The art of extrinsic motivation

In this day and age motivation is key to success. Using extrinsic motivation properly to achieve desired levels of motivation in order to keep yourself, your staff and children/spouse motivated can be a tricky art.

Firstly we need to define what is meant by extrinsic motivation. Simply put, it is the benefit that will acrue to you by performing successfully in some endeavour, but which is not a consequence of the performance itself. An example may suffice here.

When cleaning your kitchen, or sorting out your paperwork, you will end up with a clean kitchen or tidy paperwork (hopefully). This is what is known as intrinsic reward. It may also be a motivation to do the task in question. If so, it would be thought of as intrinsic motivation. In contrast to this, if your spouse offered to take you out for a meal if you clean the kitchen, it is apparent that this is not a consequence of cleaning the kitchen, but of your spouse’s intention. This would properly be regarded as extrinsic motivation (assuming that it was something you wanted).

If you offer sweets to your children, on condition that they finish their dinner, that would be regarded as extrinsic, not being a direct consequence of them finishing the meal.

Under certain circumstances, rewards do not succeed in raising the motivation levels above the threshold needed to perform the actions required. Below are some tips on how you can ensure that your motivational hacks have a higher degree of success.

1. Reward is not sized appropriately to the results desired

When a reward is much too small, or disproportionally large in comparison with the requested action, the result may be demotivation. If the reward is not seen as fair compensation for the work carried out, the result will be non compliance or reluctant compliance.

Therefore you should not make the reward overly large or overly small.

2. Ensure that the reward does not negate the intrinsic benefit

The intrinsic and extrinsic benefits should not be in conflict because, if this occurs, the opposing forces will cancel each other out. It is easier to demotivate people than it is to motivate them. You may have noticed this already.

3. Use when the intrinsic benefits are not well understood or accepted

This one works well on kids! Offering a reward for good behaviour is quite acceptable, and works very well. However, once the intrinsic benefits are understood, it is appropriate to stop the rewards, in order to allow for growth and development opportunities.

4. Avoid using extrinsic rewards when the intrinsic is sufficient

If the intrinsic reward can be used to motivate sufficiently, then it is usually better not to try to reinforce it by external rewards. Doing so is likely to diminish the value of the task in question.

Instead, a good method is to neglect to mention rewards initially, but to reward the effort at the end. This can result in a double rise in motivation, if it were quantifiable.