either a small monetary reward or no reward, the explicit
requirement of novel performance for repeated reward in one
task (generating unusual uses for physical objects) produced
greater subsequent creative performance in an entirely different
task (picture drawing). The results indicate that the repeated
presentation of either salient reward or nonsalient reward, when
specifically contingent on creative performance, increases generalized creative performance.
W h y Does the Promise o f Reward Fail
to Increase Creativity?
The preceding findings are inconsistent with the view that
promised reward is inherently detrimental to creativity (e.g.,
PROMISED REWARD AND CREATIVITY
Amabile, 1990, p. 65; Condry, 1977; McGraw & McCuUers,
1979; Schwartz, 1982). If repeated reinforcement can increase
creativity, the issue remains of why the verbal promise of reward
fails to have a similar effect. Previous methodological critiques
maintained that the one-time promise of reward increases the
participant's use of implicit, previously learned cues that may
elicit behavior different from what the repeated presentation of
reward would produce (cf. Dickinson, 1989; Flora, 1990; Malouf, 1983; Reiss & Sushinsky, 1975, 1976; Skinner; 1953;
Workman & Williams, 1980). More specifically, none of the
published studies investigating the effects of promised reward
on creativity gave participants the explicit information that the
reward depended on creative performance. When researchers
promise a reward for carrying out a task, without saying what
type of performance is required, participants don't know what
kind of performance will lead to reward.
For example, a student promised a monetary payment for
drawing a picture, without mention of the kind of performance
necessary, will not know whether reward depends simply on
completing the picture, selecting an unusual subject matter, elaborating the picture to include considerable detail, or concentrating on another dimension of performance. Some studies of
promised reward do include instructions that hint vaguely at a
performance requirement, such as the instruction to make the
"best design" (Amabile, 1982). However, the researchers do
not clearly convey to participants the dimension of rewarded
performance.
With nonspecific performance requirements, according to
learned industriousness theory, the kinds of training previously
received in similar contexts will influence task performance
(cf. Dickinson, 1989; Eisenberger & Selbst, 1994; Flora, 1990;
Malouf, 1983; Reiss & Sushinsky, 1975, 1976; Skinner, 1953;
Workman & Williams, 1980). The reviewed research shows
that reinforcement of performance in a particular dimension,
such as speed, accuracy, or originality, transfers to new tasks
(Eisenberger et al., 1984; Eisenberger & Selbst, 1994; Eisenberger & Armeli, 1997). To the extent that daily experience
rewards conventional performance more frequently than novel
performance, the promise of reward without a clear performance
requirement would produce conventional performance.
Amabile (1982), for instance, asked children to construct a
collage and told them that those who made the best collages
would receive a monetary award. Amabile did not tell the participants what aspect of their collages would be considered to
determine the best collages. These children constructed collages
judged less creative, though better planned and organized and
more representational, than the collages produced by a control
group not promised a reward. The children may have been rewarded more frequently at school for the organization and
graphic realism of their artwork than for originality. As a result,
the nonspecific promise of reward in Amabile's study may have
elicited conventional performance rather than creativity. Had the
children been trained for creative performance in a preliminary
task or been promised reward explicitly for producing highly
unusual collages, the promise of reward might have increased
creativity.
Failure to obtain incremental effects of promised reward on
creativity may be due to the absence of clear information that
creativity is required for reward, rather than an inherent reaction
707
to the expectation of reward. We report here two experiments
testing the effects of the explicitness of the relationship between
promised reward and creativity. In these experiments, whether
or not the promise of reward increases creativity depends on
the explicitness of required creativity in either previous tasks or
the present task. According to learned industriousness theory,
when the promise of reward for performing a task leaves unclear
the type of required performance, people should infer the performance requirement from preliminary experience. The promise
of reward would increase creativity if individuals have initially
been trained for creative performance. Further, if the promise of
reward in the current task does convey the necessity of creative
performance, that promise should increase creativity. In sum,
the promise of reward should increase creativity either when a
preliminary task requires creative performance or when the
promise of reward in the present task explicitly conveys the
necessity of creative performance.
