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Bribing kids to do well in school
Freakonomics' Steven Levitt discusses how bribing students with incentives and money actually works.
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Kai Ryssdal: Time now for a little Freakonomics Radio. It's that moment every couple of weeks we talk to -- usually -- Stephen Dubner, about the hidden side of everything. This week, though, the hidden brains behind the operation: Steve Levitt, economist at the University of Chicago. Steve, how are you?
Steven Levitt: I'm doing great.
Ryssdal: Well, here's the thing: What'd you do with Dubner, man?
Levitt: You know, I love golf. I somehow managed to convince Dubner he loves golf too. So now we've got to flip the coin each week to see who gets to play golf and who has to actually work.
Ryssdal: That's so funny, because you know what? I cannot see Dubner playing golf to save his life, but I guess that's a whole 'nother interview. So what do we got? We're talking about, what, schools today?
Levitt: We are, about incentives, about bribing kids to do better in school.
Ryssdal: Oh good. All right, all you parents out there, get ready to write in. So what do we know about bribing kids? Does it work?
Levitt: One great thing about kids is that they're relative cheap to bribe. And certainly I know, going back in time, when I was a kid, my parents bribed me. It was just a mainstay of my household, that if I did well in school, they'd give me $50 maybe for every day.
Ryssdal: No, get out of here! Fifty bucks?
Levitt: Yeah, I think almost. Tons of parents do that. I certainly do with my kids.
Ryssdal: So you dangle $20 in front of them and say, 'This is yours if you get an A'? How does it work?
Levitt: One theory about that is that people in general -- but kids especially -- are very present-oriented, that what happens to them tomorrow or 15 minutes from now matters much more than what happens a year later. So that study that I've just done with some colleagues (PDF) comes to kids, right as they sit down to a test, and says, 'We will give you $20 as soon as the test is over if you improve your performance compared to the last time that you took it.'
Ryssdal: OK.
Levitt: So we did this on over 6,000 kids, using financial rewards and using non-financial rewards like trophies.
Ryssdal: Everybody gets a trophy nowadays, didn't you know that?
Levitt: Yeah, but not in our study. You should have seen the looks on the kids' faces because one of the things we also do was we give them the trophy, we let them hold the trophy, sniff the trophy, to really enjoy the trophy. We sit the trophy right on their desk in right front of them as they take the test, and if they don't do well, we snatch it away from them.
Ryssdal: Oh, you do not.
Levitt: We absolutely do.
Ryssdal: Economists are heartless sons of guns, man.
Levitt: It hurts more to lose something that's yours than it is benefit to gain something.
Ryssdal: My guess would be that the trophies work for the like the 3rd graders, but once you get to junior and high school, he wants -- 'show me the money,' right?
Levitt: With the young kids, the trophies worked great, the money works great. It's harder to convince the older kids. There, only the money works and the money really works -- all the time -- works best when you put it in front of them, you let them see it, and then you snatch it back from them when they don't do well.
Ryssdal: What happens though, Steve, when let's say these kids go into college or they go out into life and nobody's there handing them $20 if they do well, right? Do they lose the gains?
Levitt: I mean, I look at my own experience -- which is always dangerous -- but I went away to college and my parents stopped rewarding me for getting good grades. It wasn't like I stopped doing it. The counterargument is that you build up good study habits, hard work, and then those persist over time.
Ryssdal: But come on, you're a Ph.D economist at the University of Chicago, for crying out loud. You're not --
Levitt: Well, I am now, but boy, you should have seen me in college. All I did in college was drink and play wiffle ball. It was a miracle I even made it through.
Ryssdal: What do we know about boys versus girls? Is there a gender difference in how this thing works?
Levitt: There's a huge gender difference that we see here, which is that boys are much more responsive at all age levels to every kind of incentive we throw at them.
Ryssdal: Boys can be bribed.
Levitt: That's exactly right. I think what it really comes down to, and we've seen this in many other settings, is that girls basically always try pretty hard. And when you incentivize them, they can't try that much harder. But boys basically completely slack off unless the stakes are really high.
Ryssdal: You realize, of course, you're kind of hosing me now, because my kids are going to hear this on the radio and they're going to say, 'Dad, $20.'
