Alfie Kohn’s Work Examined -Comments, Critiques, Links, Emails (Punished By Rewards)

Per some requests, I’m pulling together some material related to the credibility and accuracy of some of Alfie Kohn’s work, and in particular his work on the effects of punishment and rewards. Some I wrote, some others.

Some comments on Alfie Kohn, Punished By Rewards

Learning Org 1 by me

Jonathon Krispin on Learning Org.

Here’s a quote from Brock Vodden: (read the whole article in which he is quoted on motivation here.)

Brock Vodden of Vodden Consulting offers the following comments on Alfie Kohn’s work: “I spent some time looking at abstracts of research on this issue and collected a number of studies that either contradict or qualify the results that Kohn claims. And, studies that support his conclusions. There are some serious problems with Kohn’s work. As someone wrote in an article in a ed. journal (paraphrased): “Kohn is 95% right, but oh, that 5%” (Performance Management Listserve, March 2, 1999).

Punished by misunderstanding: A critical evaluation of Kohn’s punished by rewards and its implications for behavioral interventions with children

Reviewed by David Reitman

Sticking up for rewards. (response to an article by Artie Kohn) You have to pay to view this sadly, but it’s a journal article. Supposedly you can get a free trial.

Alfie Kohn: Dangerous Jackass (homework and practice)

Alfie Kohn Is Bad for You and Dangerous For Your Children (Enc. Britannica)

That’s a starting point. Unfortunately, I can’t find some of my posts made about 12 years ago when I looked at some of the citations he used to support Punished by Rewards. I found that sometimes the studies showed the opposite of what he stated. Sometimes, they were completely irrelevant, and in all the cases I looked at, the interpretations were very open or the research was of low quality. I’m going to see if I can find more.

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