Earlier today, I became curious why extrinsic motivation tends to preclude or decrease intrinsic motivation. This phenomenon is known as overjustification. There’s likely agreed-upon theories for this, but here’s some stream-of-consciousness as I reason and read through summarized experimental results. (ETA: Looks like there isn’t consensus on why this happens)
My first hypothesis was that recognizing external rewards somehow precludes activation of curiosity-circuits in our brain. I’m imagining a kid engrossed in a puzzle. Then, they’re told that they’ll be given $10 upon completion. I’m predicting that the kid won’t become significantly less engaged, which surprises me?
third graders who were rewarded with a book showed more reading behaviour in the future, implying that some rewards do not undermine intrinsic motivation.
Might this be because the reward for reading is more reading, which doesn’t undermine the intrinsic interest in reading? You aren’t looking forward to escaping the task, after all.
While the provision of extrinsic rewards might reduce the desirability of an activity, the use of extrinsic constraints, such as the threat of punishment, against performing an activity has actually been found to increase one’s intrinsic interest in that activity. In one study, when children were given mild threats against playing with an attractive toy, it was found that the threat actually served to increase the child’s interest in the toy, which was previously undesirable to the child in the absence of threat.
A few experimental summaries:
1 Researchers at Southern Methodist University conducted an experiment on 188 female university students in which they measured the subjects’ continued interest in a cognitive task (a word game) after their initial performance under different incentives.
The subjects were divided into two groups. Members of the first group were told that they would be rewarded for competence. Above-average players would be paid more and below-average players would be paid less. Members of the second group were told that they would be rewarded only for completion. Their pay was scaled by the number of repetitions or the number of hours playing. Afterwards, half of the subjects in each group were told that they over-performed, and the other half were told that they under-performed, regardless of how well each subject actually did.
Members of the first group generally showed greater interest in the game and continued playing for a longer time than the members of the second group. “Over-performers” continued playing longer than “under-performers” in the first group, but “under-performers” continued playing longer than “over-performers” in the second group. This study showed that, when rewards do not reflect competence, higher rewards lead to less intrinsic motivation. But when rewards do reflect competence, higher rewards lead to greater intrinsic motivation.
2 Richard Titmuss suggested that paying for blood donations might reduce the supply of blood donors. To test this, a field experiment with three treatments was conducted. In the first treatment, the donors did not receive compensation. In the second treatment, the donors received a small payment. In the third treatment, donors were given a choice between the payment and an equivalent-valued contribution to charity. None of the three treatments affected the number of male donors, but the second treatment almost halved the number of female donors. However, allowing the contribution to charity fully eliminated this effect.
From a glance at the Wikipedia page, it seems like there’s not really expert consensus on why this happens. However, according to self-perception theory,
a person infers causes about his or her own behavior based on external constraints. The presence of a strong constraint (such as a reward) would lead a person to conclude that he or she is performing the behavior solely for the reward, which shifts the person’s motivation from intrinsic to extrinsic.
This lines up with my understanding of self-consistency effects.
Earlier today, I became curious why extrinsic motivation tends to preclude or decrease intrinsic motivation. This phenomenon is known as overjustification. There’s likely agreed-upon theories for this, but here’s some stream-of-consciousness as I reason and read through summarized experimental results. (ETA: Looks like there isn’t consensus on why this happens)
My first hypothesis was that recognizing external rewards somehow precludes activation of curiosity-circuits in our brain. I’m imagining a kid engrossed in a puzzle. Then, they’re told that they’ll be given $10 upon completion. I’m predicting that the kid won’t become significantly less engaged, which surprises me?
Might this be because the reward for reading is more reading, which doesn’t undermine the intrinsic interest in reading? You aren’t looking forward to escaping the task, after all.
A few experimental summaries:
From a glance at the Wikipedia page, it seems like there’s not really expert consensus on why this happens. However, according to self-perception theory,
This lines up with my understanding of self-consistency effects.