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The most effective way to change a habit
Activity 6: Thinking About Research: The Effects of Reward and Punishment on Decision Making
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- Time frame: Approximately 30 - 45 Minutes
- Setting: Online or face-to-face
- Source: Chapter 7 Learning From Experience from Psychology, 7e by James S. Nairne and Dawn M. McBride
- Learning Objective: Describe the differences between reinforcement and punishment, both their positive and negative forms, and identify the effects of different schedules of reinforcement on behavior.
A summary of a research study in psychology is given in this section. As you read the summary, think about the questions in the "Time to Reflect" section below.
Study / Article Reference
Ballard, T. B., Sewell, D. K., Cosgrove, D., & Neal, A. (2019). Informational processing under reward versus punishment. Psychological Science, 30(5). https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797619835462
Purpose of the Study
The study tested the effects of reward and punishment on decision making. The researchers compared two competing hypotheses:
- Rewards and punishments result in more effort being exerted when making a decision, resulting in better decision making. This prediction follows from the idea that people exert effort to obtain rewards and avoid punishment.
- Rewards and punishments will decrease decision-making performance by diverting attention away from the task because people are more concerned about monitoring their performance. This results in poor processing of the important information for the decision and lowers their performance.
Method of the Study
In this experiment, 35 students performed a motion direction detection task. On each of the trials, participants saw a cloud of 40 moving dots. Some of the dots moved to the top left or top right of the screen while the remaining dots moved in a random direction. Participants were asked to press the “z” key if they saw the dots mostly moving to the left and the “/” key if they saw the dots moving mostly to the right. Participants began the task with 7.50 Australian dollars. In some blocks, they gained A$2.50 (reward) if they achieved 77% accuracy and a mean response time of 1.071 seconds. In other blocks, they lost A$2.50 (punishment) if they did not achieve these goals. Finally, in some blocks, they did not gain or lose money regardless of their performance (neutral). Speed and accuracy on the trials were measured and compared for the three different types of blocks.
Results of the Study
Both speed and accuracy declined when punishment was imposed in the block of trials (lose A$2.50) versus the neutral blocks (no reward or punishment), but there was no evidence of a change in speed or accuracy in the reward blocks (gain A$2.50) compared with the neutral blocks.
Conclusions of the Study
From these results, the authors concluded that there is no evidence that rewards affect decision making, but punishment impairs decision making by reducing one’s ability to fully process important information (their second hypothesis).
Time to Reflect
- Are the rewards and punishments used in the study positive or negative? Explain your answer.
- Do you think habituation could have played a role in this experiment? Why or why not?
- How does the researchers’ first hypothesis relate to the law of effect?
- What kind of reinforcement schedule did the researchers use in this experiment for the rewards? Do you think the use of this schedule contributed to the lack of an effect of rewards in this experiment? Why or why not?
