Negative effects of large bonuses on creative work and problem solving Motivation Factors – High Performance Bonus for Creative Work?. “We found that as long as the task involved only mechanical skill, bonuses worked as would be expected: the higher the pay, the better the performance. But when we included a task that required even rudimentary cognitive skill, …the offer of a higher bonus led to poorer performance.”
– Dan Ariely . FED sponsored, MIT conducted study on performance-based incentives, factors in study included:
Study comprising 87 participants,in 3 incentive groups:  Low   Med   High
Six Games, 3 Types:
Creative/Problem Solving Task
Concentration-based Tasks
Skill-based Tasks to Solve
Performance Targets Set
Results: participants placed in High Bonus group were negatively impacted by -80% in successful completion of Creative Tasks. Click slide to see in context of slide deck
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