Experiment 1: Effects o f Preliminary Training on
Reactions to the Promise o f Reward
The conventional view holds that the verbal promise of reward
produces a reward expectancy that inherently reduces the creativity of performance (e.g., Amabile, 1983, 1990; Amabile &
Cheek, 1988; Amabile et al., 1986; Condry, 1977; Hennessey &
Amabile, 1988; McGraw, 1978). According to learned industriousness theory, however, explicit divergent-thinking training in
an initial task should lead participants to more readily interpret
the promise of reward in later tasks as requiring a high degree
of divergent thought. With such preliminary training, promised
reward should increase creativity, even if there is no explicit
creativity requirement in the present task.
The first study reported here examined the effects of promised
monetary reward on creativity as a function of the type of performance trained in a preliminary task. Six groups of fifth-grade
schoolchildren were produced by the factorial combination of
three levels of initially trained divergent thought (no training,
usual use training, unusual use training) crossed with the presence or absence of a promise of monetary reward in the final
task. We used verbal reward in the initial task based on two
considerations. First, in everyday life children receive a variety
of reinforcers for conventional performance and creative performance. If preliminary experience has a general influence on
how children later respond to nonspecific promises of reward,
this effect should not depend on the use of identical rewards
for preliminary training and the subsequent task. Second, research has found monetary reward to have stronger effects than
verbal reward on children's generalization of creativity to a
different, unrewarded task (Eisenberger & Armeli, 1997; Eisenberger & Selbst, 1994). We wished to avoid an outcome in
which divergent-thinking training in the initial task would affect
creativity in the final task so strongly that a ceiling on performance would obscure the results of promised reward.
We used an object use training procedure employed by Eisenberger and Armeli (1997) to explicitly vary the degree of divergent thought required in the initial task. In the unusual use
condition, we asked the children to generate novel uses for
common physical objects. In the usual use condition, we asked
the children to give a common use for each object. To enable
708
EISENBERGER, ARMELI, AND PRETZ
all participants in both the unusual use and the usual use conditions to discriminate the performance required for reward in this
initial task, we gave t h e m verbal instructions on the necessity of
giving novel uses ( unusual use condition) or familiar uses (usual
use c o n d i t i o n ) . In the preliminary task, we gave one of nine
verbal reinforcers (e.g., " v e r y g o o d " , " e x c e l l e n t " , " p e r f e c t " )
on each trial, with the reinforcer varying from trial to trial. We
did not give this initial task to children in the no-training control
condition.
To assess the generalized effects of divergent-thinking training
on the subsequent reaction to p r o m i s e d reward, we next presented all participants with a page that contained printed rows
o f unfilled circles and asked them to draw pictures using the
circles as basic elements in the drawings. We promised half the
children a monetary reward for carrying out the circle task
(promise condition), and the remaining children received no
such promise. As in prior cognitively oriented studies, we did
not i n f o r m children in the final task what aspects o f their perform a n c e would be required for reward. We selected this task, used
by Eisenberger and Selbst ( 1 9 9 4 ) and Eisenberger and Armeli
( 1 9 9 7 ) and adapted from the Torrance Test o f Creative Thinking
(Torrance, 1974; Yamamoto, 1964), to allow ( a ) an extremely
b r o a d range o f creativity in the subject matter of the children's
drawings, and ( b ) the objective measurement of creativity, based
on the infrequency o f a d r a w i n g ' s subject matter a m o n g the
drawings by the entire sample of children (cf. Christensen et
al., 1957; Eisenberger & Selbst, 1994; Eisenman, 1987; Funderbunk, 1977; M i l g r a m & Rabkin, 1980; Runco, 1986; Ward,
1969; Wallach & Kogan, 1965). A m o n g participants given preliminary divergent thinking training, we predicted that the nonspecific promise of reward would increase creativity in the final
task. Further, a m o n g participants promised reward, we predicted
that those given preliminary high-divergent-thinking training
would produce more highly creative drawings than those given
preliminary low-divergent-thinking training or no preliminary
training.
Method
Participants and materials. Participants were 216 fifth-grade students (100 boys and 116 girls), of varied socioeconomic backgrounds,
attending the Bancroft and Bayard elementary schools in Wilmington,
Delaware. To help ensure that every student would be able to successfully
complete the training task, we chose participants who read at a level,
determined by standardized tests, no lower than one year below their
current grade. We selected the items used in'the object uses task, such
as paper clip, spoon, and rubber band, for having standard uses well
known to children. The name of each object for which the participants
were to provide a usual or novel use was printed on a 10.2-cm x 15.2cm index card. Examples include paper clip, spoon, and rubber band.
