The framing of reward: Removing a ‘token of appreciation’ lowers trust and cooperation.

Rewards can increase cooperation through system-based trust but come at the cost of one’s own intrinsic motivation and trust in others’ intrinsic motivation to cooperate, which reduces trust and cooperation beyond baseline once they are removed. The current study examined the effectiveness of reward framing in reducing these negative effects. Previous research has shown that an autonomously-framed reward increased intrinsic motivational attributions to behavior. Therefore, we expected an autonomously-framed reward to (partially) buffer against the decrease in trust and cooperation caused by the removal of reward systems. To test this, we measured trust and cooperation in two rounds of a public goods dilemma, comparing three conditions: a control condition, an autonomously-framed reward condition (‘a token of appreciation’) and a controllingly-framed reward condition (‘a reinforcer of behavior’). Rewards were installed in the first round and removed in the second. Our results showed...Show moreRewards can increase cooperation through system-based trust but come at the cost of one’s own intrinsic motivation and trust in others’ intrinsic motivation to cooperate, which reduces trust and cooperation beyond baseline once they are removed. The current study examined the effectiveness of reward framing in reducing these negative effects. Previous research has shown that an autonomously-framed reward increased intrinsic motivational attributions to behavior. Therefore, we expected an autonomously-framed reward to (partially) buffer against the decrease in trust and cooperation caused by the removal of reward systems. To test this, we measured trust and cooperation in two rounds of a public goods dilemma, comparing three conditions: a control condition, an autonomously-framed reward condition (‘a token of appreciation’) and a controllingly-framed reward condition (‘a reinforcer of behavior’). Rewards were installed in the first round and removed in the second. Our results showed that neither of the two rewards lead to an initial increase in trust and cooperation, indicating no motivational effect of the rewards. Even so, the removal of the reward in the autonomously-framed condition did lead to a decrease in trust and cooperation, while the controllingly-framed reward did not. These findings suggest that an autonomously-framed reward might not be a solution to buffering the negative effects of reward removal, as it decreases cooperation after removal even without the reward having a positive impact on behavior when installed. Future research is needed to better understand these findings.Show less

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The framing of reward: Removing a ‘token of appreciation’ lowers trust and cooperation.