W. David Pierce

Who they are

Pierce works in the behavioural tradition of research on reinforcement. His reviews with Cameron are the main counterweight to the view that rewards generally damage motivation.

This page records only what the papers and their published records state. Biography beyond the cited work is not given here.

Key papers

Reinforcement, reward, and intrinsic motivation: a meta-analysis (1994), with Judy Cameron. Across 96 experiments, reward overall did not decrease intrinsic motivation, and verbal praise increased it. The only negative effect, which the authors called minimal, appeared when expected tangible rewards were given simply for doing a task.

Pervasive negative effects of rewards on intrinsic motivation: the myth continues (2001), with Cameron and Banko. Rewards for low-interest tasks increased free-choice intrinsic motivation. On high-interest tasks, negative effects appeared when rewards were tangible, expected and loosely tied to level of performance.

Key ideas

The central idea is that rewards are not harmful in general. The harm appears in specific conditions, chiefly when people are paid in a way that is expected, tangible and unconnected to how well they do something they already enjoy. Read against the 1999 analysis by Edward Deci, Richard Koestner and Richard Ryan, the practical lesson is shared: rewards tied to performance on dull tasks are the safest, and payment for activities people enjoy is the riskiest.

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