Receiving rewards feels good. Beyond influencing motivation, our work shows that rewards can have a direct impact on self-beliefs.

Those who received more rewards later estimated their own accuracy to be higher. Rewards also boosted turn-by-turn expectations of success: When a correct answer came with a reward, participants updated their performance expectations for the next round more.

Participants played a perceptual game where a staircase procedure held their accuracy constant. For correct answers, a slot machine determined whether they received a reward, with either high or low probability. They received both accuracy and reward feedback on each round.