For the test task, all children were presented with a 20.3-cm X 27.9-cm
paper with 30 circles (five rows by six columns). Each circle had a
diameter of 3.8 cm. To help make clear to the children the need to
incorporate the circles into their drawings, the first circle had been drawn
as a happy face using small dots for eyes and nose and an arc for the
mouth. We gave participants a sharp Number 2 pencil with an intact
eraser for the drawing task.
Initial task. Throughout the experiment, each child sat facing the
experimenter on the opposite side of a desk. In the unusual use condition
and the usual use condition we presented children a total of 18 names
for common objects and gave them verbal approval for each correct
response. For half the children in each condition, the order of approval
comments was as follows across the first nine trials: "very good",
"good answer' ', "super' ', "great' ', "good' ', "excellent' ', "good job",
"perfect", and "fine". The same sequence of approval comments was
repeated for the remaining nine trials. To control for possible differences
in task difficulty for the 18 objects and for the value of the approval
comments, we gave half the students in each group the objects and
approval comments in the reverse order.
At the beginning of the unusual uses task, the experimenter stated
the following directions, which included a practice problem: " I am
going to show you words for everyday objects. When I show you each
word, read it out loud. Then tell me some use for the object. Do you
understand? Okay. Here is the first word. What is this word?" (Word
was shown to participant, who responded.) "What use might you have
for a
?" (Participant responded.)
If the child failed to state a use for any object, the experimenter said,
"Incorrect," and went on to the next object. The experimenter judged
whether the use given for the object on any trial was unusual and made
use of the distinctive properties of the object. If the child gave a usual
use for an object, the experimenter said, "That is something people
often do with a
. Tell me something unusual you might do with
a
." If the child gave an impossible use or a use that did not
involve the unique features of the object, the experimenter said, "Tell
me something unusual you might actually do with a
." If the
child still failed to give an unusual use that was actually possible, the
experimenter said, "Incorrect," and went on to the next problem.
The directions for the usual uses task, which were sufficiently clear
not to require a practice problem, were as follows: " I am going to show
you words for everyday objects. When I show you each word, read it
out loud. Then tell me some use for the object. Do you understand?
Okay. Here is the first word. What is this word?" (Word was shown to
participant, who responded.) "What use might you have for a
?"
(Participant responded.) If the child failed to state a use for an object,
the experimenter said, "Incorrect," and went on to the next object. If
a child gave an unusual use for an object, the experimenter said, "That
is something people seldom do with a
. Tell me something usual
you might do with a . "
If the child still failed to give a usual
use, the experimenter said, "Incorrect," and went on to the next problem.
Final task. After a child completed the training task, the experimenter placed the circle sheet, with a happy face drawn as the first
picture, directly in front of the child. Children in the promise condition
received the following directions:
If you make pictures from these circles, I will give you 75 cents.
The circle should be the main part of whatever you make. Here is
an example of a picture you might make. [Experimenter pointed
to the happy face picture on the child's sheet.] Remember, if you
make pictures from these circles, I will give you 75 cents. The
circle should be the main part of whatever you make. Here is an
example of a picture you might make. Do you understand?
Children in the nonpromise condition received the following
directions:
Make pictures from these circles. A circle should be the main part
of whatever you make. Here is an example of a picture you might
make. [Experimenter pointed to the happy face picture on the child's
sheet.] Remember; make pictures from these circles. A circle should
be the main part of whatever you make. Here is an example of a
picture you might make. Do you understand?
With all participants, the experimenter pointed to each picture example as she mentioned it. When explaining that the circle should be the
main part of the picture, the experimenter traced the shape with her pen.
After answering any questions from the participant, the experimenter
PROMISED REWARD AND CREATIVITY
stared at a book in her lap while the child worked on the task. Once the
child completed drawings involving 14 open circles on the page, the
experimenter asked the child to state the subject of each picture, and
wrote down the child's answers. The children's responses were used to
identify the subject matter of any ambiguous pictures. Children in the
promise condition were then paid 75 cents.
160
140
i
LI,.