Levitt: Honestly, it is one of the best investments you can make if it really causes your children to change their behavior. I'll give you an example: So I have a son who doesn't care at all about school; he's only a 3rd grader. But he had a computer-assisted math program, he spent about a total of an hour and 15 minutes on it over the first month that he had it. He asked me for $50 so he could get a new toy, and of course I said no, but then I said, 'Well look, if you can finish the entire 3rd grade math program, I'll give you this $50 toy.' He ended up spending about 40 hours over the next week doing math. He spent more time in that one week on math than he probably spent on his entire life, and we both couldn't have been happier. The beauty is, if you take it by hour, it cost me about $1 an hour to get my kid to study math.
Ryssdal: There's the economist in you coming out right? Come on.
Levitt: Yeah, it's a great deal. I mean, compared to trying to get someone to cut my lawn or to cut my hair, it was a bargain. It was a great bargain.
Ryssdal: Steven Levitt at the University of Chicago. Dubner's back in a couple of weeks. Freakonomics.com is the website. Steve, thanks a lot.
Levitt: Thank you Kai.
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The disturbance may cause losses to the firm that exceeds the quantity of money to pay off the official. Bribing the officials is a general way to deal with this subject in countries where there exists no firm system of coverage this semi-illegal behavior. A third party known as a White Glove may be concerned to act as a spotless middleman. http://n10-005-real-exam-questions.blogspot.com/
For many years I believed exclusively as those listeners who reject the notion of paying for grades. However, as I gained experience as a parent and came to fully appreciate that each child is different, I came round to believing that paying for grades can be an excellent tool to help some children get on track for success. While I have one who is an excellent student and prolific reader, I have another who just could not concentrate on getting the homework done -- sort of lacked the internal drive to do it. Starting in middle school we tried all sorts of rewards/incentives and also punishments -- intangibles like sleepovers, or not getting to go to the movies or a party. I tried shopping excursions. We had no real success but refused on principle to try cash payments (even though she told us of other friends who were receiving them).
When we finally tried money (in high school), it worked a little; but I quickly realized I was not making the carrot large enough (when we started, the top of the scale was an A worth $10.00/semester). Around this time, this particular daughter who was disinclined to do school work, very much wanted a part-time job, which we felt was a bad idea since then she'd never study. She finally came round to accepting our point that her job was to be a student: filling out her first job application and health history paperwork sort of caused her to "get it" because in the "employment" box the correct answer was "student" and the "employer" name was for her school's name. When she confronted us with the argument that if it is her job to be a student then we should pay her to do it, we decided to bend our principles and give it a try. We said we'd pay for grades...not in advance, but on the day the report card came home. A semester was $20 for an A, $15 for a B, and $10 for a C; I became willing to pay half the "wage" at the quarterly report (I really liked the look of a bunch of "A's and B's at mid-term and thought an immediate reward might help keep her motivated). The way the numbers worked out, her maximum potential reward was equivalent to one month's allowance, which seemed to be the tipping point in an acceptable "wage". Also, she had to make up some lost credits via an Internet School, for which I was willing to pay $40 per A per course ($30 for a B, and $20 for a C) paid upon the date the school granted the credit and grade. These courses were worth more because they required her to work independently, which employers find valuable. We never paid for anything below a C, with the statement to her that such poor performance is not something any employer is willing to pay for.
For her personality type, paying for grades was a critical motivator and we are proud to say by 11th grade she turned her academic life around and as a senior ultimately got herself into a nationally ranked private liberal arts college. I seriously doubt she would have had this success if we had not been willing to pay her for doing her job; and the fact that she did her job helped her to learn good study habits and how to actually work hard. As I said, children are all different and the success of any technique depends upon the child ... although it will be years before we know whether this approach was shortsighted and overly focused upon just getting her graduated from high school so she would have a better chance than someone who dropped out.
It remains to be seen what will happen when my other daughter (the prolific reader) is well into her teens; I don't think money will be necessary to keep her going, but I am confident there will be some immediate rewards and special treats for her continued good grades, while she continues to work towards the long term goal of the college of her choice. Reflecting upon it, one of the differences is that the younger daughter has internalized at a much earlier age the notion of long term goals and saving for the future; the struggling student, on the other hand, suffered from low self-esteem and did not feel there was any point to working toward some generalized future goal (although at 19, she now shows she sees the point and even has begun to save money). In deciding whether or not pay for grades, I don't think it is black or white or something that science can measure: the most important thing is to try to well know your child so you can make a good decision; what is right for one may not be right for another.
