Rewards and Recognition: What Works

As I begin this article, I want to fully disclose that I have never been a fan of rewards for participation, motivation, or self-esteem.  The “everyone gets a trophy” mentality has been detrimental for years, doing more harm than good, and the spillover continues to damage the development of young people, and in turn, have a negative impact on a number of things we do in high schools.  I have written about this same topic previously on this site, and after recently reading a bit more on the topic, and am going to discuss it a little further.

In a recent Harvard study led by Carly Robinson, it was found that attendance awards, generally used to motivate students to come to school, can actually lead students to miss more days of school.  This study included 14,000 students in California in schools that gave out awards to students for school attendance.  Many of the students, once they received an award, started attending school less often.  The question then becomes, why?  We will get to that in a few minutes.

Rewards are a very big deal in American culture.  They have been used in all aspects of society to motivate performance.  Whether it is Employee of the Month in a department store, or the Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role, rewards permeate our society.  We have organizations that spend huge amounts of money to publicly recognize people.  The CMA Awards are just one example of a major television production, and each year the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame puts on an incredible program.  At the local level, you can most likely put together a list of rewards people are given pretty quick!  Just check out the local newspaper and someone is being recognized.

So, why am I bringing this up, and why is it a negative for kids?  Well, research is showing that rewards do not necessarily do what we want them to do.  They do not motivate people the way there were necessarily intended. 

There is a sense that there is a saturation of rewards.  Everyone is giving them.  In a school, look around a lot of classrooms and hallways and you will see stars for this, names on the wall for that, and any number of ways kids can be recognized. The volume of rewards has increased dramatically, and in some instances, you do not have to do much to get one.  Today, many of our students have figured out the game that they have to play in order to get the reward, and some simply do not want to play the game.  

To the casual observer, one would think it works because there are kids with stars and names on the wall, right?  Wrong.  If it worked, wouldn’t all kids have a star and all kids have their name on the wall?  Youth wrestling tournaments give medals to any youngster that  pays an entry fee and shows up, so why aren't youth wrestling tournaments turning kids away?  Go to some schools and get your picture on a banner when you are a senior.  Why don’t all seniors go out for athletic teams to get their banner on the wall?

There have to be reasons why.  Let’s take a look at a few possibilities, some of which have already been alluded to.  Tim Elmore provides a number of possibilities, and in my opinion, the biggest mistake people have made when it comes to giving rewards is that they have done it for behaviors that are expected.  I have had a number of colleagues question why are we rewarding students for doing what we expect them to do?  That has bothered me for a long time, and I suppose I get criticized because of my lack acknowledgment of kids.  I’ve done some of this, but I have a hard time handing out praise or rewards for things students, or anyone else, should be doing.  Rewards should be given to those who exceed expectations.  I will never apologize for having high expectations, and neither should anyone else!  Exceeding those expectations is what should get recognized.

Elmore points out that we must make sure that we understand how the reward is perceived by those who receive it, as well as their peers.  I remember a classmate of mine, Bruce Feigenbutz, who did not miss a day of school from Kindergarten through his senior year in high school!  That is impressive, and goes beyond anyone’s expectations.  As an educator, I am impressed and would certainly agree that giving a reward to someone for that kind of accomplishment is warranted.  That said, for the majority of high school students, consistent school attendance is not seen as something cool at all.  In some school cultures, really good grades are not cool either, at least for some members of the student body.  How much influence they have will often determine how a reward is perceived.  Some students will resent the recognition if they believe they are going to be mocked for their success.  Thus, a reward for attendance may in fact be something kids do not want.

I’ve already pointed out that too many rewards reduces the meaning.  Here is a real quick example.  Compared to a lot of high schools, we have a high standard for admission into the National Honor Society.  To even be considered, a student must have a 3.5 GPA, which is actually higher than the national recommendation.  For the most current induction, there were 30 students eligible to apply, and through the selection process, fourteen were inducted.  Our NHS Chapter has 29 current members.  We have another school almost exactly the same size in our area that had 100 students eligible this year, and over thirty were selected.  Their GPA requirement is 3.25.  Which one of these is the greater honor?  How about schools that have an overwhelming number of valedictorians?  How much an honor is it when 20% of the senior class is recognized as a valedictorian?  The rarer the reward, the higher the value.  For something to be motivating, it has to be valued.

What do students value?  What kinds of rewards do motivate?  That is something that those giving the reward need to find out.  In some communities with high poverty levels, the reward of a free college education paid for by wealthy benefactors has had a huge impact on academic performance.  I’m not so sure that would have the same impact in wealthy communities.  In some schools, access to free computer time has been an attractive reward.  For many, finding ways to reward excellence or exceeding expectations can be quite difficult.  What researchers have shown time again is that to be most effective, the reward must have intrinsic value.  The individual must have a high level of personal satisfaction and sense of personal accomplishment for the reward to have value, regardless of what it is.  