Results
The major finding was that, as predicted, among children
rewarded for divergent-thinking training in the preliminary task,
the promise of reward in the final task produced greater creativity. The promise of reward did not increase creativity reliably
in the final task if the children had initially been given lowdivergent-thinking training or had not taken part in the initial
task. All statistical tests were two-tailed.
In the usual use initial task, children failed to provide a valid
use on less than 0.1% of the trials. In the unusual use initial
task, the average number of trials in which novel uses were
provided was 16.4 out of 18 possible, and did not differ reliably
between children who would subsequently be assigned to the
promise condition and the no-promise condition, F ( 1, 65) =
.70.
The principal data of interest concerned the creativity of the
children's drawings. Examples of frequently used topics were
faces, suns, and baseballs, whereas examples of infrequently
used topics were light bulbs, swimming pools, and umbrellas.
To determine the creativity of a given child's drawings, two
judges independently assigned each drawing a score equal to
the total number of times the same topic appeared in the population of drawings produced by the entire sample of participants.
If a picture repeated the subject matter previously used by the
child or did not make use of the circle as part of the drawing,
the judges assigned it a score equal to the most frequently used
drawing in the population. When the judges disagreed in their
assignment of a child's drawing to a particular topic, the judges'
scores for that drawing were averaged. So that high scores would
designate increased creativity, and to give greater weight to more
unusual drawings, we calculated the reciprocal of the frequency
of each drawing. We obtained each child's average creativity
score by adding the creativity scores for all the child' s individual
drawings and dividing by 14 (the total number of the child's
drawings). The correlation between the average creativity scores
given to the children by the two judges was .97.
Figure 1 shows the average creativity of each group's drawings. High scores designate greater creativity. To avoid small
fractional values, we multiplied the average creativity scores by
1,000. As predicted, the effect of promised reward was greatest
after preliminary divergent-thinking training. Planned comparisons using the pooled error variance revealed that among children given unusual use training, the subsequent promise of reward produced greater drawing creativity than did no promise
t(216) = 2.80, p < .01. Further, among children promised
reward, preliminary unusual use training produced greater drawing creativity than preliminary usual use training or no training,
respectively, t(216) = 2.51, p = .01, and t(216) = 2.44, p <
.025. With usual use training or no training in the initial task, the
subsequent promise of reward did not produce greater drawing
creativity than no promise, respectively, t(216) = - . 5 2 and
t(216) = 1.16.
709
o
120
100
80
O
6O
4O
CONTROL
USUALUSES
UNUSUALUSES
Figure 1. Meancreativity scores of children's drawings in Experiment
1 as a function of the level of preliminary rewarded divergent thought
(no training, reward for usual uses in preliminary task, reward for unusual uses in preliminary task), and the absence or presence of a promise
of reward in the final task. High scores designate greater creativity.
These results indicate that the promise of reward for nonspecific performance increases creativity if the individual receives
preliminary divergent thinking training in a different task. No
such incremental effect of promised reward was found for participants who were trained for low divergent thinking in the preliminary task or who did not receive the preliminary task. Previous failures to obtain an incremental effect of nonspecific promised reward on creativity appear to be due to participants not
understanding that creativity was required for reward.
Experiment 2: Effects o f Current Instructional
Explicitness on Reactions to P r o m i s e d Reward
Experiment 1 showed that divergent-thinking training predisposes participants to respond creatively when promised a reward
in a later task. This suggests that the promise of reward increases
creativity if people clearly discriminate a contingency between
creativity and reward. Experiment 2 tested the proposition that,
without preliminary training, promised reward will increase creativity if current task instructions explicitly convey the necessity
to perform creatively. Like the results of the first study, such a
finding would be inconsistent with the view that the expectation
of reward inherently lessens creativity (e.g., Amabile, 1990;
Condry, 1977; McGraw & McCullers, 1979; Schwartz, 1982).
As previously noted, to be considered creative, performance
must both be novel and meet a standard of quality or utility
(e.g., Guilford, 1968; Maltzman, 1960; Shalley, 1991; Wallach & Kogan, 1965; Winston & Baker, 1985). In the second
experiment we eliminated the use of a preliminary task and,
instead, varied instructional explicitness concerning the novelty
and quality requirements for creative performance. Six groups
of participants were produced by the factorial combination of
three levels of instructional explicitness paired with the presence
or absence of the promise of reward. The task was similar to
the final task used in the first experiment. We asked children to
construct pictures from a series of circles, incorporating the
circle as a main part of whatever they drew, and we showed
them samples of acceptable drawings.
