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A field experiment was conducted with children to test the "overjustification" hypothesis suggested by self-perception theory-the proposition that a person's intrinsic interest in an activity may be decreased by inducing him to engage in that activity as an explicit means to some extrinsic goal. Children showing intrinsic interest in a target activity during base-line observations were exposed to one of three conditions: In the expected-award condition, subjects agreed to engage in the target activity in order to obtain an extrinsic reward; in the unexpected-award condition, subjects had no knowledge of the reward until after they had finished with the activity; and in the no-award condition, subjects neither expected nor received the reward. The results supported the prediction that subjects in the expected-award condition would show less subsequent intrinsic interest in the target activity than subjects in either of the other two conditions. 1 Without the cooperation and assistance of numerous individuals this study would never have left the drawing board. In particular, the authors would like to express their special appreciation to the experimenters-

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Three studies investigated the effects of the imposition of a nominal contingency-the presentation of engagement in one activity as a means for earning the chance to engage in a second activity of equivalent initial interest-on children's subsequent intrinsic interest in and social inferences about the two activities. Across experiments, analogous contingency manipulations were presented in both a highly familiar context in which children had previously encountered such contingencies and a more novel context in which children had not previously encountered the use of such social constraints. Children in each of the studies showed some tendency to discount interest in the activity presented as a means relative to the activity presented as an end. Further evidence, however, suggests that these findings did not result from any reflective reliance on an abstract discounting principle. Implications for understanding the development of selfperception and social perception processes and for interpreting previous overjustification research are discussed.