Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Revised for the twenty-fifth anniversary of its publication, Alfie Kohn's landmark challenge to carrot-and-stick psychology features updated reflections and research in a major new afterword by the author.



Our basic strategy for raising children, teaching students, and managing workers can be summed up in six words: Do this and you'll get that. We dangle goodies (from candy bars to sales commissions) in front of people in the same way that we train the family pet.



Since its publication in 1993, this groundbreaking book has persuaded countless parents, teachers, and managers that attempts to manipulate people with incentives may seem to work in the short run, but they ultimately fail and even do lasting harm. Drawing from hundreds of studies, Kohn demonstrates that we actually do inferior work when we are enticed with money, grades, or other incentives--and are apt to lose interest in whatever we were bribed to do.



Promising goodies to children for good behavior, meanwhile, can never produce anything more than temporary obedience. Even praise can become a verbal bribe that gets kids hooked on our approval.



Rewards and punishments are two sides of the same coin--and the coin doesn't buy much. What is needed, Kohn explains, is an alternative to both ways of controlling people. Hence, he offers practical strategies for parents, teachers, and managers to replace carrots and sticks.



Seasoned with humor and familiar examples, Punished by Rewards presents an argument that is unsettling to hear but impossible to dismiss.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Preface (p. ix)
• Part 1 The Case Against Rewards
• 1 Skinner-Boxed: The Legacy Of Behaviorism (p. 3)
• Pigeons and Rodents and Dogs
• Bring In the Reinforcements
• Behind the Appeal of Behaviorism
• 2 Is It Right to Reward? (p. 19)
• Saving Room for Just Deserts
• Treating People Like Pets
• 3 Is It Effective To Reward? (p. 35)
• Do Rewards Change Behavior?
• Do Rewards Improve Performance?
• 4 The Trouble With Carrots: Four Reasons Rewards Fail (p. 49)
• I Rewards Punish
• II Rewards Rupture Relationships
• III Rewards Ignore Reasons
• IV Rewards Discourage Risk-taking
• 5 Cutting The Interest Rate: The Fifth Reason Rewards Fail (p. 68)
• The Old Man's Plan
• The Scope of the Effect
• The Reason for the Effect
• "But If We Just ..."
• Minimizing the Damage
• 6 The Praise Problem (p. 96)
• "Good Work!" vs. Good Work
• Hooked on Praise
• Encouraging Words
• The Fear of Spoiling
• Part 2 Rewards In Practice
• 7 Pay for Performance: Why Behaviorism Doesn't Work in the Workplace (p. 119)
• Incentives Prevail
• Incentives Fail
• Why Incentives Fail
• Money
• The Five Problems with Rewards ... at Work
• 8 Lures for Learning: Why Behaviorism Doesn't Work in the Classroom (p. 142)
• The Motivation to Learn
• Making Students Learn
• Tighter Control: The Case of Special Education
• "How'm I Doin'?"
• 9 Bribes for Behaving: Why Behaviorism Doesn't Help Children Become Good People (p. 160)
• The Price of Obedience
• Punishing Children
• The Consequences of "Consequences"
• "And If You're Good ..."
• Part 3 Beyond Rewards
• Introduction (p. 179)
• 10 Thank God It's Monday: The Roots of Motivation in the workplace (p. 181)
• Step 1 Abolish Incentives
• Step 2 Reevaluate Evaluation
• Step 3 Create the Conditions for Authentic Motivation
• Collaboration
• Content
• Choice
• 11 Hooked on Learning: The Roots of Motivation in the Classroom (p. 198)
• Remove the Rewards
• Need We Grade?
• The Straight-A Student: A Cautionary Tale
• From Degrading to De-Grading
• Learning as Discovery
• The Three C's Again
• Collaboration: Learning Together
• Content: Things Worth Knowing
• Choice: Autonomy in the Classroom
• 12 Good Kids Without Goodies (p. 228)
• Beyond Control
• Solving Problems: Return of the Three C's
• Caring Kids
• The Role of the Schools
• The Chance to Choose
• Degrees of Freedom
• Barriers to Choice
• Freedom from Rewards
• Afterword, 1999 (p. 257)
• Afterword to the Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Edition (p. 276)
• Appendix A A Conversation with B. F. Skinner (p. 309)
• Appendix B What Is Intrinsic Motivation? (p. 320)
• Appendix C The Behavionsts Talk Back (p. 327)
• Notes (p. 335)
• References (p. 413)
• Name Index (p. 449)
• Subject Index (p. 453)

Author notes provided by Syndetics

(Bowker Author Biography)