The Effects of Expected Evaluation and Reward on Motivation and Creativity in Turkish Children. Masters Thesis. Presented to

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1 The Effects of Expected Evaluation and Reward on Motivation and Creativity in Turkish Children Masters Thesis Presented to The Faculty of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Brandeis University Department of Psychology Dr. Malcolm Watson Advisor In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for Master s Degree by Jennifer A. Eastman August, 2009

2 Copyright by Jennifer A. Eastman 2009 i

3 Acknowledgements First, let me say that I was truly fortunate in my time here at Brandeis to have Dr. Mick Watson as my advisor. He has been a wonderful mentor who provided more support and feedback than I could have hoped for, and it has been my pleasure to work with him and learn from him and for that I offer my sincerest gratitude. To Dr. Beth Hennessey, his lovely wife, I would also like to express my thanks. She has been an invaluable resource and without the foundation, she created in this area of research I could not have hoped to do my own. Beril Yaffe was instrumental in carrying out the logistic for this research in both Turkey and the U.S., and I cannot express how much I value her opinion and assistance as well as the assistance of her wonderful family in Turkey. Dr. Rina Gabay was another important member of this team and without her, I can truly say that we could not have hoped to complete this research. Additionally, thanks goes to Dr. Ellen Wright for her insightful help as my second reader and her availability for a friendly chat, which always appreciated. Thanks also goes to my classmates Sara Bersche Golas and Natalie Poullard for their continued patience with a construction paper and glue stick littered office. Dr. Michael Sheehan was more than helpful with any statistical issues that I ran into and his assistance is most appreciated. Additionally, the WWARG research lab was extremely supportive and I am thankful for all of the insightful questions and theories that they offered I could not have asked for a better opportunity or experience that the one that was offered to me at Brandeis University. The staff and faculty here have been beyond wonderful and I appreciate their service with all of my heart. ii

4 Everyday in my interactions with all of the faculty and staff here I was reminded of why I chose Brandeis University. To my wonderful family, thank you for your unconditional support and patience with my ramblings about school and research. I have missed you and I look forward to returning close to home once more. Finally to Casey, I have been fortunate my love, to move across the country and have you by my side. Thank you for your encouragement and constant support throughout our time here in Boston. You have asked the hard questions and pushed me to excel, and I cannot express how much your effort and devotion have meant to me. iii

5 Abstract The Effects of Expected Evaluation and Reward on Motivation and Creativity in Turkish Children A Thesis Presented to the Department of Psychology Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Brandeis University Waltham, Massachusetts By Jennifer A. Eastman Research with U.S. samples has consistently found that intrinsic motivation is conducive to producing creative work, while extrinsic motivation is detrimental to producing creative work. The goal of this research was to determine if this remained true in another more collectivist culture. This was a mixed design study in which ninety-four, Turkish elementary-school students participated in two separate creativity tasks within one of four, randomly assigned conditions: intrinsic motivation, expected evaluation, expected individual reward, and expected group reward. Two- way ANOVA was used to search for group difference as well as sex difference in each of the creativity tasks. In the task that was more closely associated with play (the collage making), the intrinsic motivation and expected evaluation conditions produced the highest levels of creativity and the condition difference was driven by the female participants while male participant scores remained relatively flat across all conditions. In the task iv

6 that was more closely associated with work (storytelling), the expected evaluation and expected group reward conditions produced the highest levels of creativity, while both males and females drove the difference between groups with significantly higher scores among females. These results show clear dissimilarity between responses of Turkish and U.S. populations and imply that much of what has previously been considered universal in the study of motivation, behavior, and creativity, may be culture-specific. v

7 Table of Contents CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION...1 Hypothesis...6 CHAPTER 2: METHOD... 8 Participants...8 Procedure...10 Tests and Measures...13 Statistical Analysis...15 Materials...16 Instruction and Translation...17 Attrition and Missing Data CHAPTER 3: RESULTS Preliminary Analysis Hypothesis 1: Interjudge-Reliability Hypothesis 2: Effects of Extrinsic Motivation on Creativity...21 Judge Assessments...21 vi

