The Influence of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Reward on the Intratest Performance of High- and Low-Scoring Children

Abstract

Previous research has shown that contingent candy reward can increase the measured IQ of low-IQ children, but has little effect on the performance of high-IQ children. Implicit in these findings is the suggestion that children of high ability benefit more from the intrinsic reinforcement available in taking a test than do low-ability children, the latter responding more to extrinsic tangible reward. The present study examined this proposition by randomly assigning 33 high performers and 33 low performers to receive (a) intrinsic feedback alone, (b) noncontingent candy reward, or (c) contingent candy reinforcement while taking a derived picture vocabulary test which had approximately equal difficulty of items in each half. An evaluation of the intratest performance of each group, with a mixed design analysis of variance, revealed that only the low performers receiving contingent extrinsic reinforcement improved significantly within the test session. High-performing children appeared to do as well or better under intrinsic feedback alone as under conditions of external tangible reward.