Was reading about a study that measured results of performance based on intrinsic and extrinsic reward schemes HERE.
The short of it is this...
People were relatively happy to solve puzzles for free because of intrinsic motivators.
Adding an external motivator (cash payments) increased how many puzzles they solved. Yay!
Subsequently taking that extrinsic motivator away tanked their motivation and reduced their performance to less than it was originally. Boo!
Offering an external reward and then taking it away is sometimes worse than never offering it in the fist place. It’s something psychologists call “the overjustification effect” and it has been found in various other studies as well.
Whether an external reward will trigger the overjustification effect depends on a few things. The person must be intrinsically motivated to start with, then she must start receiving an external reward that gradually takes center stage in her mind. It also helps if the external reward comes at first as a surprise.
Another factor that’s important is whether the external motivator is seen as controlling and even manipulative rather than simply informational. It matters if a game tells you “Hey you aren’t playing right if you don’t aim for this achievement.” That’s controlling and hurts intrinsic motivation. But if it tells you “Hey, you’ve been doing your thing and that earned you this achievement” that’s informational and should increase intrinsic motivation.
No comments:
Post a Comment