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errantemberNo Contest raises eyebrows of even those already pre-disposed to believe competition in American society is out of control. Alfie Kohn works through and offers evidence toward disproving nearly every pro-competition argument in American society's copious play book while systematically destroying much of the bad science and outdated beliefs surrounding his subject. In most situations where competition is thought to be inevitable, it's really artificially created. Cooperation is far more common than competition in nature. Particularly in American society, it reduces productivity, destroys relationships, and undermines self esteem for both winner and loser alike. It not only makes play less fun, but, by definition, makes play impossible. Children prefer cooperative to competitive games when given examples of both and a choice, and children and adults alike consistently perform better when cooperating. Even strenuous defenders of competition admit that it leads to an endless, painful quest for an unattainable goal with drug-like addiction characteristics. It leads directly to mindsets that destroy friendships, waste resources, oppress women, and greatly increase aggression by fostering cheating and an Us-vs. Them mindset. In short, there is very little evidence to support the idea that mutually exclusive goal attainment is ever better than the alternative, while in most instances substantial evidence suggests precisely the opposite. Very few will emerge from this book unscathed.
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Date: 2007-05-15 03:21 am (UTC)Has he written...
Date: 2007-05-15 03:27 am (UTC)Re: Has he written...
Date: 2007-05-15 12:27 pm (UTC)From the Book Flap:
Our basic strategy for raising children, teaching students, and managing workers can be summarized in six words: Do this and you'll get that. We dangle goodies (from candy bars to sales commissions) in front of people in much the same way that we train the family pet.
In this groundbreaking book, Alfie Kohn shows that while manipulating people with incentives seems to work in the short run, it is a strategy that ultimately fails and even does lasting harm. Our workplaces and classrooms will continue to decline, he argues, until we begin to question our reliance on a theory of motivation derived from laboratory animals.
Drawing from hundreds of studies, Kohn demonstrates that people actually do inferior work when they are enticed with money, grades, or other incentives. Programs that use rewards to change people's behavior are similarly ineffective over the long run. Promising goodies to children for good behavior can never produce anything more than temporary obedience. In fact, the more we use artificial inducements to motivate people, the more they lose interest in what we're bribing them to do. Rewards turn play into work, and work into drudgery.
Step by step, Kohn marshals research and logic to prove that pay-for-performance plans cannot work; the more an organization relies on incentives, the worse things get. Parents and teachers who care about helping students to learn, meanwhile, should be doing everything possible to help them forget that grades exist. Even praise can become a verbal bribe that gets kids hooked on our approval.
Rewards and punishments are just two sides of the same coin -- and the coin doesn't buy very much. What is needed, Kohn explains, is an alternative to both ways of controlling people. The final chapters offer a practical set of strategies for parents, teachers, and managers that move beyond the use of carrots or sticks.
Seasoned with humor and familiar examples, Punished by Rewards presents an argument that is unsettling to hear but impossible to dismiss.
Re: Has he written...
Date: 2007-05-15 07:35 pm (UTC)Re: Has he written...
Date: 2007-05-15 07:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-15 03:32 am (UTC)