The National Coaching Foundation (1996) presented an apocryphal tale which has a long history in

psychology. This story portrays the principle that the withdrawal of rewards can change people’s motivation
in surprising ways.

An old man was plagued by teenagers playing football and making noise on the street outside his
house. No matter what he said to them, they ignored him. In fact, the more he pleaded with them to stop, the
more they persisted and the more obnoxiously they behaved. He was at his wits’ end. Then one day,
following a chat with a psychologist friend, he decided to try a new approach to the problem. Briefly, instead
of scolding the boys, he decided to give them a reward (two euros each) for playing noisily outside his
house, Of course, the boys were delighted with this decision. Imagine getting paid for doing something
which they really enjoyed—making the old man’s life miserable! When the boys returned the following
evening, they received the same reward again—another two euros each This practice pulled the boys but
they continued to wreak havoc on the old man. After a week, however, the man told them that he could not
afford to pay each of them the two euros that they had been given previously. In fact, all he could manage
was fifty cents each. This disappointed the boys a little but they continued to torment the man. Another week
elapsed and this time, the old man reduced the reward to twenty cents each. Again, this was very frustrating
to the boys who had grown used to receiving a larger reward. Eventually, the old man reduced the reward
to two cents each—at which time, the leader of the boys grew very angry. Shouting at the old man, he said,
“We’ve had enough of your meanness. If you think that we’re going to play football for your entertainment
outside your house for two cents, then you’ve got another think coming! We’re off!” Clearly, the moral of
this tale is that when the old man removed extrinsic motivation for the football, the boys lost interest in doing
what they had done previously for nothing.

CRITICAL THINKING QUESTIONS

Do you think that this story has any relevance for understanding why highly paid sports performers
sometimes lose their motivation? From your knowledge of other areas of psychology (e.g., behavior
modification), can you think of any other explanation of the boys’ loss of motivation? Can cognitive
evaluation theory (see text for description) offer any insights into what happened in this story?