I have to admit that the hair stands up on the back of my neck when I am with various groups and we are talking about students and the topic of rewards come up.  In most instances as soon as that happens, I ask “What are our expectations?” and generally follow with “If kids meet the expectations, why is it necessary to reward?”  Other than a “thank you” or “good job” do we really need to give more?

A Legal Age for Cell Phones and Social Media?

What does the ping or buzz of a cell phone have in common with drinking alcohol, smoking a cigarette, and gambling?  All of them result in the brain releasing dopamine, and that makes us feel good!  Dopamine is a chemical in your brain that affects your emotions, movements and your sensations of pleasure and pain.  It functions as a neurotransmitter that sends signals to other nerve cells and is a major component in reward-motivated behavior.  Dopamine motivates one to take action toward goals, desires, and needs, and gives a surge of reinforcing pleasure when achieving them.  It is important to note that while this chemical is released by the above mentioned acts, along with endorphins and serotonin, dopamine is also released when exercising.  In reality, your body craves physical movement and even though a person may not like to exercise, when they do, the chemicals are released and the person feels good.

So why this little mini-lesson on dopamine and the “pleasure release?”  Because we often become addicted to things that give us pleasure.  As mentioned above, our bodies crave the release of this chemical, and to get that we often develop both a physical and mental addiction to it.  In the case of cigarettes, manufacturers have added other chemicals, like nicotine, to reinforce addiction.  And even with exercise, there are people that one could argue go too far, causing their bodies to break down.  And now, we have people, particularly young ones, who get that rush of pleasure when they hear that phone ping or feel it buzz.  The natural consequence of this is that they cannot put their phone away or get away from it.  In our classrooms we see this all the time, and when it becomes a disruption and I take a phone away from a student, it often looks like an addict giving up their drugs.  It is very difficult for them, and when they return to the classroom they are highly distracted because they are wondering what they are missing out on because they do not have that phone in hand.  They even become a bit agitated because they do not get that dopamine release without hearing the ping.  I am not making this up!  We see it happen with some of our students!

Here’s something else we know about young people and their devices.  According to a recent study published in January 2019 edition of the Journal of Applied Biobehavioural Research, spending too much time on “social media” sites like Facebook is not only making people miserable, it is also making them depressed.  In a study that involved 504 millennials that are active users of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and/or Snapchat, who met the criteria for a major depressive disorder also scored higher on the “Social Media Addiction” scale and exhibited other behaviors that are associated with major depression.

In another study conducted by psychologists at the University of Pennsylvania, they concluded that for those subjects who drastically cut back their use of sites, such as Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat, they often saw marked improvement in their mood and how they felt about their lives.  One of the researchers, Melissa Hunt, stated “It was striking.  What we found over the course of three weeks was that rates of depression and loneliness went down significantly for people who limited their (social media) use.” 

Simon Sinek, a British-American author, motivational speaker, and organizational consultant, who once worked in advertising, makes it very clear about the addictive nature of cell phones, and most important, how relationships are impacted.  When people go to meetings or out to dinner, and they pull out their phone and lay it on the table, they have sent the message that the people around them are not important to them.  They have told everyone else at the table that the phone is more important than the people in the room.  They are much more interested in what is going to happen on their phone than what is being said across the table.  Think of what people do when they are waiting for an appointment, whether it is at the dentist’s office or for a meeting with the principal.  They pull out their phones.  There may very well be other people in the room and instead of talking to other people, they are running through their phones.  When this is done at conferences or meetings, relationships suffer.  People get to know one another in the in-between times, and they cannot do that when they are checking out their phones.  This is not just an issue with teens; it is an issue with all of us!  However, teenagers have grown up with these devices and have not learned how to talk to each other, face-to-face, and socialize with each other.

Sinek also talks about the fact that young people are not learning to talk to people and have no idea how to develop meaningful relationships.  They have grown up in a world of immediate satisfaction, in large part supported by their smart phone.  They have the world at their fingertips!  They have developed what Sinek calls “systemic impatience,” and if they do not experience success right away, they consider that failure.  Relationships take hard work to develop, and young people do not have experience talking with people and working through difficulties.  In many instances, they are afraid to talk to people because they haven’t had to in order to communicate.  

Addiction.  Depression.  Damaged relationships.  Is it time to step in legally to prohibit use by our youngest and most vulnerable?  In the summer of 2019 there was a bill  in Congress to raise the age to use vapes, e-cigarettes, and tobacco products to 21.  Yes, serious health conditions result from their use over time, but I believe we can same about the emotional, mental, and physical health of those addicted to their electronic devises and what they can access.  For a very long time I have made the comment that we are putting incredibly powerful devices — smart phones — in the hands of kids that are not developmental mature enough to handle them.  It’s like putting a six-year old behind the wheel of a race car.  Kids do not need them.  They were fine before these things came about, and they will most likely be better if they could not use them until they are mature enough to handle them.  Yes, there is no doubt that there are positive uses for this technology.  But there needs to be balance, and for many of our young people, that does not exist.