SC - Plant query

[ND Wederstrandt]

Isolde wrote:
> [various comments about A&S contests]

I replied to this before, but another relevant comment occurred to me.

A few weeks ago I heard an interview on public radio (Pacifica, I think,
not NPR) with the author of a book about the "reward and punishment
system".  In a nutshell, he claimed that when people were rewarded
externally for doing something, they became less motivated to do it on
their own, and did a poorer job of it.  For example, he cited a study in
which a bunch of grade-school children were given a list of words, or
shapes, or something (I don't remember the details).  In the control
group, the children were told to come up with the most interesting,
creative thing they could using the given items.  In the test group,
they were told that they'd be paid (on the order of a few dollars, I
think) in proportion to the originality and creativity of what they
came up with.  Subsequently, both groups were given a similar test, but
without the monetary reward.  As I remember it, the control group became
MORE creative and original from the first test to the second (presumably
through practice), while the test group became LESS so.

The moral, I guess, is that if we want to encourage period cooking,
period music, etc, then giving prizes and awards for winning A&S
contests is perhaps killing the goose that cooks the golden eggs.

					mar-Joshua ibn-Eleazar ha-Shalib
                                                 Stephen Bloch
                                           sbloch at panther.adelphi.edu
					 http://www.adelphi.edu/~sbloch/
                                        Math/CS Dept, Adelphi University