Cash or Credit? Compensation in Psychology Studies: Motivation Matters

Abstract

It is common practice for psychology researchers to recruit their sample of participants from the undergraduate student population. Participants are typically compensated with partial course credit or a monetary payment. The current study reveals that the motivation to participate in a study (cash versus course credit) can relate to performance on a behavioral task of rewarded memory. In Experiment 1, undergraduate participants were recruited and compensated for their time with either partial course credit or cash. Potential performance-based cash rewards were earned during a rewarded memory task, where correct recognition of half the stimuli was worth a high reward and the other half a low reward. Memory for high reward items was better than low reward items, but only for the cash group. The credit group did not modulate their performance based on the value of the stimuli. In Experiment 2, undergraduates were compensated with partial course credit for their time and given the opportunity to earn a bonus credit for performance on a memory test. The findings were in line with the results from the credit group of Experiment 1, suggesting that the modulation of performance in the cash group of Experiment 1 cannot be accounted for by congruency between motivation to participate and reward for task performance. Of methodological importance, the findings indicate that recruiting and compensating participants with cash versus course credit may influence the results on a rewarded memory task. This factor should be taken into consideration in studies of reward motivation.

Two retrievals from a single cue: A bottleneck persists across episodic and semantic memory

“…To avoid an increase in performance motivation, subjects were only able to receive either a predetermined amount of course credit or monetary compensation. This decision was based on research findings which concluded that performance-based compensations are suspected to cause an increase in performance motivation (Bowen & Kensinger, 2017; Brase, 2009). No such significant influence on performance motivation was found for flat-fee monetary compensation and course credit (Brase, 2009).…”

Pengaruh Kompensasi Dan Motivasi Kerja Terhadap Kinerja Karyawan

“…(Landry, Gagné, Forest, Guerrero, Séguin & Papachristopoulos, 2017) Apabila upah dan kesejahteraan karyawan diabaikan oleh perusahaan maka akan menimbulkan berbagai masalah bagi perusahaan, membuat para karyawan malas bekerja, melakukan pemogokan-pemogokan, atau mungkin melakukan usaha-usaha untuk pindah ke perusahaan lain yang lebih menjamin kesejahteraan mereka. (Bowen & Kensinger, 2017) Tetapi sebaliknya, apabila perusahaan memberikan upah dan kesejahteraan yang sesuai dengan kinerja karyawan, maka hal ini merupakan salah satu factor dapat memotivasi mereka untuk dapat meningkatkan produktifitas kerja karyawan.…”

“…Hasil penelitian tersebut dinyatakan sesuai setelah dibandingkan dengan pendapat Bowen & Kensinger (2017) yang mengemukakan bahawa salah satu cara manajemen untuk meningkatkan prestasi kerja, memoyivasi dan meningkatkan kepuasan dan kinerja karyawan adalah melalui kompensasi.…”

Interindividual differences in incentive sensitivity moderate motivational effects of competition and cooperation on motor performance

“…In contrast, behaviors associated with unpleasant consequences will be engaged in less frequently. This notion has been a cornerstone of theorizing on the mechanisms of motor learning specifically [ 15 , p. 113] and is in general apparent in the common practice of using incentives to guide behavior or improve performance (e.g., verbal encouragement to boost student engagement, [ 16 ]; monetary incentives to increase performance of study participants, [ 17 – 19 ]). In addition, the role of incentives in behavioral regulation has more recently been bolstered by linking variations in incentive value to systematic changes in neural correlates, [e.g., 20 – 22 ], especially in the context of motor performance [ 23 , p. 219].…”