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Abstract
In everyday life contexts and work settings, monetary rewards are often contingent on future performance. Based on research showing that the anticipation of rewards causes improved task performance through enhanced task preparation, the present study tested the hypothesis that the promise of monetary rewards for future performance would not only increase future performance, but also performance on an unrewarded intermediate task. Participants performed an auditory Simon task in which they responded to two consecutive tones. While participants could earn high vs. low monetary rewards for fast responses to every second tone, their responses to the first tone were not rewarded. Moreover, we compared performance under conditions in which reward information could prompt strategic performance adjustments (i.e., when reward information was presented for a relatively long duration) to conditions preventing strategic performance adjustments (i.e., when reward information was presented very briefly). Results showed that high (vs. low) rewards sped up both rewarded and intermediate, unrewarded responses, and the effect was independent of the duration of reward presentation. Moreover, long presentation led to a speed-accuracy trade-off for both rewarded and unrewarded tones, whereas short presentation sped up responses to rewarded and unrewarded tones without this trade-off. These results suggest that high rewards for future performance boost intermediate performance due to enhanced task preparation, and they do so regardless whether people respond to rewards in a strategic or non-strategic manner.
Highlights
The promise of rewards, such as money, for good performance is a powerful tool to get the best out of people, especially when the to-be-performed task is boring, repetitive, or otherwise not intrinsically interesting [1,2,3,4]
Based on evidence that rewards enhance performance by increasing task preparation [13,14], and that preparation starts before people engage in the execution of a task [8,9,10,11], the present study tested the novel hypothesis that rewards contingent on future performance lead to immediate performance enhancement on an intermediate task
The present data show that the effects of future rewards on immediate performance occurred both when reward information was presented long enough to enable strategic performance adjustments, and when reward information was presented too quickly to be consciously perceived, limiting strategic performance adjustments
Summary
The promise of rewards, such as money, for good performance is a powerful tool to get the best out of people, especially when the to-be-performed task is boring, repetitive, or otherwise not intrinsically interesting [1,2,3,4]. In line with this principle, rewards are widely used to entice people to increase their performance, that is, the speed or accuracy with which people execute a task. Previous research on the effects of rewards has focused exclusively on rewards that can be earned immediately As a result, it is currently unclear how the promise of future rewards affects performance on reward-unrelated tasks that people encounter in the mean time. The present research aims to provide first insight into this topic by examining how rewards for future performance impact performance in terms of speed and accuracy on intermediate tasks–tasks that are carried out after the promise of reward has been made, but before the reward can be earned
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