710
EISENBERGER, ARMELI, AND PRETZ
We gave children in the nonexplicit condition no additional
information concerning the type of drawing expected of them.
To clarify the necessity of novel performance, we told children
in the low explicit condition to produce "unusual drawings."
Prior studies of promised reward had left the relationship between performance novelty and reward unstated. We similarly
told children in the high explicit condition to produce unusual
drawings, and gave additional instruction to clarify the creative
task's requirement that the circle be used as a basic part of the
picture. Without this quality clarification, children sometimes
produce uncreative pictures by using the circle simply as a frame
within which a picture is drawn. To meet the standard of quality,
the children needed to incorporate the circle into the picture.
We showed children in the high explicit condition an example,
to be avoided, of a picture that failed to meet this requirement.
Thus, in the high explicit condition the children received clarification of both the novelty requirement and the quality requirement for creative performance.
We examined effects of the instructional explicitness and
promised reward on the creativity of the children's drawings.
We predicted that the promise of reward would increase creativity among participants receiving clarification of both the novelty
requirement and the quality requirement for creativity. We predicted that such high instructional explicitness would produce
greater creativity than clarifying only the novelty requirement
or clarifying neither the novelty requirement nor the quality
requirement.
Explicit instructions that clarify the task's novelty and quality
requirements might produce a high level of creativity even without the promise of reward. Under such circumstances, reward
might have a larger influence in later drawings as children become fatigued and/or bored with the task. Therefore, the number
of required drawings was increased from the 14 used in the first
experiment to 24 in the present experiment.
Method
Participants and materials. Participants were 220 fifth-grade and
sixth-grade students (103 boys and 117 girls) of varied socioeconomic
background attending the Pulaski and Pyle elementary schools in Wilmington, Delaware. As in Experiment 1, we required participants to
read at a level, determined by standardized texts, no lower than one
year below their current grade level.
We presented participants with a 20.3-cm x 27.9-cm sheet of paper
containing 30 preprinted circles (five rows by six columns). Each circle
had a diameter of 3.8 cm. The first circle was drawn as a happy face,
using small dots for eyes and nose and an arc for the mouth. The
second circle was drawn as a baseball, with two arcs within the circle
to represent the stitching on the ball. For children in the high specific
condition, we included, as a negative example, a picture that failed to
use the circle as a basic part of the drawing. In this picture a baseball
was drawn inside the circle, rather than using the circle to picture the
circumference of the ball. Students were given a sharp Number 2 pencil
with an intact eraser for the task.
Task. The experimenter placed the appropriate circle sheet directly
in front of each participant. Then she gave children in the nonexplicit,
nonpromise group the following spoken directions:
Make pictures from these circles. The circle should be the main
part of whatever you make. Here are examples of pictures you might
make--a happy face and a baseball. Remember, make pictures from
these circles. The circle should be the main part of whatever you
make. Here are examples of pictures you might make--a happy
face and a baseball. Do you understand?
(With participants in all groups, the experimenter pointed to each picture
example as she mentioned it. When explaining that the circle should be
the main part of the picture, the experimenter traced the shape with her
pen.)
For children in the nonexplicit, promise group, she changed the first
sentence to "If you make pictures from these circles, I will give you
75 cents," and the rest of the directions remained the same.
Children in the low explicit, nonpromise group and the low explicit,
promise group received the same instructions except that the experimenter used the word "unusual" before the word "pictures."
Children in the high explicit groups received instructions comparable
to the low explicit groups, except that on the first time through the
directions the experimenter added the following statement after the second sentence: "If we had drawn the baseball this way [experimenter
points to the baseball drawn as a framed picture], it would be incorrect
because it doesn't use the circle as the main part of the picture." (Experimenter draws an " X " through the picture.)
After answering any questions from the participant, the experimenter
stared at a book in her lap while the child worked on the task. Once the
child completed drawings involving 24 open circles on the page, the
experimenter asked the child to state the subject of each picture, and
wrote down the child's answers. Preliminary research showed that children given the drawing task proceed sequentially, moving from left to
right until a row of circles has been completed, and then moving to the
next row. Therefore, which 8 drawings were done first, which were the
second 8, and which were the third 8, could be easily determined for
data analysis. Children in the promise condition were then paid 75 cents.