8 Child Reports...24 Hypothesis 3: Gender Difference...26 CHAPTER 4: DISCUSSION CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION...39 REFERENCES APPENDIX...42 vii

9 List of Tables Table 1: Means and Standard Deviations All Dependent Variables...83 Table 2: Collage Correlation Matrix...84 Table 3: Storytelling Correlation Matrix...85 Table 4: Interjudge-Reliability- Cronbach s Alpha...86 Table 5: 2-way ANOVA Results...87 Table 6: Collage 2-Way ANOVA Effect Results...88 Table 7: Storytelling 2-Way ANOVA Effect Results...89 Table 8: Collage ANOVA Post-Hoc Test Results of All Significant Comparisons...90 Table 9: Storytelling ANOVA Post-Hoc Test Results of All Significant Comparisons...91 Table 10: Chi Squared Significance Results...92 Table 11: Paired Sample t-test Results...93 viii

10 List of Figures Figure 1: χ 2 Collage Creativity Score Breakdown by Group...94 Figure 2: χ 2 Storytelling Creativity Score Breakdown by Group...95 Figure 3: χ 2 Child Reported Work Play by Activity...96 Figure 4: χ 2 Child Reported Work/Play Storytelling by Group...97 Figure 5: χ 2 Child Reported Work/Play Collage Activity by Group...98 Figure 6: ANOVA-Collage Creativity Means by Group & Gender...99 Figure 7: ANOVA-Collage Technical Goodness Means by Group & Gender Figure 8: ANOVA-Collage Liking Means by Group & Gender Figure 9: ANOVA-Storytelling Creativity Means by Group & Gender Figure 10: ANOVA-Storytelling Technical Goodness Means by Group & Gender Figure 11: ANOVA-Storytelling Liking Means by Group & Gender ix

11 The Effects of Expected Evaluation and Reward on Motivation and Creativity in Turkish Children The ability to think and act creatively is often elusive. More than a mere state of mind, it is dependent on the production of ideas or products that are novel and of value. Simply instructing a child in what to produce is not likely to inspire creative results. What techniques are effective in motivating children to be creative? Traditionally, positive reinforcement has been cited as the epicenter of behavioral modification, and classic psychological theory states that rewarding desired behavior should produce an increase in that behavior (see Skinner, 1938). One might propose that rewarding children for producing a creative product, whether it is a story, a piece of art, or a school assignment, would be highly effective. Yet, research has shown that such extrinsic motivational factors negatively influence creativity (Hennessey, 2003). Much of the evidence regarding extrinsic motivation and creativity arose from the assessment of the overjustification hypothesis (Berlyne, 1960; De Charms, 1968; Deci, 1971; Hebb, 1955; Kelly, 1967, 1973). The overjustification hypothesis states that, under certain conditions, extrinsic constraints may lead to loss of intrinsic motivation, such as when the person perceives that the abundant extrinsic motivators are accounting for his or her behavior (Lepper, Greene, & Nisbett, 1973). Intrinsic motivation is defined as the motivation to do something for its own sake, for the pleasure and enjoyment of doing the task itself; while 1

12 extrinsic motivation is defined as the motivation to do something for an external goal (Hennessey, 2003). Suggestions of a connection between the interactions of extrinsic and intrinsic motivation and the resulting creative quality of a product first began to surface in the mid 1970s. Lepper, Greene, and Nisbett (1973) found that preschoolers, who initially displayed high levels of motivation to draw pictures with magic markers, also experienced a severe loss of interest and enjoyment when offered a Good Player Award for that same activity. These findings were consistent with past research on the overjustification effect (Deci, 1971). However, of greater interest to many researchers was Lepper et al. s (1973) observation that the overall quality of the drawings created by the rewardmotivated group was less than that of the groups that expected no reward for their artistic renderings. Many researchers since have connected the element of quality to the overall creative merit of a product (e.g., Amabile, 1982; Hennessey, 2003). The deleterious effects of extrinsic motivation on creativity have since been well documented by Hennessey and Amabile (Amabile, 1982, 1983, 1999; Hennessey & Amabile, 1999; Hennessey, 2003). Both have been instrumental in establishing evaluation and reward as elements of extrinsic motivation that negatively affect creativity (Amabile, 1982, 1983, 1999; Hennessey & Amabile, 1999; Hennessey, 2003). The research conducted by Amabile and Hennessey often used open tests for creativity in children involving collage-making and storytelling as the typical activities. The standard conditions for the performed activity were expected evaluation, expected reward, and a 2

