Effects of alternative activities on time allocated to task performance under different percentages of incentive pay

This study examined the effects of different percentages of incentive pay o n the time spent working and on the performance of a quality inspection tas k when competitive alternative tasks were available. The independent variab les were the percentage of incentive pay and the number of opportunities to play computer games. Three percentages of incentive pay were examined: 0%, 10%, and 100%. Opportunities to play computer games were provided either 2 or 4 times during a 70-minute session. A 3 x 2 factorial design was used. Participants were 106 college students. Geometric figures were presented on a computer screen, and participants indicated which were defective. The de pendent variables were the time spent working and the number of screens com pleted correctly. Participants who received incentive pay worked significan tly longer than those who received base pay only, however, time spent worki ng was not affected by the level of incentive. Although a significant corre lation was found between the time worked and performance, there were no dif ferences between the three groups with respect to task performance. Previou s researchers have suggested that the main effect of incentives may be to i ncrease the time spent working. This is the first study to demonstrate that time working was a function of incentive pay.