Years ago I got hooked on The Sims (I realize this is sad). The game was unique and there were a lot of goals to work towards which kept me interested. You had to from your person into something unique, most of this (in my case) was related to the career I chose for my “sim”. You wanted to advance certain skills because it was required for promotions at work which would lead to more money which would ultimately lead to more toys or additions to the house (if not a whole new house down the block).
"What happens to people's intrinsic motivation for an activity when they receive an extrinsic reward for doing the activity that they had previously been quite willing to do without the reward?"
The problem with all of this is that it took up a lot of time. There was only so much time I could dedicate to simulating my own life. Eventually I looked around on the internet and came up with some cheat codes that gave me unlimited funds. It was great at first. I bought everything there was to buy and made my house ridiculously massive. I felt like 50 cent on MTV Cribs.
As quickly as the game sparked my interest, after the cheat code, my interest vanished.
In a more real world example, as I grew older I became annoyed at messes in the house. For instance, a pile of dirty dishes were bothersome enough to me that I was actually motivated to wash them without anyone telling or asking me to. But over the years i noticed an interesting trend. If I was motivated to do the dishes myself but before I could start them someone of authority (a parent) told me to do the dishes, instantly my desire to do the dishes vanished.
What is going on in these examples? How can, in an instant, my interest in working (doing the dishes) or play working (improving my “sim’s” career) vanish? As it turns out, there is a likely explanation.
Who Are They?
Edward L. Deci of The University of Rochester in 1971. Professor of Psychology and Gowen Professor in the Social Sciences at the University of Rochester, and director of its human motivation program. He is well known in psychology for his theories of intrinsic motivation and basic psychological needs.
Some Brief Background Information
Deci has dedicated his career to studying why people do what they do (even writing a book of this title). In brief, we all understand that we do things because we want to or because we have to. These two notions are explained by intrinsic motivation or extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation are those things that we are internally driven to do. Perhaps it is reading a romance novel before bed. We get nothing else from this except for the joy of reading the book. When we wake up in the morning, most of us go to work. Ideally it is to a job that we love but often it is a job that we tolerate. For these types of situations, we are externally–or extrinsically–motivated. That is to say, we go to work because we need money. Activities that are extriniscally motivated lead to a tangible “reward” and the reward thus becomes the motivation. In this case, the motivating factor in going to work is money and the reward for working is money.
The important distinction to note is that we do some things because we have a desire within ourselves to do them and we do other things because there are external influences on us forcing us to do them. I would like to note that money is not the only external influence that forces us to do things. In my real life example it was a parent telling me to do the dishes (the reward in this case: avoiding the wrath of an upset parent).
Sometimes external motivations can be a good thing. For example, I like cycling and I like doing it on a nice bicycle. In order to enjoy cycling on a nice bicycle, I need to have the money to buy one. In this sense, going to work for money allows me to perform activities that offer no external reward.
The question that Deci wanted to know was: “What happens to people’s intrinsic motivation for an activity when they receive an extrinsic reward for doing the activity that they had previously been quite willing to do without the reward?”
Deci designed an experiment using a novel puzzle game called Soma. The puzzle allowed for you to create various shapes and figures by utilizing the 3-D blocks that made up the game. The goal was either to create your own figures or try and figure out how to put the pieces together so that they form the image from the puzzle’s booklet.
Deci chose this game because it was incredibly entertaining. If the puzzle was left out on his desk (as he did to test its entertainment value), people would consistently pick it up and play with it on their own accord. People were intrinsically motivated to play the puzzle–there were no rewards yet people wanted to play the game. For this reason, he decided it would be an excellent way to answer his question.
The results are rather interesting…
What They Did
Deci invited subjects into the lab and were shown several configurations from the puzzle and asked to see if they could put the pieces together so to solve the puzzle. One group of subjects was told that if they could accomplish the task, they would recieve $1 while the other group was offered no such reward.
Subjects were given about half an hour to work on the puzzle, at which point the experimenter would inform the subject that time was up and that the experimenter had to go enter data into the computer and get a questionnaire for the subject. The experimenter was gone for exactly 8 minutes in each experiment.
During this time, the subject was free to continue working on the puzzle, reading some magazines that were strategically placed on the table, or do anything else that they could to pass the time. During the 8 minutes, the subject was observed. The point of this part of the experiment was to determine whether or not the subject had an intrinsic motivation to work on the puzzle. If the subject continued working on it, they demonstrated an intrinsic motivation to do so since there were no longer any extrinsic rewards for doing so.
What They Found
The results of the study indicated that regardless of a subjects success at completing the puzzle, those who were offered a reward were far less likely to play with the puzzle when they were left to their own. It did not matter if an individual won the $1 or not, when they were offered the money they were significantly less likely to play with the puzzle when there was no reward.
In short, individuals who were offered no reward to finish the puzzle during the initial half an hour were far more likely to play with the puzzle when the experimenter left the room.
What To Make of This
It appears that humans are a stubborn group. When there is something we like doing for the sake of doing it, we will do it. However, when we are controlled by external forces to do something, even if it is something we otherwise enjoy doing, our interest in doing it fades. It may do us some good to watch where we offer extrinsic rewards to individuals for the things we want them to do. Giving your 8th grader $20 for every A may get short term results, but it probably has a significantly negative impact on their desire to continue to get A’s later in life.
More Reading
Why We Do What We Do: Understanding Self-Motivation
3 Tips to Stop Blaming Money For All Your Problems