13 purely intrinsically motivated group (i.e., in which no extrinsic motivators were given). Judges rated the resulting products (such as the children s collages or stories) on a set scale, and those ratings were analyzed for internal consistency as well as group differences. Throughout the body of their research, they came to the same conclusion: both reward and evaluation present deleterious effects on creativity. Despite the long-standing acceptance of overjustification theory in psychological literature and the large quantity of work pertaining to the deleterious effects of extrinsic motivation on creativity, questions remain as to the universal applicability of these theories. For example, gender has been found in some cases to be a significant factor in the influence of motivation on creativity. Baer (1997, 1998) found that creativity was significantly influenced by factors related to gender as well as environment. He tested the conditions of anticipated evaluation, anticipated reward, and non-graded formative feedback on middle school children. Using a system of numeric scales and interjudge-reliability similar to that of Amabile and Hennessey, his research showed that for middle school children, females experienced significant decreases in creativity levels under conditions of expected evaluation and expected reward, whereas male students experienced no significant increase or decrease in their creativity levels. Additionally, Baer found that the use of non-graded evaluation, which posed no risk of failure, ameliorated the negative effects of expected evaluation and reduced the gender gap previously influenced by expected evaluation. If gender potentially moderates the influence that motivation has on creativity, might other 3

14 factors do the same? Could differences in culture possibly result in different responses to intrinsic and extrinsic motivation? Currently, published research on creativity and motivation consists primarily of studies that were conducted in the United States and Western Europe. Indeed, most psychological research up until recently has been completed using samples from North America (Loner, 1989). Some basic psychological conditions and outcomes, including family influences, child rearing, and education, differ among cultures (e.g., Markus & Kitayama, 1991); and it is important to determine if the accepted psychological norms within one culture (i.e., in the present case, the effects of extrinsic and intrinsic motivation on creativity) are also present in different cultures. Oral, Kaufman, & Agars (2007) conducted groundbreaking research among college students in Turkey on creativity and motivation to examine how closely Turkish results would mirror those of the U.S. To measure motivation, participants were administered the Work Preference Inventory, College Student Version (Amabile, Hill, Hennessey, & Tighe, 1994). The results of this study found that, among Turkish students, intrinsic motivation was highly correlated with creativity, and gender and motivation interacted (Oral et al., 2007). They concluded that Turkish populations behaved in the same manner that U.S. and other European populations did in terms of motivational factors. While this is promising research, it does not fully address some of the finer points of extrinsic motivation and creativity, including the differences that may exist between the use of extrinsic rewards as motivators relative to the use of evaluation as a motivator. 4

15 Additionally, the more traditional, collectivist nature of Turkish culture could provide more unique avenues of motivation research that have not been pursued in the United States. With the possibility of direct comparison in mind, we sought to replicate in a sample of Turkish students the creativity research that has been completed by Amabile and Hennessey (Amabile, Hennessey, & Grossman, 1986; Amabile 1982, 1999; Hennessey, 2003) in European American student samples. This research involved direct creation of products rather than questionnaire research like that of Oral et al. (2007). In light of the results from Amabile, Hennessey, and Baer, we proposed three main questions to address with this research. First, could a consensus be reached among Turkish judges evaluating the products of Turkish children in the apparently subjective notion of what creativity is, and would the scales and methods used in previous U.S. studies be effective in this culture? Second, would Turkish elementary school students exhibit the same negative relation between the presence of extrinsic motivation and resulting levels of creativity that U.S. elementary-school student samples had shown, and if not what condition would be conducive to producing creativity? Third, would gender influence the creativity scores in a manner that was similar to the U.S. results presented by Baer (1997, 1998)? Hypotheses There were three main hypotheses in our study. First, we hypothesized that a high level of interjudge-consensus regarding creativity could be reached 5

