Neural mechanisms underlying paradoxical performance for monetary incentives are driven by loss aversion
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Employers often make payment contingent on performance in order to motivate workers. We used fMRI with a novel incentivized skill task to examine the neural processes underlying behavioral responses to performance-based pay. We found that individuals' performance increased with increasing incentives; however, very high incentive levels led to the paradoxical consequence of worse performance. Between initial incentive presentation and task execution, striatal activity rapidly switched between activation and deactivation in response to increasing incentives. Critically, decrements in performance and striatal deactivations were directly predicted by an independent measure of behavioral loss aversion. These results suggest that incentives associated with successful task performance are initially encoded as a potential gain; however, when actually performing a task, individuals encode the potential loss that would arise from failure.
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The opportunity to earn very large rewards can have a deleterious influence on performance, a phenomenon known as choking.
“the opportunity to earn very large rewards has also been shown to have a deleterious influence, a phenomenon known in the psychological literature as choking.”
From Contributions of the striatum to learning, motivation, and performance: an associative account (2012) · cites this paper as [39]
Recent neuroimaging studies have implicated the VS in both detrimental and facilitating effects of incentives on performance.
“Recent neuroimaging studies have implicated the VS in these detrimental, as well as in the facilitating, effects of incentives on performance [39,40].”
From Contributions of the striatum to learning, motivation, and performance: an associative account (2012) · cites this paper as [39]
Findings implicating the ventral striatum in incentive-based performance can arguably be accounted for in terms of the role of this structure in the expression of Pavlovian conditioned responses.
“Findings implicating the ventral striatum in incentive-based performance [12,13,39,40] can arguably also be accounted for in terms of the role of this structure in the expression of Pavlovian conditioned responses.”
From Contributions of the striatum to learning, motivation, and performance: an associative account (2012) · cites this paper as [39]
Performance of highly skilled motor behavior or instrumental responses that necessitate approach towards aversive stimuli might be impaired by incompatible reflexes elicited by Pavlovian cues.
“Conversely, performance of highly skilled motor behavior or of instrumental responses that necessitate approach towards aversive stimuli might be impaired by incompatible reflexes elicited by Pavlovian cues [39].”
From Contributions of the striatum to learning, motivation, and performance: an associative account (2012) · cites this paper as [39]
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Want More? Learn Less: Motivation Affects Adolescents Learning from Negative Feedback
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Self-citationActivity in the dorsal ACC causes deterioration of sequential motor performance due to anxiety
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Spontaneous eye blink rate (EBR) predicts poor performance in high-stakes situations
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- Authors
- Chib, V. S., De Martino, B., Shimojo, S., & O'Doherty, J. P.
- Affiliations
- California Institute of Technology (US)
- Corresponding author
- Chib, Vikram S.
- ORCID
- Chib, Vikram S.
- Venue
- Neuron
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2012-05
- Volume
- 74
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 582-594
- ISSN
- 0896-6273 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC3437564
- OpenAlex
- W2080054997
- Cited by
- 130
- References
- 69
- Citations by year
- 2026: 9 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 10 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 10 · 2021: 5 · 2020: 11 · 2019: 6 · 2018: 15 · 2017: 5 · 2016: 13 · 2015: 11 · 2014: 11 · 2013: 9 · 2012: 3
- FWCI
- 5.56
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Neuron (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- CaltechAUTHORS (California Institute of Technology) (submittedVersion)
- UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › General Decision Sciences › Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics
- Social Sciences › Safety Research › Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies
- Keywords
- loss aversion, financial incentives, performance-based pay, striatum, incentive magnitude, motivation, reward encoding
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Attention, Avoidance Learning, Brain, Brain Mapping, Female, Humans, Image Processing, Computer-Assisted, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Motivation, Oxygen, Risk-Taking, Time Factors, Feedback, Psychological, Young Adult, Executive Function
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