Two weeks later, back in the classroom, teachers set out paper and markers during the preschool’s free play period while the researchers secretly observed the students. Children previously in the “unexpected-award” and “no-award” groups drew just as much, and with the same relish, as they had before the experiment. But children in the first group—the ones who’d expected and then received an award—showed much less interest and spent much less time drawing. 2 The Sawyer Effect had taken hold. Even two weeks later, those alluring prizes—so common in classrooms and cubicles—had turned play into
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