This is the research companion to Participation Trophies. Read the main post first.
The main post began with trophy statistics we couldn’t verify and turned to evidence we could trace. These five studies cover expected rewards, children’s beliefs about trophies, inflated praise, enjoyment in sport, and coach training. They give us useful questions about a child’s experience, without settling the long-term effects of participation trophies.
The Overjustification Experiment
Lepper, M. R., Greene, D., & Nisbett, R. E. (1973). Undermining children’s intrinsic interest with extrinsic reward: A test of the “overjustification” hypothesis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 28(1), 129-137.
DOI: 10.1037/h0035519
What they found: Preschoolers who loved drawing were promised a Good Player Award for drawing, given the same award unexpectedly, or given nothing. In free play one to two weeks later, the expected-award children chose drawing 8.59 percent of the time against 18.09 percent for the surprise-award children and 16.73 percent for no award, and their drawings were rated lower in quality. The expectedness of the reward, not the reward itself, carried the undermining.
Why this matters for you: Promising a reward can change a child’s later interest in something they already enjoy. Whether a participation trophy produces that effect depends on questions this experiment didn’t test, including what the child expected and what the award meant to them.
What it doesn’t answer: It is not a trophy study. No ceremony, no team, no repeated season-after-season award, 51 children analyzed, and a follow-up window of days. The authors themselves carve out activities a child does not already love.
What Children Expect Trophies to Do
Shao, S., & Heyman, G. D. (2026). Trophies for all? Children’s and adolescents’ reasoning about inclusive versus selective awards. Developmental Science, 29(6), e70278. Published online September 4, 2026.
DOI: 10.1111/desc.70278
What they found: Forty-three children aged 7-9 and 44 adolescents aged 15-18 considered fictional races. Both groups expected selective awards to increase effort and pride; adolescents also expected more cheating and risk-taking.
Why this matters for you: Children can have their own views about what awards mean. Asking your child may reveal assumptions adults have missed.
What it doesn’t answer: Participants judged scenarios. The study didn’t award trophies or measure later motivation, behavior, or self-worth. It cannot settle whether participation trophies help or harm children.
When Praise Raises the Stakes
Brummelman, E., Thomaes, S., Orobio de Castro, B., Overbeek, G., & Bushman, B. J. (2014). “That’s not just beautiful -- that’s incredibly beautiful!”: The adverse impact of inflated praise on children with low self-esteem. Psychological Science, 25(3), 728-735.
DOI: 10.1177/0956797613514251
What they found: Adults gave inflated praise in 33 percent of their statements to low-self-esteem children versus 18 percent to high-self-esteem children. In a randomized study, one inflated phrase made children low in self-esteem less likely to choose a challenging task afterward, while increasing challenge-seeking in children high in self-esteem.
Why this matters for you: The urge to reassure a child with extravagant praise can backfire. Specific, proportionate feedback gives you an alternative to raising the stakes with bigger adjectives.
What it doesn’t answer: Praise, not trophies; one phrase, not a season; Dutch samples; a small effect. The mediating process was not measured, so why it happens remains the surviving explanation rather than a demonstrated one.
What Children Say Makes Sports Fun
Visek, A. J., Achrati, S. M., Mannix, H., McDonnell, K., Harris, B. S., & DiPietro, L. (2015). The fun integration theory: Toward sustaining children and adolescents sport participation. Journal of Physical Activity and Health, 12(3), 424-433.
DOI: 10.1123/jpah.2013-0180
What they found: Youth soccer players, parents, and coaches identified and rated 81 things that make sport fun. Trying hard, being a good sport, and positive coaching were the highest-rated dimensions. Respect from the coach and playing well together were among the highly rated individual items.
Why this matters for you: The Car Ride Audit asks about effort, enjoyment, and teammates because those experiences matter to participants. Winning was part of their account of fun, alongside many other things worth asking about.
What it doesn’t answer: The reported ratings pool players, parents, and coaches. This was a descriptive study in one sport and one region, not a test of which experience causes children to stay.
The Coach Study
Barnett, N. P., Smoll, F. L., & Smith, R. E. (1992). Effects of enhancing coach-athlete relationships on youth sport attrition. The Sport Psychologist, 6(2), 111-127.
DOI: 10.1123/tsp.6.2.111
What they found: Little League players whose coaches received training in encouragement and instruction dropped out at 5 percent over the following year; players under untrained coaches dropped out at 26 percent. The dropouts and the returners had nearly identical team win-loss records, 48.9 versus 49.9 percent.
Why this matters for you: The difference in return rates gives us a concrete reason to care about encouragement and instruction throughout a season. Similar team records among those who left and those who stayed suggest that winning alone did not explain who returned.
What it doesn’t answer: Leagues were assigned to condition, not randomized, so the causal read outruns the design. All boys, one sport, one region, and thirty years old.
Coming Up
Next, The Problem With Up and to the Right. A falling score can mean several things. We look at what children are learning, what their surroundings are asking of them, and when a loss of skills needs attention.
Every Functional Child Development post comes with a Dive Deeper companion. Subscribe to get both, every week.
