Problem
Teachers, coaches, and employers have all struggled with the challenge of keeping their students, players, and workers truly interested in their tasks. Social psychologists have examined this issue in a variety of ways over the years. Many studies have found that offers of financial or other incentives make people lose interest in a task. That is, after getting paid performs a task that they already enjoyed, the people would want to do the task subsequently only if they were going to get paid. Otherwise, they would no longer have any interest in doing the task. Indeed, recent research suggests that financial incentives are not the only incentives that undermine internal interest in tasks. These studies have found that many factors that are perceived to be very rewarding enticements to perform the activity will be likely to undermine people's enjoyment and interest in the task. The key point is that getting people perform a task by offering incentives that they feel are rewarding and worthwhile can backfire on teachers, coaches, employers, etc., by undermining the very motivation that they wish to encourage.