Why Intrinsic Motivators Matter More Than Extrinsic Ones

Added: 2026-05-25

[00:00:00]Does your child say, "I'll never be good at this." or refuse to do things they're not good at? What has motivation theory got to do with this? In Deci's 1971 experiment, researchers offered undergraduate students a dollar for every three-dimensional manipulative puzzle that they solved correctly. The dollar being an extrinsic motivator, or a motivator that's external to you. When doing this, Deci monitored the amount of time that students continued working with the same activity when the researcher [music] left the room, meaning that there was no longer a money reward for completing the activity. What they found was that while students who didn't receive payment continued to work on the same puzzles after the researchers left, students in the extrinsic incentive condition spent less time with the puzzles, likely because they no longer held an incentive value.

[00:00:48]According to Deci and Ryan's 1985 self-determination theory, extrinsic incentives can undermine intrinsic interest. For example, think of a boy who loves to play football for the sake of playing football, who's then offered money for winning. According to self-determination theory, extrinsic incentives, such as money and winning, undermine the boy's intrinsic enjoyment of football. So, in the future, according to this theory, the boy will be less likely or less motivated to [music] play football in the absence of an extrinsic reward. We therefore need to shift the focus of the activity away from being good at this, which is the end product, to give attention and praise to increase intrinsic motivators in the process, such as effort >> [music] >> and determination.