Do You Need Rewards, Prizes, and Praise to Stay Motivated?
What Are The Rewards That Motivate You?
Extrinsic motivation is a catalyst for action that is driven by external rewards.
Verywell / Joshua Seong
These can be tangible, such asmoney or grades,or intangible, such aspraise or fame.
Unlikeintrinsic motivation, which arises from within the individual, extrinsic motivation focuses purely on outside rewards.
Is It Extrinsic and Intrinsic Motivation?
Examples of Extrinsic Motivation
Think about your motivation for reading this article.
Are you trying to learn the material so that you could do well in your psychology class?
If so, this is extrinsic motivation because agood gradeis an external reinforcement.
Yourcuriosityanddesire to learnare the driving forces of your motivation.
Impact of Extrinsic Motivation
This jot down of motivation can be highly effective.
Extrinsic motivation is not a bad thing.
For example, your boss might hold an ad design competition in which the winner earns a prize.
Parents might offer their children special treats or outings to complete all their chores for the week.
In education, the Dean’s List recognizes students who attain high grades.
In all of these situations, some external factor serves as a force that drives positive behavior.
In fact, offering excessive rewards can actually lead to adecreasein motivation.
The tendency of extrinsic motivation to interfere with intrinsic motivation is known as theoverjustification effect.
The kids who had not been rewarded, however, continued to play with the pens.
Why would rewarding an already intrinsically rewarding behavior lead to this sudden disinterest?
One reason is that people tend to analyze their own motivations for engaging in an activity.
You might find it helpful to consider whether you areintrinsically or extrinsically motivatedin certain situations.
Then, you are extrinsically motivated.
Extrinsic motivation has pros and cons.
Whether external rewards will be beneficial in the long run depends on the person and situation.
American Psychological Association.Operant conditioning.APA Dictionary of Psychology.
Tranquillo J, Stecker M.Using intrinsic and extrinsic motivation in continuing professional education.Surg Neurol Int.
2016;7(Suppl 7):S197-S199.
