What Happens When You Ditch Extrinsic Learning Rewards

Imagine walking into a classroom where students aren’t chasing gold stars, bonus points, or stickers. There are no weekly pizza parties for top scorers. Instead, children appear absorbed in discovering new ideas, asking questions, and striving to improve—all because they want to. This vision isn’t just a utopian dream; it’s grounded in research about what happens when extrinsic learning rewards are set aside. With educators, parents, and employers beginning to question their reliance on rewards, it’s time to examine what unfolds when we move beyond carrots-and-sticks.

The Science of Motivation: Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic

At the heart of learning lies motivation. Psychologists traditionally divide motivation into two categories—intrinsic (arising from a genuine interest or enjoyment in the task) and extrinsic (driven by outside rewards or avoidance of punishment). While the two can coexist, decades of research reveal some crucial differences.

The Overjustification Effect

A landmark 1973 study by Edward Deci and Richard Ryan, founders of Self-Determination Theory (SDT), found that giving rewards for activities people already enjoy can decrease future intrinsic motivation—a phenomenon dubbed the "overjustification effect." For example, children who initially loved drawing became less enthusiastic once they started receiving rewards for their art. When the rewards stopped, their passion and effort dipped below initial levels, suggesting that external incentives had, in effect, crowded out internal motivation.

Real-World Evidence

A 2021 meta-analysis published in the journal Educational Psychology synthesized over 100 studies and found: while extrinsic rewards can boost short-term task completion, they tend to undermine creativity, deep understanding, and long-term persistence—core ingredients for meaningful learning.

Concrete Example: In Finland, where formal academic grading is delayed and competition de-emphasized until age 10, students consistently outperform counterparts from reward-focused systems in reading, problem solving, and life-long learning engagement.

What Changes When Rewards Disappear?

With chips, tokens, and prizes off the table, what actually happens in learning environments?

1. Greater Intrinsic Engagement

Without the distraction of prizes, students frequently display deeper immersion and curiosity. Multiple studies, including published experiments in Canada and Japan, document that students without extrinsic rewards ask more questions, experiment creatively, and seek feedback for personal growth—not just to "win." Teachers in Montessori classrooms, where tangible rewards are rare, often report students undaunted by difficulty, viewing mistakes as opportunities.

2. Strengthening Self-Regulation Skills

When learners no longer anchor their behavior to external rewards, they’re compelled to regulate effort, set goals, and reflect. Over time, they develop executive skills: persistence, time management, delayed gratification.

Practical Insight: At the University of Rochester, first-year STEM seminars tested a no grades, no rewards policy for weekly readings. At semester’s end, students from these groups were better able to set agendas, monitor progress, and strategize than those in incentivized groups—despite similar baseline abilities.

3. Reduced Performance Anxiety

Reward-based environments can create an atmosphere of rivalry and nervousness. The absence of overt incentives cultivates safer spaces for exploration, making it psychologically easier to make mistakes, pose questions, and support others. This bolsters emotional wellbeing and classroom collaboration.

Unpacking the Drawbacks of Extrinsic Rewards

Extrinsic rewards are everywhere: grades, badges, certificates of achievement, public praise—even smartphone apps that gamify behavior with digital trophies. The underlying assumption is these incentives boost learning and performance. But what are the long-term costs?

The "If-Then" Trap

B.F. Skinner’s 20th-century behavioral theories—popular in the origins of standardized education—suggested that behavior could be shaped by "if-then" contingencies. "If you finish your homework, then you earn computer time." But modern neuroscience demonstrates that dopamine spikes from such rewards are short-lived. Once the prizes stop, many learners lose drive.

Decline in Desire for Challenge

When students focus on earning rewards, they often avoid risks that could lead to failure and undermine their status as "winners." They tend to select easier problems, minimizing the very struggle that produces growth. A 2015 Stanford study reported that children incentivized for solving math problems chose significantly fewer challenging tasks than intrinsically motivated peers.

Value Shift to External Validation

A culture of rewards can inadvertently signal that learning isn’t valuable in itself—a message absorbed by young children. As a result, effort becomes conditional: "What do I get if I do this?" Over time, perseverance, curiosity, and grit can diminish—traits critically important for lifelong adaptability and independent learning.

Strategies for Fostering Intrinsic Motivation

If removing external rewards can unlock deeper, more lasting motivation, how can educators, parents, or workplace trainers cultivate a reward-light (or reward-free) environment? Here are actionable strategies rooted in research:

Prioritize Autonomy and Choice

Offer learners meaningful options: choose project topics, design their own assignments, decide reading order, or select roles in group work. Autonomy sparks curiosity and ownership. For instance, at the High Tech High charter schools in California, students select personal research questions leading to stronger engagement and higher-quality outcomes.

