The price of a good performance
March 18, 2011With Fernando Torres appearing in his 6th Chelsea game without a goal it makes you wonder what return Chelsea were expecting after splashing out £50 million on the Liverpool striker in January with club executives also wondering the same after his transfer to the London club.
Does expensive valuations, high profile transfers and huge amounts of financial reward affect subsequent performance? We saw the same pattern emerging when Wayne Rooney secured his new wage packet of £250,000 a week, with poor form dominating much of his current season. So what’s the reason behind this?
A number of psychological studies have shown the effect of extrinsic rewards on performance and motivation. Extrinsic rewards are rewards that are tangible in some way; this would include prize funds, wages, goal bonuses and trophies. Intrinsic rewards however, refer to intangible feelings such as satisfaction, pride and enjoyment; something individuals experience when they achieve something of note. The problem that develops however is that as extrinsic rewards increase the amount of intrinsic feelings experienced reduce. This leads to a decrease in motivation, satisfaction and performance.
A story I once heard is about an elderly gentleman who suffered an inconvenience during one summer. A group of young school children had taken to playing a game whilst kicking a football against his garage. The sound of the football hitting the metal door produced a terrible noise and often disturbed the man from his afternoon nap. He came up with an idea which initially sounds quite contrary; he decided that we would actually reward the kids from playing football against his garage. He went and spoke to the kids he told them he would give them twenty pence each every time they came to play. Indeed the children were surprised, but they took the money and continued to play against the garage every other day. After around three weeks, the man spoke to the children again; he told them he would like to reward them for playing and said he would now give them fifty pence to play ball against his garage. Another three weeks passed and once again the elderly man went outside to speak to the children. However, this time he told them that he was unable to carry on giving them money to them as he couldn’t afford to. The children told him that they weren’t going to bother playing against his garage anymore and ran off. They never returned and the old man was able to nap in the afternoon in peace.
This story describes how the expectation of extrinsic rewards often overrides the satisfaction of intrinsic. Whether this can explain the poor form of the premiership’s most valuable assets is too hard to tell, but it certainly does make you wonder about the enjoyment and motivation of these players when playing when receiving such large financial rewards.