Results
The main finding was that, as predicted, among children who
received clarification of both the novelty requirement and the
quality requirement for creativity, the promise of reward increased creativity, compared with no promise. Further, among
children promised a reward, explicit instructions produced
greater creativity than did clarification of the novelty requirement alone or no clarification. As in the first study, we evaluated
the creativity of the drawings by the reciprocal of their infrequency in the entire population of drawings. We used a single
rater, instead of the two employed in the first study, because of
the high reliability previously found for the average creativity
scores assigned by two raters ( r = .97 or greater for two raters
in the first experiment and in Eisenberger & Selbst, 1994, and
Eisenberger & Armeli, 1997). To obtain an estimate of the present rater's reliability, a second rater also scored the drawings of
60 randomly selected participants (10 from each group). The
two raters' average creativity scores assigned to these participants showed an extremely high relationship ( r = .99), indicating the objectivity of the rating measure.
Table 1 shows that, as predicted, the interaction between the
effects of instructional explicitness and the presence versus absence of reward was strongest in the final block of 8 drawings,
t(214) = 1.63, p = .05. This three-way interaction and the
remaining planned comparisons used the appropriate pooled
error term (Kirk, 1968). Among children given highly explicit
instructions, those who were promised reward drew more creative pictures than those who were not promised reward, t(214)
= 2.96, p < .005. Among participants promised reward, the
PROMISED REWARD AND CREATIVITY
Table 1
Creativity Scores as a Function of Promise of Reward,
Explicitness of Instructions, and Blocks of Drawings
Blocks of eight drawings
Variable
High explicit
Promise
No promise
Low explicit
Promise
No promise
Nonexplicit
Promise
No promise
1
2
3
67.4
67.1
137.2
113.1
193.4
115.0
45.8
41.4
85.2
88.6
101.5
62.8
74.6
60.7
92.5
78.8
111.8
69.4
Note. To avoid small fractional values, the average creativity scores
were multiplied by 1,000.
high explicit instructions produced greater creativity than did
either the low explicit instructions or the nonexplicit instructions, respectively, t(214) = 3.57, p < .001, and t(214) = 3.08,
p < .005. In contrast, the promise of reward did not reliably
increase creativity among children who received the low explicit
instructions or the nonexplicit instructions, respectively, t(214)
= 1.50 and t(214) = 1.60.
These results indicate that promised reward increases creativity if current task instructions clearly convey the necessity to
perform creatively. Children who received explicit instructions
concerning both the required novelty and the required quality
of their performance produced more highly creative drawings
when promised reward than did children who were not promised
reward or who received less explicit task instructions. Thus, the
effects of promised reward on creative performance depended
on the child's discrimination of the nature of required
performance.
General Discussion
The promise of reward evidently increases creativity if there
is currently, or was previously, an explicit positive relationship
between creative performance and reward. In the first study, the
nonspecific promise of reward increased the creativity of picture
drawing if children had previously received divergent-thinking
training (generating novel uses for physical objects). In the
second study, promised reward increased the creativity of children's drawings if current task instructions clarified the necessity of creative performance. These findings indicate that the
promise of reward increases creativity under either of two conditions: (a) people are trained to think divergently in a preliminary
task, or (b) instructions explicitly convey the necessity of creative performance in the present task. Promised reward failed
to increase creativity when initial divergent-thinking training or
task instructions did not explicitly convey the necessity to perform creatively.
The incremental effects of promised reward on creative performance support behavior theory's assumption that divergent
thinking, like any kind of response that people can discriminate,
is enhanced by systematic reward (e.g., Maltzman, 1960; Pryor
711
et al., 1969; Skinner, 1953; Torrance, 1970; Winston & Baker,
1985). The increase of creativity produced by promised reward
contradicts the widely held view that the expectancy of reward
inherently causes recipients to define the task as requiring conventional responding (e.g., Amabile & Cheek, 1988; Schwartz,
1982) and to distract recipients from finding novel ways of
carrying out the task (e.g., Amabile, 1983; McGraw, 1978). The
current research indicates that an explicit relationship between
creative performance and reward causes children to define the
task as requiring flexible, creative performance rather than simple, repetitive responding. When people clearly discriminate a
positive relationship between creativity and reward, they do not
engage in stereotyped repetition of a particular response, but
instead perform creatively.
