A
couple of weeks ago, I was at a friend’s gathering and a teacher told me that
her principal would not give rewards to her students because the students
needed to learn on how to be motivated intrinsically because it was the right
thing to do.
As a counselor I immediately reacted and discussed on how
children are not aware of intrinsic reward until much later in life because
their development is that of a child and it begins with extrinsically
motivating them and then it develops into intrinsic motivation.
I remembered the theorist Lawrence Kohlberg in the theory of Moral Development and in the stages where people get to doing
on what is right. I then wanted to look up to see if it was possible for children to learn to do
the right thing just because and was external rewards really needed. Well after
some research this is what I found:
- Extrinsic motivators are best applied in situations
where people have little initial interest in performing the activity or in
cases where basic
skills are lacking, but these rewards should be kept small and should
be tied directly to the performance of a specific behavior. Once some
intrinsic interest has been generated and some essential skills have been
established, the external motivators should be slowly phased out.
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.
Intrinsic
motivation involves engaging in 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.
Extrinsic
motivation can be beneficial in some situations, 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.
- The
individual already finds the activity intrinsically rewarding
- Offering a
reward might make a "play" activity seem more like
"work"
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.
"A
person's interest often survives when a reward is used neither to bribe nor to
control but to signal a job well done,
- 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.
So conclusion, what I
learned is that kids and adults can have some intrinsic motivation, however to
get kids and adults to do something they don’t want to do you have to:
1. Use
external rewards until that behaviors becomes intrinsic. Basically you given
them something they want for doing something they did not like to do so many
times until they start enjoying that unlikeable task. Then no more rewards.
2. Praising
such as way to go in doing…, great job in doing… keep up the good work in … I
believe in you in doing… will help in having them do something that they don’t
like to do.
3. And
Don’t reward something they already like doing because then they will not like
doing it anymore.
Do you think people should be given rewards to get them to do something or it is something that should be learned without the need of any reward or positive praise?
Anita Sandoval MA, LPC-S
