Introducing Uninteresting Tasks to Children: A Comparison of the Effects of Rewards and Autonomy Support

Two experiments compared rewards and autonomy support as methods to promote children's self‐regulation for an uninteresting vigilance task. Dependent measures were ratings of positive affect, perception of the task's value, and free‐choice engagement. ANOVA results revealed some positive e...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of personality 2004-02, Vol.72 (1), p.139-166
Main Authors: Joussemet, Mireille, Koestner, Richard, Lekes, Natasha, Houlfort, Nathalie
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Analysis of Variance
Autonomy
Behavior
Biological and medical sciences
Child
Child development
Child psychology
Childhood
Children
Developmental psychology
Education
Female
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Humans
Male
Personal Autonomy
Psychology, Child
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Quebec
Reward
Rewards
Selfregulation models
Social Control, Informal
Socialization
Task performance
Vigilance
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Summary:Two experiments compared rewards and autonomy support as methods to promote children's self‐regulation for an uninteresting vigilance task. Dependent measures were ratings of positive affect, perception of the task's value, and free‐choice engagement. ANOVA results revealed some positive effects associated with autonomy support, whereas no effect for rewards was found in either study. The outcomes of most interest were correlations between free‐choice behavior and self‐reported measures of affect and value, reflecting the level of integration in self‐regulation. As predicted by self‐determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985, 1991, 2000), rewards were associated with behaviors incongruent from affect and value, whereas autonomy support led to integrated self‐regulation. This finding was first detected in Study 1 and later replicated in Study 2. Together, these results point to autonomy support as a beneficial alternative to the common use of rewards.
ISSN:0022-3506
1467-6494
DOI:10.1111/j.0022-3506.2004.00259.x