People often receive rewards for good performance, but what happens when rewards do not reflect ability? Two behavioral studies suggest that rewards can impact how we evaluate our own ability, above and beyond the impact of actual performance.
www.nature.com/articles/s44...
Receiving rewards feels good. Beyond influencing motivation, our work shows that rewards can have a direct impact on self-beliefs.
Those who received more rewards later estimated their own accuracy to be higher. Rewards also boosted turn-by-turn expectations of success: When a correct answer came with a reward, participants updated their performance expectations for the next round more.
Participants played a perceptual game where a staircase procedure held their accuracy constant. For correct answers, a slot machine determined whether they received a reward, with either high or low probability. They received both accuracy and reward feedback on each round.
