Key Takeaways
- Extrinsic motivation comes from external rewards like money or praise.
- Using extrinsic motivation works best when people have little interest in a task.
- Too many rewards can decrease motivation if someone already enjoys the task.
Extrinsic motivation is a catalyst for action that is driven by external rewards. These can be tangible, such as money or grades, or intangible, such as praise or fame. Unlike intrinsic motivation, which arises from within the individual, extrinsic motivation focuses purely on outside rewards.
People who are extrinsically motivated will continue to perform a task even though it might not be in and of itself rewarding. For example, they will do something at their job that they don’t find enjoyable in order to earn a wage.
Verywell / Joshua Seong
Extrinsic motivation can be understood through the lens of operant conditioning, which is when someone or something is conditioned to behave a certain way due to a reward or consequence.
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 can do well in your psychology class? If so, this is extrinsic motivation because a good grade is an external reinforcement.
If, on the other hand, you are interested in learning more about human behavior, then you are intrinsically motivated. Your curiosity and desire to learn are the driving forces of your motivation.
Here are some other examples of extrinsic motivation:
- Competing for a trophy or prize, such as in a sporting event
- Doing schoolwork to earn a good grade
- Working hard at a task or project to receive praise and recognition
- Shopping with a store loyalty card to gain points, discounts, and prizes
- Doing homework to earn a reward such as a special treat or toy
- Performing tasks at work that you dislike in order to keep getting a steady paycheck
- Using a particular credit card to receive airline miles
Sometimes, the external reward may be avoiding punishment or a negative outcome. For example, someone may engage in a behavior to avoid being shamed, judged, or assessed a fine.
Impact of Extrinsic Motivation
This type of motivation can be highly effective. Just think of all the examples in your life of things you do to gain some kind of external reward.
Extrinsic motivation is not a bad thing. External rewards can be a useful and effective tool for helping children learn new skills (or be on their best behavior) and for keeping people motivated and on task. This can be particularly important when people need to complete something that they find difficult or uninteresting, such as a boring homework assignment or a tedious work-related project.
How to Use Extrinsic Motivation
It’s important to look at the specific situation to determine if extrinsic rewards might help motivate behavior. Below are some example scenarios when extrinsic rewards may be most effective:
- When people have little interest in the activity
- When people lack the skills to get started
- When a short-term motivator for a specific purpose is needed
- When people are working on a long-term project and need small incentives to keep them going
In these situations, the rewards should be kept small and tied directly to performing a specific behavior.
Once some intrinsic interest has been generated and some essential skills have been established, the external motivators should be slowly phased out.
In the Workplace, Parenting, and Education
Extrinsic motivation can play a role across many areas of life. 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. With careful application, extrinsic motivation can result in intrinsic motivation—in which a person performs a task well simply because they enjoy it, find it fulfilling, or feel a sense of pride.
Potential Pitfalls of Extrinsic Motivation
While offering rewards can increase motivation in some cases, researchers have also found that this is not always the case. In fact, offering excessive rewards can actually lead to a decrease in motivation.
The tendency of extrinsic motivation to interfere with intrinsic motivation is known as the overjustification effect. For example, if someone is already intrinsically motivated to read books, and then you provide an external reward for reading, you might notice a decrease in the joy they once experienced in grabbing a good book on their own accord after the action has been extrinsically rewarded.
In a classic experiment by Lepper, Greene, and Nisbett, children were rewarded lavishly for drawing with felt-tip pens, an activity that they had previously enjoyed doing on their own during playtime.
When the children were later offered the chance to play with the pens during playtime, the children who had been rewarded for using them previously showed little interest in playing with the pens again. 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. Once they have been externally rewarded for performing an action, they assign too much importance to the role of the reinforcement in their behavior.
Another possible reason is that activities that initially feel like play or fun can be transformed into work or obligations when tied to an external reward. Extrinsic rewards can be an important tool in motivating behavior, but experts warn that they should be used with caution, especially with children.
A 2014 review from Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences examined research on motivation for learning and suggested that extrinsic rewards can actually be mostly effective and not harmful.
However, more research is needed on this topic to determine exactly how and when external rewards may undermine intrinsic motivation.
Making Extrinsic Motivation Work for You
Extrinsic motivation can exert a powerful influence on human behavior, but it has its limits. You might find it helpful to consider whether you are intrinsically or extrinsically motivated in certain situations.
Are you looking forward to your workout because you have a bet with a friend about who can lose the most weight? Then, you are extrinsically motivated. If you are eager to work out because you find exercise fun and satisfying, then you are intrinsically motivated.
Extrinsic motivation has pros and cons. Whether external rewards will be beneficial in the long run depends on the person and situation.
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