Extrinsic vs. Intrinsic Motivation: What's the Difference?

Why do we do the things we do? What is it that drives our behaviors? Psychologists have proposed some different ways of thinking about motivation, including one method that involves looking at whether motivation arises from outside (extrinsic) or inside (intrinsic) the individual.

While both types are important, researchers have found that intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation can have different effects on behaviors and how people pursue goals. In order to understand how these types of motivation influence human action, it is important to understand what each one is and how it works.

What Is Extrinsic Motivation?

Extrinsic motivation occurs when we are motivated to perform a behavior or engage in an activity to earn a reward or avoid punishment.

Examples of behaviors that are the result of extrinsic motivation include:

Studying because you want to get a good grade
Cleaning your room to avoid being reprimanded by your parents
Participating in a sport to win awards
Competing in a contest to win a scholarship

In each of these examples, the behavior is motivated by a desire to gain a reward or avoid an adverse outcome. People are engaging in a behavior not because they enjoy it or because they find it satisfying, but in order to get something in return or avoid something unpleasant.

Understanding Extrinsic Motivation

What Is Intrinsic Motivation?

Intrinsic motivation involves engaging in a behavior because it is personally rewarding; essentially, performing an activity for its own sake rather than the desire for some external reward.

Examples of actions that are the result of intrinsic motivation include:

Participating in a sport because you find the activity enjoyable
Solving a word puzzle because you find the challenge fun and exciting
Playing a game because you find it exciting

In each of these instances, the person's behavior is motivated by an internal desire to participate in an activity for its own sake. Essentially, the behavior itself is its own reward.

Understanding Intrinsic Motivation

Extrinsic vs. Intrinsic Motivation: Which Is Best?

The primary difference between the two types of motivation is that extrinsic motivation arises from outside of the individual while intrinsic motivation arises from within. Researchers have also found that the two type of motivation can differ in how effective they are at driving behavior.

Some studies have demonstrated that offering excessive external rewards for an already internally rewarding behavior can lead to a reduction in intrinsic motivation, a phenomenon known as the overjustification effect.

In one study, for example, children who were rewarded for playing with a toy they had already expressed interest in playing with became less interested in the item after being externally rewarded.

This is not to suggest that extrinsic motivation is a bad thing. Extrinsic motivation can be beneficial in some situations. It can be particularly helpful in situations where a person needs to complete a task that they find unpleasant. However:

External rewards can induce interest and participation in something in which the individual had no initial interest.
Extrinsic rewards can be used to motivate people to acquire new skills or knowledge. Once these early skills have been learned, people may then become more intrinsically motivated to pursue the activity.
External rewards can also be a source of feedback, allowing people to know when their performance has achieved a standard deserving of reinforcement.

Extrinsic motivators should be avoided in situations where:

The individual already finds the activity intrinsically rewarding
Offering a reward might make a "play" activity seem more like "work"

When to Use Extrinsic Motivation

While most people would suggest that intrinsic motivation is best, it is not always possible in every situation. In some cases, people simply have no internal desire to engage in an activity. Excessive rewards may be problematic, but when used appropriately, extrinsic motivators can be a useful tool. For example, extrinsic motivation can be used to get people to complete a work task or school assignment in which they have no internal interest.

Researchers have arrived at three primary conclusions with regards to extrinsic rewards and their influence on intrinsic motivation:

Unexpected external rewards typically do not decrease intrinsic motivation. For example, if you get a good grade on a test because you enjoy learning about the subject and the teacher decides to reward you with a gift card to your favorite pizza place, your underlying motivation for learning about the subject will not be affected. However, this needs to be done with caution because people will sometimes come to expect such rewards.
Praise can help increase internal motivation. Researchers have found that offering positive praise and feedback when people do something better in comparison to others can improve intrinsic motivation.
Intrinsic motivation will decrease, however, when external rewards are given for completing a particular task or only doing minimal work. For example, if parents heap lavish praise on their child every time he completes a simple task, he will become less intrinsically motivated to perform that task in the future.

How Do Intrinsic Motivation and Extrinsic Motivation Influence Learning?

Extrinsic and intrinsic motivation can also play a significant role in learning settings. Some experts argue that the traditional emphasis on external rewards such as grades, report cards, and gold stars undermines any existing intrinsic motivation that students might have. Others suggest that these extrinsic motivators help students feel more competent in the classroom, thus enhancing intrinsic motivation.

"A person's interest often survives when a reward is used neither to bribe nor to control but to signal a job well done, as in a "most improved player" award. If a reward boosts your feeling of competence after doing good work, your enjoyment of the task may increase. Rewards, rightly administered, can motivate high performance and creativity. And extrinsic rewards (such as scholarships, admissions, and jobs that often follow good grades) are here to stay," explains David G. Meyers in his text Psychology: Eighth Edition in Modules.