16 among Turkish judges evaluating the products of Turkish children, just as it was among the U.S. judges before them. Second, we hypothesized that children in the more collectivist culture of Turkey would not experience the same gap in creativity caused by extrinsic motivation that is experienced by U.S. populations and that if a subject s response to differing motivational forces was influenced by culture, then in a collectivist culture children who were in an expected group reward condition would show higher levels of creativity than those in the other conditions. We believed that some types of extrinsic motivation, in fact, might enhance creativity. Theories of over justification and motivation and creativity may not be universal. Some researchers have noted that the Turkish educational system does not encourage creativity in early education, but instead values conformity to the group (Günçer, Barbaros, Oral, & Günseli, 1993). We felt that this cultural emphasis on the group would encourage creativity in a group motivated condition. This hypothesis assumes that the negative response to extrinsic motivation found in U.S. students is culturally conditioned. Amabile and Hennessey (see Amabile et al., 1986; Hennessey, 2003) as previously mentioned, included groups with a focus on expected evaluation, expected reward, and intrinsic motivation. All of the conditions studied involved a focus on the individual. To our knowledge, no research has been conducted that involved group extrinsic motivation in collectivist cultures. Third, we hypothesized that females would drive the difference found between conditions (i.e. higher overall performance in expected group reward). 6

17 This hypothesis was based on the conclusion that if females play a role in driving the success of the intrinsic motivation condition in the U.S. studies (Baer, 1997, 1998), they may drive the success of the expected group evaluation condition in this Turkish study. Baer (1997, 1998) found that females were negatively affected by both expected reward and expected evaluation conditions while males showed no significant difference across conditions. He is at this time the only researcher who has found this gender disparity in the United States, Hennessey and Amabile found no such gender influence. The question of gender difference influencing the creativity scores across conditions for our third hypothesis was a complicated consideration. Amabile and Hennessey did not find gender differences in their research (see Amabile et al., 1986; Hennessey, 2003); yet, recent research performed by Oral et al. (2007) found that Turkish college students experienced the same gender gap noted by Baer (1997, 1998), that is, that females were negatively impacted by both expected evaluation and expected reward conditions while males showed no significant difference in their creativity performance. While both Baer (1997, 1998) and Oral (2007) conducted their research on post-pubescent samples unlike our own, younger sample, Günçer et al. (1993) states that gender roles in Turkish culture are stricter and more demanding from a very young age, which indicates that we might see gender difference at the age of our subjects. Yet, Shi, Xu, Zhou, and Zha (1999), in a cross-cultural study of German and Chinese children closer in age to our own sample, found no significant gender differences in creative thinking in either the European or Chinese group. This questionnaire-based 7

18 research is arguably an accurate representation of results from a collectivist culture with strict gender roles (similar to what we might find in Turkey) juxtaposed to a more individualistic culture (similar to what we might see in a study in the United States). The fact remains that none of the previous research is an exact fit to our own research, and cross-cultural investigation in this area is sparse, but we felt that hypothesis 3 was a reasonable expectation given previous results from other research. 8

