Question

researchers have long debated over whether or not extrinsic incentives are harmful for intrinsic motivation and performance. (b) give an example of when you think extrinsic motivation can be harmful. (c) do you think extrinsic incentives are harmful for intrinsic motivation and performance? Why or why not?

Answer 1

B) An example of when an extrinsic motivation can be harmful is when a child who is not interested in games is given reinforcements to play a game such as when that child participates in playing a sport with other children, he is given candies and chocolates which reinforces this behaviour. However, this sport playing behaviour is now reinforced by external motivation which is chocolates. So, now the child may play sports not because he enjoys the game, which is an intrinsic motivation, but because he will get an external reward for it.

C) Yes, i think extrinsic motivation can be harmful for the intrinsic motivation as the person who is performing a task will not be performing it for the sake of it or because he likes that activity, but he will be performing it because of some external rewards. For Example. Even if a person enjoys fishing in his spare time, and does it for intrinsic reward, if that person is given money for fishing, then that person may start losing his intrinsic motivation of fishing and start depending on the external rewards.