Rewards and Motivation are not the Same

We live in a society that increasingly focuses on outcomes; prompted by massive media influences in our lives, where we can observe performance in sports, business, entertainment, we rank, reward, and criticize every moment of every day. We are obsessed with winning and achieving. We are also in a world of Big Data, where everything we do as individuals is tracked measured and analyzed, sometimes behind our backs, to monitor and exploit our health, popularity and future purchasing choices.

Our objective in this Blog is to enable us as individuals to control our own journey, to achieve our own objectives, and make our own lifestyle choices. In order to accomplish this goal we need to learn how we are motivated, how to increase our motivation, and how to avoid pitfalls which reduce our motivation.

In our previous blog post, “Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation”, we realized the value of being intrinsically motivated, supported by extrinsic motivations when necessary to overcome rough patches, those days when getting our feet moving just seems like too high a hill to climb. Our goal is to develop habits where the intrinsic motivation is so compelling that the need for an outside push is infrequent, and that our desire to increase our performance is strong enough that rewards are not necessary. We want to love the activity, so it will become part of who we are. We certainly do not want to damage that love of the activity by allowing outside influences, rewards masquerading as motivation, to defeat our love for the activity.

This post looks at the impact of rewards on our intrinsic motivation, to increase our love of the journey and not be distracted or demotivated by the outside influences that work against our motivations.

According to Self-Determination Theory (Deci & Ryan, 2017), intrinsic motivation derives from a desire to control our own behavior, increase our competence, and increase our relatedness with others. In other words, we seek to choose what we do, how we perform an action, and how well we perform the action, and who we do it with. These are attributes entirely internal to us and do not depend recognition from others, require no measurement, and certainly desires no external controlling influences.

In contrast, rewards are external to the activity. By definition, all rewards are forms of extrinsic motivation. Some rewards are bestowed upon us by others. Others are rewards we give ourselves. Thus, rewards by others are extrinsic, while rewards we give ourselves are intrinsic, as illustrated below.

Figure 1 All Rewards are Extrinsic Motivation (Wu, 2014)

What do we really mean by rewards? Obvious rewards are typically given by others. The rewards may be awarded for participation, or for completing the activity, or for excellence in achievement of the activity. These rewards may be tangible, such as trophies, medals, certificates, or money. They may also be verbal, such as direct positive feedback, praise in front your peers or public notoriety.

We have certainly experienced how rewards affect us, especially in the context of our professional life. We are often jealous of others receiving rewards. We are often disappointed in the how the reward is delivered to us, or feel the reward is not commensurate with the task. We may feel like we are being bribed to do something we really do not want to do.

We perceive rewards negatively if we feel they are an attempt to control our behavior. For example, we may be offered inducements to perform some task. Even if we initially have some interest in the task, the reward will dominate because it is offered in a controlling fashion. Our level of intrinsic motivation will be decreased because of this control, and our performance of the task may be of lower quality. It affects our autonomy. This negative effect may be offset if the task is challenging and we get some positive feeling about the level of skill required to complete it. In other words, if we feel we derive value from the task, even if the reward makes us uncomfortable, our motivation may be less affected, but rarely is our motivation increased. We do not get an added benefit from the reward.

If the reward is presented in a positive way, and not seen as an attempt to affect our autonomy, the impact may be positive. We may be more motivated to perform the task.

This impact is called over-justification and has shown that tangible extrinsic rewards permanently reduce intrinsic motivation. (Deci, Koestner, & Ryan, 1999)

My two younger children participated in competitive hockey and soccer from a young age through college. Throughout their sports careers we as parents were sensitized to the behavior of the parents around us (and sometimes through self-reflection!) and the rewards they gave their children. The concern in minor sports is that parents are heavily invested in their child’s performance to the point of being a controlling influence. This is the reason that many minor sports bodies restrict the focus on “competition” early in the sports experience, attempting to develop a love for the sport before that love is smothered by the rewards of winning, losing and trophies. The belief, supported by studies, is that the rewards reduce the players intrinsic motivation. There is plenty of evidence that many children choose to leave sport at an early age.

This may also contribute to our level of engagement at work. There are studies that indicate that American workers suffer a low engagement in their jobs (Gallup inc., 2018). Rewards offered in our professional roles must be designed to increase our intrinsic motivation rather than defeat it. Rewards designed to increase our sense of autonomy and competence will build motivation. This takes foresight on the part of individual managers to plan employee interactions in order to avoid controlling behaviors and provide opportunities to increase relatedness and provide specific positive feedback. For example, positive feedback and more challenging opportunities as result of our performance will contribute to our sense of mastery; participation in how we achieve our objectives increases our sense of autonomy. These tools have a positive impact on our motivation. Money and gifts reduce our autonomy and are counterproductive.

We need to be similarly mindful when we are working on our own improvements. Building good habits requires that we seek rewards that reflect this individual need for autonomy, relatedness and competence.

We build autonomy by defining our own goals and plans for achieving them. Rewards that reflect execution of the plan, achievement of those goals have the opportunity to increase our motivation to repeat the activity. If we continue to build this motivation so that the desire to perform the task for its own sake is strong enough, we have created sufficient desire that the habit may be sustainable. The reward is then only required to support the task when our habit is under stress.

There is a risk here that we suffer burnout from the reward. If the rewards are too heavily focused on the successful achievement of the goals, we may become disillusioned and quit. It is important to focus execution of the plan.

For example, consider that we want to “get healthier” and we choose to take up running as the means. We then set a goal of running 5km 3 times per week. We tell ourselves we will splurge on something nice if we complete this plan for a month. It is possible you will find a deep undiscovered love of running and you complete the task and go shopping. This is possible, but unlikely.

A better solution would be to create a plan that is a small extension from what you do today, with gradual planned improvements. For example, if you already take the dog for a walk, plan to jog for a minute very three minutes when you take the dog for a walk. Celebrate that with your dog at the end of every walk with a treat for your dog and shake for you. This is a reachable goal, with a reward of increasing your relatedness with your best and most loyal friend, and a treat you share, and you may feel it gives you the feeling of competence and autonomy required to build your motivation. This is one of ways that I increased my running frequency. I ran more because my dog was excited to go with me!

Therefore, it is clear that the nature and context of the reward can affect our motivation. We need to be rewarded in a way that increases our sense of autonomy, competence and connectedness if we are to benefit from the reward through an increase in intrinsic motivation.

Works Cited

Deci, E. L., Koestner, R., & Ryan, R. M. (1999). A Meta-Analytic Review of Experiments Eamining the Effects of Extrinsic Rewards ion INtrinsic Motivation. Psychological Bulletin, 125(6), pp. 627-668.

Gallup inc. (2018, September 26). Retrieved from Gallup.com: https://news.gallup.com/reports/199961/7.aspx?utm_source=article&utm_content=daily-employee-engagement

Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2017). Self-Determination Theory, Basic Psychological Needs in Motivation, Development, and Wellness. New York: The Guilford Press.

Wu, M. (2014, 2 18). Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic Rewards (and Their Differences from Motivations). Retrieved from Lithosphere, The Lithium Community: https://lithosphere.lithium.com/t5/Science-of-Social-Blog/Intrinsic-vs-Extrinsic-Rewards-and-Their-Differences-from/ba-p/128969