Citation

Groves MM, Sawyers JK, Moran JD. Early Child Res. Q. 1987; 2(4): 335-340.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1987, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/0885-2006(87)90019-6

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This study examined the effects of rewards on the ideational fluency of 75 preschool children. Assigned to a reward or nonreward condition, the children were administered two ideational fluency tasks, Unusual Uses and Pattern Meanings. Analyses revealed a significant main effect for reward on the ideational fluency components of originality, total fluency, and flexibility. In all cases the rewarded subjects scored lower than the nonrewarded group. These findings support the growing body of evidence that rewards are detrimental to creative functioning.