Effects of explicit incentives on scripted and unscripted cooperation.

The effects of explicit incentives on outcomes resulting from scripted and unscripted dyadic cooperation were examined in a series of 3 experiments. Participants were assigned to 1 of 4 groups: (a) unscripted-implicit incentives, (b) scripted-implicit incentives, (c) unscripted-explicit incentives, and (d) scripted-explicit incentives. Dyads studied a passage and later took recall and sentence completion tests. Cooperation structure and incentive structure had interactive effects on cognitive outcomes. Experiment 2 controlled for possible test order effects in Experiment 1. Rewards influenced the number of items attempted on a sentence completion task, suggesting that reward has a motivational effect. Experiment 3 examined the effects of an initial cooperative experience on subsequent task performance. Results again supported a motivational interpretation of the effects of reward.