Make Learning Relevant

Connect classroom material to real lives, community, or broader world events. When students see why a concept matters, their inherent interest grows. A widely cited experiment in chemistry classes found that relating molecular structures to nutritional science triggered spontaneous student research—and voluntary out-of-class investigations.

Encourage Mastery Goals, Not Performance Goals

Shift attention from outscoring others (performance goals) to mastering material (mastery goals). Celebrate persistence, creative solutions, and improved performance over time. At a Wisconsin middle school, the introduction of narrative report cards—replacing numeric grades—resulted in a 40% increase in class participation and student-initiated questions.

Nurture a Growth Mindset

Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck’s research shows that framing mistakes as evidence of learning, rather than failure, increases resilience. Build routines for reflection: "What did you find hardest? How did you overcome it?" Self-evaluation helps cement a belief in one’s capacity to grow.

Provide Process-Focused Feedback

Swap out “good job” and “you’re so smart” for comments like, “I noticed how you stuck with that problem” or “your organization made your argument clear." Feedback that spotlights process rather than innate ability promotes grit, effort, and risk-taking.

Counterpoints: Are Extrinsic Rewards Ever Useful?

To dismiss extrinsic rewards outright would be simplistic; carefully chosen, they can play a role in certain situations.

Short-Term Engagement for Unpleasant Tasks

Some tasks are innately dull (like rote memorization) or anxiety-inducing (such as injections at a pediatric clinic). In these cases, small tokens or distractions can “get the job done” without long-term harm—if paired with emphasis on the why behind the activity. For example, token economies are widely used in special education for early behavior shaping, often only in the introductory phase.

Aid for Habit Formation or Initial Buy-In

When introducing complex routines—like journaling for mental health or starting a coding club—rewards can help launch participation. The crucial caveat: transition from external to internal motivators as soon as possible. An MIT study found that when learners received support for identifying personal reasons for sticking with new habits, their reliance on prizes faded quickly.

Ensuring Equity and Participation

In some group projects or volunteer contexts, rewards can serve as gratitude and recognition, bolstering morale (as long as the core motivation remains service, purpose, or meaning). Recognition—distinct from "bribery"—can acknowledge effort and foster community spirit without crowding out intrinsic motivation.

Transforming Home and Workplace Learning

Reward-light strategies aren’t just for the classroom. They have far-reaching impact at home and in professional settings.

Parenting Without Bribery

Parenting experts such as Alfie Kohn argue that removing rewards (and punishments) from home learning leads to more cooperative, reflective, and resilient children. For example, instead of “If you finish your book, you’ll get screen time,” try: “What did you think of this part? Tell me about your favorite character.” This opens dialogue, encourages reflection, and signals that curiosity is valued in itself.

Professional Training and Corporate Learning

The gamification trend—points, badges, leaderboards—swept through adult education and training, with mixed results. Healthcare companies introducing practice badges or instant bonuses noted spikes in overperformance followed by rapid declines in engagement once rewards ceased. By contrast, teams granted autonomy and prioritized for problem-solving over recognition bonuses developed sustainable skill use and innovative thinking. Google’s "20% time" (allocating staff chunks of unstructured time) is one renowned large-scale experiment in fostering intrinsic motivation for productivity and learning.

Navigating the Transition: From Rewards to Authentic Engagement

Shedding the security blanket of extrinsic rewards isn’t easy for learners—or facilitators. Here’s how to ease the shift and sidestep common pitfalls:

Set Clear Expectations

Emphasize that learning is a process valued for persistence, progress, and inquiry—not simply for end results or prizes. Reinforce this through classroom dialogue and modeling by adults genuinely interested in learning themselves.

Cultivate Supportive Peer Culture

Intrinsic motivation thrives amid encouragement and collaboration. Promote peer-to-peer feedback, joint discovery, and group analysis. Classrooms and professional teams that reward collective achievement (not only individual prowess) are less likely to foster unproductive competition.

Address Underlying Anxiety

Removing external incentives can temporarily unveil reluctance, anxiety, or disengagement—especially among learners habituated to rewards. Build check-ins, low-stakes exploratory opportunities, or mindfulness practices into routines during the adjustment phase. Recognize anxieties as natural remnants of a reward-centric past.

Envisioning Reward-Free Learning: Lasting Payoffs

When seen in action, reward-free classrooms, homes, or workplaces can look, paradoxically, more energetic—and less high-pressure—than their reward-laden counterparts. Learners retain knowledge longer, solve problems more creatively, and recover faster from setbacks. More importantly, they become less focused on “what’s in it for me?” and more aligned with deeper curiosity, collaboration, and self-direction.

Societies striving for innovation, adaptability, and collective flourishing will depend on cultivating individuals who learn for the sake of growth, not just the next sticker. While the transition away from extrinsic rewards has challenges, it is a shift that pays rich dividends in engagement, accomplishment, and—ultimately—a more meaningful learning journey.