Effects of monetary reward and punishment on information checking behaviour

Abstract

Two experiments were conducted to examine whether checking one's own work can be motivated by monetary reward and punishment. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: a flat-rate payment for completing the task (Control); payment increased for error-free performance (Reward); payment decreased for error performance (Punishment). Experiment 1 (N = 90) was conducted with liberal arts students, using a general data-entry task. Experiment 2 (N = 90) replicated Experiment 1 with clinical students and a safety-critical 'cover story' for the task. In both studies, Reward and Punishment resulted in significantly fewer errors, more frequent and longer checking, than Control. No such differences were obtained between the Reward and Punishment conditions. It is concluded that error consequences in terms of monetary reward and punishment can result in more accurate task performance and more rigorous checking behaviour than errors without consequences. However, whether punishment is more effective than reward, or vice versa, remains inconclusive.

Effects of monetary reward and punishment on information checking behaviour: An eye-tracking study

“…Three hypotheses were tested in the current experiment: first, based on the effect of information access cost (Gray & Fu, 2004), we predicted an overall increase in the number of checks and a decrease in check duration when compared to Li et al (2016). Because when checking is easier (as in the current experiment), participants might check more often but each check is shorter in duration due to the ease of information access.…”

“…Checking behaviour was quantified in terms of eye fixations and fixation duration. In Li et al (2016), the experimental task involved the, previously mentioned, grey-box paradigm and checking was carried out by the participants through mouse movement. Therefore, checking, as performed in the current task paradigm, was less effortful when compared to Li et al (2016).…”

“…In order to further investigate the effects of reward and punishment on checking behaviour in terms of eye-movement data, we employed an eye tracker and an experimental task similar to that used in Li et al (2016) . The experimental task was modified so that there were no grey boxes on the left panel of the computer screen; this way, participants could check the to-be-transcribed information by eye gazes only rather than mouse movement as in Li et al.…”

“…This factor had three levels: Control, Reward and Punishment. As in Li et al (2016), the Control condition had no error consequence, i.e. participants were informed that they would get HK$100 (~US$13) for completing the task and there was no mention of any consequences associated with errors committed.…”

“…However, when it had an actual cost on participants' performances, punishment resulted in fewer errors in procedural task performance (Brumby, Cox, Back, & Gould, 2013). Li et al (2016) carried out a study on data-entry, focusing on how to motivate checking behaviour by imposing error consequences in terms of monetary reward and punishment. They designed a computer-based data-entry task in which there were two panels, each with eight information fields, on the computer screen.…”