Fanged Rewards: How Perverse Incentives Bite Back in Education
The British colonial administration in India, plagued by cobras in Delhi, devised a seemingly clever plan for reducing the population of the venomous snake. They offered a bounty for every dead cobra. However, enterprising individuals began breeding cobras to claim the bounties. When the government realized the scheme and ended the bounty program, the now-worthless farmed cobras were released, and the city ended up with more cobras slithering through its streets than before the bounty was introduced.
The tale, famously told by the economist Horst Siebert in his book "Der Kobra-Effekt", has become the go-to example when policymakers want to illustrate the concept of perverse incentives. A perverse incentive is an incentive that results in unintended outcomes arising from attempts to solve problems, often making the original problem worse.
Perverse incentives in education
Education is no stranger to perverse incentive systems. In a classic management paper, Steven Kerr paints a vivid picture of incentive systems gone wrong in higher education:
"[…] it is rational for students to act based upon the goal displacement which has occurred within universities concerning what they are rewarded for. If it is assumed that a primary goal of a university is to transfer knowledge from teacher to student, then grades become identifiable as a means toward that goal, serving as motivational, control, and feedback devices to expedite the knowledge transfer. Instead, however, the grades themselves have become much more important for entrance to graduate school, successful employment, tuition refunds, parental respect, etc., than the knowledge or lack of knowledge they are supposed to signify.
It therefore should come as no surprise that information has surfaced in recent years concerning fraternity files for examinations, term paper writing services, organized cheating at the service academies, and the like. Such activities constitute a personally rational response to a reward system which pays off for grades rather than knowledge."
The antidote
The call to action for us, educators, is clear: it's time to take a closer look at the incentive structures within our lectures, courses, and programs. By evaluating and, where necessary, realigning these incentives, educators can foster environments where the true goal of education - meaningful knowledge transfer - is prioritized over superficial metrics of success.
A practical starting point could be analyzing the course syllabus to understand the (implicit) incentive system in place. Tools like ChatGPT can help in scrutinizing the alignment of incentives in promoting desired behaviors such as class attendance, engagement, and achievement while identifying any perverse incentives. After reviewing incentives related to grading, look into social or moral incentives. Is it 'cool' to come to class? Is it okay to freeride?
Conclusion
The cobra lesson from Delhi teaches us that good intentions can lead to some pretty toxic outcomes when not well-thought-out. By aligning incentives in education, we shift the attention of the academic community back to the fundamental purpose of education: learning and personal growth.
This post and image were created with the help of ChatGPT Plus.
