Benjamin Griffiths
Opposing effects of reward and punishment on human vigor
Griffiths, Benjamin; Beierholm, Ulrik
Abstract
The vigor with which humans and animals engage in a task is often a determinant of the likelihood of the task’s success. An influential theoretical model suggests that the speed and rate at which responses are made should depend on the availability of rewards and punishments. While vigor facilitates the gathering of rewards in a bountiful environment, there is an incentive to slow down when punishments are forthcoming so as to decrease the rate of punishments, in conflict with the urge to perform fast to escape punishment. Previous experiments confirmed the former, leaving the latter unanswered. We tested the influence of punishment in an experiment involving economic incentives and contrasted this with reward related behavior on the same task. We found that behavior corresponded with the theoretical model; while instantaneous threat of punishment caused subjects to increase the vigor of their response, subjects’ response times would slow as the overall rate of punishment increased. We quantitatively show that this is in direct contrast to increases in vigor in the face of increased overall reward rates. These results highlight the opposed effects of rewards and punishments and provide further evidence for their roles in the variety of types of human decisions.
Citation
Griffiths, B., & Beierholm, U. (2017). Opposing effects of reward and punishment on human vigor. Scientific Reports, 7, Article 42287. https://doi.org/10.1038/srep42287
Journal Article Type | Article |
---|---|
Acceptance Date | Jan 9, 2017 |
Online Publication Date | Feb 13, 2017 |
Publication Date | Feb 13, 2017 |
Deposit Date | Jan 18, 2017 |
Publicly Available Date | Feb 14, 2017 |
Journal | Scientific Reports |
Electronic ISSN | 2045-2322 |
Publisher | Nature Research |
Peer Reviewed | Peer Reviewed |
Volume | 7 |
Article Number | 42287 |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1038/srep42287 |
Public URL | https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1366321 |
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
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