19 Method Participants Ninety-four, fourth grade students (46 boys, 47 girls, and 1 participant who did not provide gender data) from a private school in Izmir, Turkey were recruited as participants this study. The private school system in Turkey was chosen based on the advice of Turkish nationals because of the greater ease with which the students could be recruited, and because of what was characterized as the low quality of education found in the public school system in Izmir. Fourth grade students were chosen because Turkish children are not taught to read until the age of seven, and both reading and writing were requirements for successful completion of one of the creativity tasks. The children between the ages of 9 to 10 years old were from four different classes all in the same school. School administrators had constructed the four classes based on random assignment of students to each class. Each class was assigned randomly to one of the four experimental conditions. Twenty-three children were present in each of the intrinsic motivation and expected individual reward conditions; 24 children were present in each of the expected evaluation and expected group reward conditions. The children arrived at their usual classroom with the understanding that this was a typical day of class. The classroom teacher remained present throughout the session. Female experimenters speaking Turkish conducted all sessions. 9

20 The judges were essential participants in this experiment as well. The judging panel was composed of 10 Turkish nationals (eight females and two males) who all spoke Turkish as their first language. All were elementary school teachers in the same school who were familiar with the typical products created by elementary school students. None of the judges was present for the experimental sessions with the children; none was an instructor of one of the four classes used in the study; and all judges were blind as to the condition and gender of the student who created the product being evaluated. Judges were not informed of the study hypotheses. Procedure The entire study was conducted in the Turkish language. All instructions were given by two Turkish nationals who were involved in the research team. The first was a professor of developmental psychology in Izmir who was the primary contact in Turkey, The second was a Turkish national currently pursuing her undergraduate education in the United States who was intimately familiar with the design and purpose of the study. During the course of the experimental sessions, the students participated in two creativity tasks. It was essential to present tasks that were liberal enough to allow for individual creativity, yet simple enough that no unique skill was necessary to accomplish the task successfully. The activities were meant to establish the creativity level of the group based on each condition, not to identify specifically creative individuals. Activities such as drawing or poetry writing were not considered appropriate as student skill levels tend to vary significantly in 10

21 such tasks. Instead, in keeping with previous procedures and design used by Amabile and Hennessey (see Amabile et al., 1986; Hennessey, 2003), each class was given a task of creating a paper collage for which all the materials were supplied to them, and a story telling task in which the children were asked to write a story based on a series of pictures. The tasks were presented consistently to the students in the same order (collage followed by storytelling). This consistent order was used to ensure that the only difference among the groups was instructions of each condition. Storytelling, as the more challenging activity, seemed more appropriately placed as the second exercise to ensure full enjoyment of the collage activity. The tasks and supplies were identical for all four groups; however, the group instructions differed based on condition. The slight differences in instructions given to each group of children were used to construct each of the four conditions. The first class (intrinsic motivation condition) was given a collage and storytelling activity and simply asked to perform the activities for no particular reason (see Appendix for the specific instructions that were given in each condition). The second class (expected evaluation condition) was given the same two activities and informed that the resulting products (i.e., collage and written story) would be evaluated for quality. The third class (expected individual reward condition) was given the same two activities and instructed that they would each receive an individual reward if they completed the activities. The fourth class (expected group reward condition) was given the same two activities and informed that the group would collectively receive a reward if everyone 11

22 completed the activities. All instructions can be viewed in both English and Turkish translations in the Appendix. After completion of each task, the students were instructed to provide an assessment of the activity. They were asked to rate the activity they had just completed in on a scale of one (low) to seven (high) for their enjoyment, interest, and difficulty level of each task. Additionally, they were asked to classify the activity as either work or play. Finally, they were asked to self identify as a boy or girl. Judging took place in a separate location outside the classrooms. All the products were collected in a single room and put on display for assessment. Judges were selected and instructed based on the Consensual Assessment Test (CAT) guidelines that are detailed later under Tests & Measures. The participating judges were given minimal instructions. They were informed that for an object to be creative it must be relevant to the task (one cannot make a paper airplane of the paper when one is asked to make a collage and then call it creative). The judges were further instructed to rate each work in three specific areas (overall creativity, technical goodness, and the judges personal liking of the product) each on a scale that ranged from one for low creativity to seven for high creativity. Additionally, they were instructed that they must identify at least one piece in each activity (collage and storytelling) that scored a one and one piece that scored a seven. This constraint was given to ensure the utilization of the entire scoring range and forced comparison within the subject pool rather than comparison with every creative work each judge had ever seen. Beyond these 12

