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Author’s Note: Right now a great many people are trying to comply with their New Year’s resolutions. Many of them will rely on rewards of some sort to motivate themselves, never realizing that this is an extremely controversial practice and the subject of heated debate among psychologists. Should it be? Here’s my personal take:
After a recent auto accident, my doctor ordered me to have an MRI of my dystonic cervical spine (fancy term for my stiff, aching neck). I’ve had MRIs before, and I’m not a fan. I wouldn’t say I’m pathologically claustrophobic, but I don’t especially like enclosed spaces; and like many people with a mood disorder, I’m hypersensitive to intense noise.
The one bright note was that the imaging facility, to my surprise, was in a nearby Four Seasons Hotel. So that was all right—I like grand hotels, no matter what the occasion. As I walked from the parking garage to the lobby, I saw the oddest thing: an enormous statue of a bunny rabbit at the entrance to a secluded rose garden. It was Alice in Wonderland come to life—except that the rabbit wasn’t white, it was bright turquoise. Curiouser and curiouser.
Nobody else was around, and I felt a strong urge to go explore. But I was running late for the MRI, so I did the grown-up thing and went to my appointment. Reluctantly, I put on a gown and screwed in the ear plugs the technician handed me. He also gave me an escape button I could push “if absolutely necessary.”
As the coffin-like lid slid over my face and loud, bizarre spurts of noise began to assault my eardrums, my panic mounted and I fingered the button nervously. I wanted to get the damn procedure over with, but I also wanted to keep my sanity. That word—“sanity”—felt important somehow. After all, I’ve struggled to keep mine all my life, against a severe case of bipolar disorder. Surely I’d learned something along the way that could help me get through this nerve-piercing hell.
Then it came to me: a reward! Of course; that’s what I needed. I’ve always used rewards to get through my darkest hours, particularly when I’ve felt suicidally depressed: “If I can just stay alive until bedtime, I can watch a rerun of ‘Star Trek’ and eat as much frozen yogurt as I like.” Or, “If I can manage to take a shower today, I’ll schedule a half-hour massage for tomorrow.” The reward didn’t have to be big or extravagant—sometimes just buying myself a new copy of Vogue could help me make it through the night.
That’s when I remembered the turquoise bunny, inviting me into his improbable garden. I visualized taking a long, lazy stroll among the roses, bees buzzing, birds trilling, the late afternoon sunshine blissfully warm on my face. I told myself, “If you can make it through the whole MRI, you can go explore the garden to your heart’s content.” Although the noise didn’t lessen—if anything, it just increased in volume—my body immediately began to relax and I was able to take the deep, calming breaths my mind so desperately needed. I lasted all the way through to the end.
It made me realize how essential rewards are to me—or even just the mere promise of a reward. I’ve always felt rather guilty about this. Shouldn’t I be able to take a shower, or get out of bed, or make it through the day, simply by exercising willpower? Wasn’t I indulging my laziness, fear, and procrastination, if I didn’t use sheer grit and guts to get things done?
I decided to research the psychology of using rewards to make it through life. Does it hurt or help personal motivation? In short, is it a good or bad thing for me to rely on rewards so heavily?
To my surprise, there was no easy answer—the research was all over the place. Some of the studies I read concluded that external rewards are very useful for motivation, while others decided that they inhibit personal incentive. As one journal summarized, “The issue of whether extrinsic rewards increase or thwart motivation has been hotly debated, and scholars in distinct research traditions have expressed opposing viewpoints…These controversies have even led to the conclusion that, over the last few decades, rewards have become one of the most contentious concepts in social and educational psychology.” Learning and Instruction, Vol. 96, April 2025.
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Whew! I had no idea I was entering into such a hornet’s nest when I exited the MRI facility and headed toward the hidden garden. Ultimately, I decided to stop my research when I realized I wasn’t going to get the definitive answer I’d hoped for: that if a task is difficult, giving yourself an appropriate reward doesn’t compromise internal motivation—instead, it enhances it.
At least, that seems to be the case with me, and sometimes in mental health recovery what matters most is learning to trust your own judgment. You know your own mind and body far better than any doctor or clinical study ever will. It took me years to take this wisdom to heart, because I—like so many other patients—often suffer from “white coat worship,” meaning I expect my doctors and other treatment providers to know everything, and to have the last word.
But I’ve finally realized that the best treatment lies somewhere between healthy respect for science and acute awareness of your own individual quirks and needs. After several decades of hard-fought recovery, I’ve found what works and doesn’t work for me. And promising myself a small reward upon completion of a challenging task usually helps me get through this sometimes difficult life.
So I decided to let the scientists duke it out amongst themselves, until they one day come to a shared conclusion. As for me, I felt no diminishment of personal motivation whatsoever. I’d earned my turquoise bunny,