Listening to the interview with Steven Leavitt yesterday reminded me that about 15 years ago, a friend asked her son's psychologist if it was OK to bribe her son to read by paying him. The psychologist replied that a bribe is used to convince someone to do something they shouldn't do, while a reward is something you give someone for doing something they should do. He was all for rewarding her son to encourage the good outcome of improved reading. I think it's important to make that semantic distinction, and I'm all for rewarding anyone for good behavior!
Steve Levitt did little in this "report" except remind me that economists are not good scientists, don't really understand human nature, and make poor decisions that affect others negatively. I can't believe that they continue to inform public policy the way they do.
I'm sure he felt great that he "bribed" his kid to stay out of his hair for 40 hours, but the lessons he teaches him do harm well into the future ... and do little to promote life-long learning. His bribery methods might work well to prepare his child for a life of repetition (factory line) OR greed (investment banker).
Current research on motivation and learning fly in the face of all the conclusions Mr. Levitt drew from his exceptionally weak, limited study.
Shame on you Kai for treating him like your good friend ("dude"), and not asking the tough questions about his conclusions and methodology. I've come to expect better from Marketplace.
Here's what I got from this story: We'd better get more women into positions of power SOON!
"girls basically always try pretty hard...But boys basically completely slack off unless the stakes are really high."
"boys are much more responsive at all age levels to every kind of incentive we throw at them.
Ryssdal: Boys can be bribed."
These statements sure seem to explain alot about the mess the human world finds itself in these days.
Really? A study to quantify that pandering to our basest tendencies produces results. Does the American obesity problem not fully illustrate that reality?
What happened with performance on the next test? Was there a control group for whom incentives weren't offered and we compared performance on future tests to reveal a cumulative effect? I'd guess the results would be consistent with Alfie Kohn's work and reveal that these tactics can do long-term harm.
Since the team at University of Chicago seems hard pressed for study ideas, I'd like to suggest they quantify the presence of our better selves in daily decision making. Especially to show how we can teach our children to delay gratification and to critically think about future consequences - to act in our own best interest (http://blogs.hbr.org/schwartz/2012/01/why-dont-we-act-in-our-own-bes.html). How to best reward and motivate the "willingness to intelligently sacrifice in the short term, in the service of generating more value in the long term."
And if bribes (oops paychecks) work so well than Greg Smith didn't really publicly resign from his senior position at Goldman Sachs.
Wall Street and our schools have more in common than they should and that toxic and destructive culture focused on the short-term is where we send our kids every day. Studies like this perpetuate a failing education system and I'd like to see Occupy Elementary School as our next big movement.
I am usually a fan of Marketplace and Freakonomics, but your recent segment on paying kids for grades was one of the most irresponsible and shortsighted segments you've ever done.
I agree that Mr. Levitt identified some short-term benefits of paying your kids (specifically boys) for higher grades, but he ignored the long-term consequences. Paying kids for grades is a problematic form of external motivation that ultimately will lead to students focusing on the money they will earn from their parents and not focusing on the actual learning in school.
There are too many students already getting pressured by their parents for high grades, at the expense of everything else. As a middle-school teacher the past 5 years, many of my students focus so much on grades that they cheat and/or stress themselves out while trying to raise their grade (and please their parents).
I instead try to get them focused on what they’re actually learning and why it’s important. I do not advocate for getting rid of grades altogether (they serve some useful functions), but good study habits, creativity, and a lifelong appreciation for learning are much better focal points for my students then just getting straight A’s. And most of the time, these intrinsic motivations in students lead to good grades as well.
I would hope that Marketplace and Mr. Levitt acknowledge that their story only looked at short-term gains realized by paying your kids for grades, and how this focus on external motivation (instead of intrinsically wanting to learn) may create more problems in the long-run. You may think I sound “cheesy” by focusing on the intrinsic “love of learning,” yet most of my students long to hear this from an adult – instead of the constant pressure to get A’s. I believe kids who focus on the intrinsic benefits of learning are much more likely to build a more compassionate, sustainable economy/world, as opposed to "Enron/Countrywide/Madoff-type" people who will make a buck at any cost.
Wait a minute...did anybody besides me notice that the conclusion that Levitt came to in today's story was the exact opposite of the one depicted in the original Freakonomics book?
Though it was counter-intuitive, that study showed the financial rewards didn't make a difference in grade performance. Was the only difference the "sniff-and-hold" the prize aspect of the new study? Please explain the contradiction.
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