In Experiment 1, divergent-thinking training in an initial task
subsequently caused the nonspecific promise of reward to increase creative performance in a different task. This finding
follows from learned industriousness theory (Eisenberger,
1992): People learn which dimensions of performance are rewarded (e.g., divergent thinking), and generalize trained high
effort more to these performance dimensions than to other dimensions in later tasks. Previous research showed that reward
for creative performance involving one task produced a subsequent increase of creative performance in a different task (Eisenberger & Armeli, 1997; Eisenberger & Selbst, 1994). The present research suggests that divergent-thinking training establishes
the promise of reward as a cue for generalized creative
performance.
The second experiment showed that if the novelty and quality
requirements for creative performance in the current task are
clarified, promised reward leads to greater creativity. Such high
required instructional specificity is consistent with views that
emphasize the importance of task-focused motivation for producing creative performance (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990; Sternberg & Lubart, 1991 ). This finding may be contrasted with the
results of the first study; there, divergent-thinking training
readily established the nonspecific promise of reward as a cue
for later creative performance. When children receive divergentthinking training, they appear not to require explicit instructions
in order for the subsequent promise of reward to produce creative performance. Divergent-thinking training produces a readiness to interpret the nonspecific promise of reward as requiring
novel performance, and increases sensitivity to the quality requirement for creative performance.
The two experiments reported in this article were carried out
in different schools. Within each school, participants often came
from classes in which other children had previously taken part
in the experiment. Teachers told us they sometimes heard one
student tell another of receiving money in the study. This communication no doubt led some children to expect a monetary
payment, perhaps reducing the effectiveness of the promise versus no-promise manipulation. Therefore, the strong positive effects of promised reward on creativity, found following either
divergent-thinking training or explicit task instructions, may
have underestimated the actual size of the positive relationship
between promised reward and creativity.
The present and related research indicates that the effects of
reward on creativity depend on how the reward is administered.
Whether reward substantially increases creativity, has little ef-
712
EISENBERGER, ARMELI, AND PRETZ
fect, or substantially decreases creativity depends on (a) the
degree of creativity required, (b) the explicitness of the relationship between creativity and reward, and (c) the salience of the
reward. Repeated presentation of a reward that is explicitly
contingent on creativity produces generalized creative performance involving new tasks, and this effect increases with the
salience of the reward (Eisenberger & Armeli, 1997; Eisenberger & Selbst, 1994). Divergent-thinking training establishes
the nonspecific promise of reward as a cue for creative performance in subsequent tasks (Experiment 1). The promise of
reward, made explicitly for creative performance, also increases
creativity (Experiment 2).
•Concerning decremental effects of reward, it follows from
learned industriousness theory that reward for a low degree of
cognitive performance should increase the secondary reward
value of low cognitive effort, lessen the secondary reward value
of high cognitive effort, and extinguish any prior discrimination
that creative performance is required for reward. A decrement
of creative performance has been found when reward is provided
repeatedly for very simple, uncreative performance (Eisenberger & Selbst, 1994) or for the repeated application of an
elementary response rule (McGraw & McCullers, 1979;
Schwartz, 1982).
No previously published study found that creativity was increased by promising participants a reward for simply completing a task. These prior studies did not incorporate either (a)
divergent-thinking training in a preliminary task or (b) explicit
instructions in the current task concerning the necessity of creativity for reward. Consistent with the previous findings, no
incremental effect of promised reward on creativity was found
among children who did not receive initial divergent-thinking
training or who in the current task were not explicitly told that
creative performance was required. Lack of an incremental effect of promised reward on creativity as reported in prior experiments, evidently resulted from experimental participants' failure
to discern a positive relationship between creativity and reward.
Because daily experience rewards various types of conventional
performance more frequently than novel responding, people who
are promised reward for nonspecific performance may fail to
respond creatively.
