1It seems completely obvious that offering someone a reward should always make them work harder.
2Yet psychologists have repeatedly found that rewards can sometimes destroy our natural interest in a task.
3In one famous study, young children who loved drawing were suddenly given prizes for doing it.
4When the prizes eventually stopped, those same children drew far less than they had before.
5The drawing had somehow turned into paid work, and the original joy had quietly disappeared.
6This does not mean that rewards are always harmful, unfair, or wrong in every situation.
7Rewards work reasonably well for boring, mechanical tasks that almost nobody would ever freely choose.
8But for creative or meaningful work, genuine interest in the task itself is usually the best fuel.
9Parents and teachers should therefore praise honest effort and curiosity rather than simply paying for results.
10When people feel genuinely free and increasingly competent, motivation usually begins to look after itself.