Science figures out that incentives matter

Remember my post on red ink? It turns out that some people are taking the time to figure out if all of these self-esteem boosts do any good.

Scientific American has the Story:

At the outset, we had every reason to hope that boosting self-esteem would be a potent tool for helping students. Logic suggests that having a good dollop of self-esteem would enhance striving and persistence in school, while making a student less likely to succumb to paralyzing feelings of incompetence or self-doubt. Early work showed positive correlations between self-esteem and academic performance, lending credence to this notion. Modern efforts have, however, cast doubt on the idea that higher self-esteem actually induces students to do better.

Here's my personal favorite:

Some findings even suggest that artificially boosting self-esteem may lower subsequent academic performance.

Even if raising self-esteem does not foster academic progress, might it serve some purpose later, say, on the job? Apparently not. Studies of possible links between workers' self-regard and job performance echo what has been found with schoolwork: the simple search for correlations yields some suggestive results, but these do not show whether a good self-image leads to occupational success, or vice versa. In any case, the link is not particularly strong.

It seems to me that if everybody gets equal praise, regardless of performance, they lose incentive to perform well. A students see that their barely passing classmates get the same benefits at less cost (cost being equivalent to study and homework time), and they realize that they're the suckers. It's a tradeoff that condemns achievement and celebrates mediocrity, and society as a whole will pay the price.