Our findings have practical implications. Experimental reports that the promise of reward reduces creativity have been
widely interpreted to indicate that reward should be avoided
for students whenever creativity is considered desirable. The
extrinsic orientation produced by the promise of reward is frequently argued to lessen the creativity of students, who no longer
perceive the task as an opportunity for "exploration and play"
(Amabile & Cheek, 1988, p. 60). Such views link creativity to
intrinsic interest; in this interpretation, only when individuals
can pursue their own concerns, free from external constraint,
are they highly creative (e.g., Amabile, 1990; Amabile & Cheek,
1988, Condry, 1977; deCharms, 1968; Deci & Ryan, 1985). In
such accounts, intrinsic motivation and creativity are enhanced
by self-determination over behavior and lessened by social constraint. Salient reward is frequently stated to be a social constraint that is inimical to intrinsic interest and creativity.
Contrary to these views, a meta-analysis of a quarter century
of research on intrinsic interest reveals that when reward depends on completing a task or meeting a standard of perfor-
mance, there is no reliable loss of intrinsic interest (Eisenberger & Cameron, 1996). Further, reward for creative performance increases generalized intrinsic interest in creative tasks
(Eisenberger & Armeli, 1997). The present research, and related
findings on the generalized effects of the reinforcement of creative behavior (Eisenberger & Armeli, 1997; Eiseaberger &
Selbst, 1994), suggest that explicit reward for creative performance might effectively increase creative academic performance.
We found that the nonspecific promise of reward increased
creative performance in a task that followed divergent-thinking
training. This suggests that divergent-thinking training may increase student creativity in later academic activities for which
the promise of reward is nonspecific, as well as when there is
a clear relationship between creativity and reward. Repeated
reward for creativity and the promise of reward for future creativity may help establish a strong generalized creative orientation among students.
Research has found that reward for high effort in several
different preliminary tasks produces better subsequent essay
performance by college students than the same amount of training concentrated in a single task (Eisenberger et al., 1982). It is
possible that divergent-thinking training in multiple tasks would
similarly produce a cumulative increase in the creativity of later
academic performance. Such diversity of rewarded creativity
may strengthen resilience in creative tasks that require sustained
cognitive effort.
The careers of outstanding scientists and mathematicians provide examples of the great creativity that can be produced by
expectation of reward. James D. Watson (1968), for example,
vigorously pursued research on the molecular mechanisms for
transmitting hereditary information because he anticipated that
this topic offered the quickest, most probable path to scientific
eminence. Watson may have been more extrinsically motivated
than most scientists and mathematicians. However, even individuals often identified as paragons of intrinsic creative interest,
including Einstein, Feynman, von Neumann, and Ramanujan,
were strengthened in their resolve to pursue difficult, long-term
research projects by the acclaim they anticipated from the scientific community and/or the public (Clark, 1972; Gleick, 1992;
Kanigel, 1991; Lanouette, 1992; Macrae, 1992).
Our results suggest that the explicit promise of reward for
creative performance readily increases creativity. However, the
findings do not preclude the possibility that under specialized
conditions such promised reward might reduce creativity. If one
perceives the degree of required creativity as beyond one's capacity, the likelihood of failure might discourage attempts to be
creative. Also, the combination of a highly salient reward and
severe time pressure to find a creative solution to a problem
might produce intense emotional arousal that would disrupt
sustained cognitive processing. According to the Yerkes-Dodsen law, the incremental effects of arousal on performance reverse at high levels of arousal that disrupt organized performance. With adequate perceived time for completing a task,
however, an explicit positive relationship between creativity and
reward should help maintain goal-oriented behavior and increase creativity.
The widely accepted generalization that promised reward
leads people to define a task conventionally, and to stop exploring novel ways to perform the task evidently holds only for
PROMISED REWARD AND CREATIVITY
situations in which there is a nonspecific relationship or negative
relationship between creativity and reward. The promise of reward does not have a uniform incremental or decremental effect
on creativity: Creativity depends on present cues and prior training concerning the relationship between creativity and reward.
Promised reward that conveys the necessity of increased creativity, either because of explicit task instructions or prior divergent
thinking training, increases creativity. This is not to deny that
intrinsic task interest often contributes substantially to creativity.
There is simply no clear evidence that requiring creative task
performance for reward interferes with intrinsic interest or creativity. On the contrary, the promise of reward can enhance the
creativity with which people intrinsically carry out interesting
tasks.
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Received September 10, 1996
Revision received March 28, 1997
Accepted March 29, 1997 •