Extrinsic Rewards, Intrinsic Motivation and Voting

Abstract

Economists and psychologists often disagree about the impact of rewards on prosocial behavior. Economists generally believe incentives promote effort and performance, while many psychologists warn they depress intrinsic motivation and impair performance. I conduct the first randomized field experiments of which I am aware to investigate the impact of extrinsic (monetary) rewards on voting in elections. In a pilot study, voters in Gilroy, California, were randomly assigned to receive a postcard mailing with either a simple reminder to vote or an offer to receive a financial reward (of varying levels) for participating in the November 2007 election. A large-scale replication study was conducted in Lancaster, California, in April 2010. The results of the experiments reveal nominal incentives failed to effectively raise turnout in elections, but nontrivial incentives elevated electoral participation. These findings yield insights relevant to disciplinary debates in economics and psychology as well as in political science.