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Well, it's not my hypothesis at all :) The link I posted is a review of the literature on the topic. I think the real problem with "participation trophies" is

by divan 3y ago

Well, it's not my hypothesis at all :) The link I posted is a review of the literature on the topic. I think the real problem with "participation trophies" is that it has very low competence signal. Not negative. But very low for everybody, regardless of performance. The winner's prize, at the same time, gives an extremely positive competence signal to the winner (at the expense of the negative signal to everybody else). Again, if you put yourself into the shoes of a designer of an incentive structure, then you are facing a trade-off here. Do you want more people to keep doing this activity, or do you want to single out top performers? In sports, I believe it's more of a cultural element. Scandinavian countries, for example, are notorious for their culture of not expressing their personal success (Janteloven). That fits well with the Nordic sports model. More individualistic countries or post-soviet countries with "win at all costs" sports ideology tend to favor incentive structures optimized for early top performers.

somenameforme 3y ago
With due respect you're begging the question here. The hypothesis you linked to is just that - a hypothesis. And it simply fails when looking at the past where there was both high sports participation, no such thing as participation trophies (again generally speaking - I'm sure some event some where had them, but they were not even remotely normalized), and winners were recognized. It also fails to explain why athletes often come from backgrounds of struggle. Or why athletes when faced with stronger competition (such as moving from JV to varsity, high school to college, etc.) don't just suddenly give up, and so forth, and so on. Ultimately I strongly disagree that participation trophies incentivize participation, as well as that merit trophies discourage it. It is plainly illogical. I'm certain I could dig through the study and find a way that their methodology could easily lead to false conclusions, but I'm not terribly interesting in doing so, and in any case such a thing would be highly unlikely to be persuasive anyhow - because we aren't arguing that study, but our own personal biases. And, like with just about everything, there's extensive evidence for whatever side you want to argue.
- divan 3y ago
  I don't see any contradiction here. Merit trophies do increase motivation, but only for small subset of people, and decrease for the rest. It's also important to note that we're talking about statistical nature of things here. Competition sends negative competence signal to majority of participants, but it's not the only competence signal – parents, coaching and even culture in club also play a role. Same goes for other key needs in SDT – autonomy being most important. Here is a study of swimmers and their drop-out after 10 and 22 months after assessing their coaching styles (autonomous vs controlled). [1] Competition prizes are also form of extrinsic motivation ("external regulation" to be specific). Extrinsic motivation can be (and often is) very powerful. It just don't last. [1] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/225153306_Associations_Among_Perceived_Autonomy_Support_Forms_of_Self-Regulation_and_Persistence_A_Prospective_Study https://www.researchgate.net/publication/225153306_Associati...
  - somenameforme 3y ago
    I would rather we speak humanly, rather than in the intentional obfuscation of language that's ubiquitous in social science to make simple concepts, which are often little more than a researcher's personal biases wrapped in obfuscation, sound 'sciency.' Einstein's paper on special relativity is a zillion times more readable than that 'thing' you linked to which is nothing more than a little survey! Back to speaking like humans, the thing you are not responding to is expectations vs reality. Participation trophies are near ubiquitous in places like the US, and there's an ongoing attack on merit across a wide array of domains - let alone efforts to recognize and reward it. Were this having the effects you claim, would you not expect to see absolutely skyrocketing sports participation? In reality it's down, in many areas sharply so.
    - divan 3y ago
      That's interesting. For me that paper is more than readable – probably because I know all the terms, as I studied SDT extensively. But I can understand how terms like "introjected" can sound alien. Before replying to expectations vs reality, we need to establish and agree on facts. Are you saying that in US, across all states and all sports, competition prizes has been replaced by participation trophies and you see a negative trends in sports participation?

by divan 3y ago

somenameforme 3y ago

With due respect you're begging the question here. The hypothesis you linked to is just that - a hypothesis. And it simply fails when looking at the past where there was both high sports participation, no such thing as participation trophies (again generally speaking - I'm sure some event some where had them, but they were not even remotely normalized), and winners were recognized. It also fails to explain why athletes often come from backgrounds of struggle. Or why athletes when faced with stronger competition (such as moving from JV to varsity, high school to college, etc.) don't just suddenly give up, and so forth, and so on. Ultimately I strongly disagree that participation trophies incentivize participation, as well as that merit trophies discourage it. It is plainly illogical. I'm certain I could dig through the study and find a way that their methodology could easily lead to false conclusions, but I'm not terribly interesting in doing so, and in any case such a thing would be highly unlikely to be persuasive anyhow - because we aren't arguing that study, but our own personal biases. And, like with just about everything, there's extensive evidence for whatever side you want to argue.

divan 3y ago
I don't see any contradiction here. Merit trophies do increase motivation, but only for small subset of people, and decrease for the rest. It's also important to note that we're talking about statistical nature of things here. Competition sends negative competence signal to majority of participants, but it's not the only competence signal – parents, coaching and even culture in club also play a role. Same goes for other key needs in SDT – autonomy being most important. Here is a study of swimmers and their drop-out after 10 and 22 months after assessing their coaching styles (autonomous vs controlled). [1] Competition prizes are also form of extrinsic motivation ("external regulation" to be specific). Extrinsic motivation can be (and often is) very powerful. It just don't last. [1] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/225153306_Associations_Among_Perceived_Autonomy_Support_Forms_of_Self-Regulation_and_Persistence_A_Prospective_Study https://www.researchgate.net/publication/225153306_Associati...
- somenameforme 3y ago
  I would rather we speak humanly, rather than in the intentional obfuscation of language that's ubiquitous in social science to make simple concepts, which are often little more than a researcher's personal biases wrapped in obfuscation, sound 'sciency.' Einstein's paper on special relativity is a zillion times more readable than that 'thing' you linked to which is nothing more than a little survey! Back to speaking like humans, the thing you are not responding to is expectations vs reality. Participation trophies are near ubiquitous in places like the US, and there's an ongoing attack on merit across a wide array of domains - let alone efforts to recognize and reward it. Were this having the effects you claim, would you not expect to see absolutely skyrocketing sports participation? In reality it's down, in many areas sharply so.
  - divan 3y ago
    That's interesting. For me that paper is more than readable – probably because I know all the terms, as I studied SDT extensively. But I can understand how terms like "introjected" can sound alien. Before replying to expectations vs reality, we need to establish and agree on facts. Are you saying that in US, across all states and all sports, competition prizes has been replaced by participation trophies and you see a negative trends in sports participation?