23 instructions, each judge gave every work a score based on his or her own subjective perceptions of creativity. Rating was performed independently, and judges were not allowed to confer with one another. Judges were blind to the conditions and gender of all of the students who created each product. Tests & Measures Products were assessed using a standardized method of rating creativity called the Consensual Assessment Test (CAT) (Amabile & Hennessey, 1999). CAT relies on the opinions of expert judges to determine the creative merit of a product. For CAT to function properly, a few guidelines must be followed. First, judges must qualify as experts in the field of the product being created. Experts are individuals who have relevant experience in the domain in which the work was produced (Amabile, 1996). In cases of cross-cultural research with children, this translates into judges who are both from the same culture as the children producing the work and who are familiar with the typical products of children within that age group. Native, Turkish elementary school teachers were selected as the expert judges. The second guideline for proper use of CAT requires that the creativity of a product be assessed relative to the other items in a particular study not against an absolute level of creativity found in the world. This is particularly important in cross-cultural studies, as notions of what constitutes creativity may vary between cultures. The third guideline requires that all assessment must be carried out without consultation; each judge is to base scoring on his or her own impressions, and judges must not confer. The fourth guideline requires that all assessment be conducted on the same numerical scale 13

24 end of the scale and one work representing the lowest end of the scale. Finally, creativity cannot exist in a vacuum separate from functionality. In order for an item to be considered creative, it must operate within the parameters of the given activity. A student cannot make pottery when asked to create a collage, and then proceed to assert that pottery is more creative because it is out of the box thinking. The student must demonstrate out of the box thinking that is within the scope of the assigned activity. While quantifying the presence of creativity can be extremely difficult, CAT was the ideal tool for this study because it allows an independent, standardized judging format that is flexible enough to be used appropriately in any environment. U.S. judges assessing the creative merit of the products of another culture may not be appropriate when one is attempting to conduct crosscultural research. Because CAT uses the judges culturally innate sense of what is creative as a rating system, it functions without cultural misunderstanding. Resulting scores can be assessed for interjudge-reliability. Statistical analysis of the internal consistency of the scores for each product can determine if there is interjudge-agreement and therefore a perceived quality of creativity that is in fact assessable. Creativity is often a subjective term, and while most individuals on some basic level have no trouble identifying something as creative, it is difficult to quantify what that necessarily means and establish that it can be reliably measured. If agreement exists among independently functioning judges, one can deduce that they can indeed judge the quality of a product and that ratings are reliable, even if the judges do not know explicitly what criteria they used. Past 14

25 research conducted by Hennessey and Amabile (1999) in which the CAT method was used to quantify creativity has resulted in internal consistency scores that ranged between.71 and.91, all above the.70 threshold for reliability. Statistical Analysis Various levels of statistical analysis were performed on the collected data. First, an analysis for internal consistency was conducted on the raw scores provided by each judge. Cronbach s alpha was used to measure interjudgereliability. Correlations and Chi square test for independence were conducted to examine the basic breakdown of the scoring among the groups, and to explore the work/play designations provided by the students. A series of paired sample t-tests were conducted to assess the differences between the collage and storytelling activities. Additionally a series of two-way ANOVAS were conducted in which gender and condition functioned as the fixed, independent factors while creativity scores, technical goodness scores, judge-liking scores, child-reported enjoyment, child-reported interest, and child-reported difficulty functioned as the dependent variables. These ANOVAs were conducted separately for the storytelling and collage-making activities resulting in 12 two-way ANOVAs. ANOVAs of the child reports were an essential element of examining how the children viewed these activities, which speaks to the effectiveness of each condition as well as each creativity task. ANOVAs of the technical goodness and liking, while not as vital to this research as the creativity scores, were important in examining how independent creativity is of other attributes and judges assessments. Ideally, we hoped to see these three dependent variables only 15