Effects of Material and Non-Material Rewards on Remembering to Do Things for Others

Recent research has shown that pro-social prospective memory, i.e., remembering to do something for others, is negatively affected by the presence of small material rewards. While this competition between pro-social and self-gain motives leads to poor memory for the intention, people do not seem to be aware of the possible collision effects of competing motives (Brandimonte et al., 2010). Extending research on this general topic, in two activity-based prospective memory (PM) experiments, we explored the effects of different types and amount of rewards on pro-social prospective remembering. In Experiment 1, participants could receive no reward, a low material reward (1 euro), or a high material reward (20 euro) for their pro-social PM action. In Experiment 2, their pro-social PM performance could be rewarded or not with an image reward (disclosure of their altruistic behavior). Results revealed that introducing a small material reward (Experiment 1) or a non-material reward (Experiment 2) impaired pro-social PM. However, introducing a high material reward eliminated the impairment (Experiment 1). Importantly, in Experiment 1, ongoing task performance in the pro-social condition was faster than in the No PM condition. However, in Experiment 2, ongoing task costs emerged in the presence of a non-material reward, as compared to the pro-social condition. Also, results from two independent ratings showed that people's predictions on their future pro-social actions were at odds (Experiment 1) or in line (Experiment 2) with actual PM performance. It is suggested that, according to the nature and amount of rewards, memory for a pro-social future action may be modulated by conscious or unconscious motivational mechanisms.