What Is Extrinsic Motivation?

Motivation can be divided into two categories from the source: intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation. In school education, there are a variety of external conditions that can attract, motivate, and induce students, and become a source of motivation to promote their active activities, such as parental encouragement, teacher praise, competition rewards, etc .; there are also various Various external conditions can play a role in restraining, restraining and limiting the performance of bad behaviors, such as teacher criticism, school punishment, failure of competition, and so on. This motivation, which is inspired by external forces and the external environment (ie, incentives), is called external motivation.

Motivation can be divided into two categories from the source: intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation. In school education, there are a variety of external conditions that can attract, motivate, and induce students, and become a source of motivation to promote their active activities, such as parental encouragement, teacher praise, competition rewards, etc .; there are also various Various external conditions can play a role in restraining, restraining and limiting the performance of bad behaviors, such as teacher criticism, school punishment, failure of competition, and so on. This motivation, which is inspired by external forces and the external environment (ie, incentives), is called external motivation.

Chinese name

External motivation

Applied discipline

psychology

Extrinsic motivation concept

External motivation: By giving praise, prizes, bonuses, honors, etc., it may still affect those who have low desire for success and are highly afraid of failure to participate in sports competitions. We call this behavioral tendency inspired by external factors as external motivation.

External motivation

External motivation often exists in opposition to internal motivation. The behavior of any one person is not just purely internal motivation or external motivation, but through the interaction between the two. Incentive performance has a stronger effect, while in other cases intrinsic motivation is dominant. ^[1]

Extrinsic motivation

Extrinsic motivation

Animal trainers in the circus provoke the animals' desire to perform various difficult movements by providing them with delicious food; teachers in schools promote enthusiasm for learning by giving students certificates of merit, little red flowers, and small prizes; leadership of the work unit Mobilize employees' enthusiasm for work by providing high salaries and benefits ... Indeed, extrinsic motivation is effective and successful in stimulating ideal behaviors and suppressing bad behaviors, because human beings have a natural innate tendency-to benefit and avoid harm, but also That is, as long as the external stimuli and incentives provided are beneficial to individuals, what they desire and need, they will stimulate people's tendency to act; and vice versa.

Extrinsic motivation

However, if the cause of the behavior is only related to receiving rewards and evading punishment, then this behavior will only occur under the conditions of reward and punishment. Once the external conditions disappear, the behavior it motivates will "bounce" back. The original level. There are even examples in real life, where rewards are given first and then withdrawn, making the final level of behavior lower than when no rewards appeared.

External motivation is more passive

Inspired by extrinsic motivation, a more utilitarian purpose tends to occur: students learn in order to obtain rewards and avoid punishment. At this time, extrinsic forces play a major role in controlling their learning behavior. Learning activities are not for the purpose of learning the knowledge itself, or for the interest in the activities themselves.

Prerequisites and conditions for external motivation internalization

Although the internal motivation is more durable and stable than the external motivation, objectively speaking, the individual's inherent interests are limited after all. Most attitudes, values and behaviors are acquired and cultivated the day after tomorrow. Internalization. The motivation is the same. For those behaviors that lack intrinsic interest, it is usually necessary to first use external stimuli to strengthen them, and then gradually cultivate the individual's interest in the activity itself and the control of the behavior. Finally, the internal forces manipulate the behavior to complete the internalization process of motivation. Here, external forces can be said to be a prerequisite for this process.

Ryan and Desi point out that motivation is actually a continuum from externally controlled to self-determined. One extreme of the continuum is completely externally controlled behaviors (such as actions taken to avoid punishment), and the other extremes are internally motivated behaviors (such as activities that can lead to happiness). The behavior in the middle part of the continuum needs to be initially stimulated through external inducements, but during the behavior process, the individual gradually experiences the happiness of self-determination and self-regulated, thus creating a sense of self-satisfaction. In other words, the reason why individuals continue to perform these behaviors in the later process is because they feel the value of the self and the meaning of the activity (Connell, 1991, Deci & Ryan, 1985).

External Motivation Theory Basis

The theoretical basis of extrinsic motivation comes from the viewpoint of behaviorist school. Different from the content of the intrinsic motivation theorists in the previous chapter, they emphasize the traction of external stimuli and situations on behavior. Behaviorist theorists emphasize that human behavior is established in the acquired environment through conditioned reflection, and motivation is a stimulus to behavior caused by external stimuli. Reinforcement is an indispensable factor in the acquisition of human behaviors. It enables the establishment of conditioned reflexes between external stimuli and learner responses, and through continuous repetition, the two are linked.

External Motivation Theory Basis

Strengthen and consolidate step by step, so as to reach what we call "learned".

Researchers of this school believe that the establishment of any conditioned reflex and the study of any behavior is to obtain reinforcements and get rewards to meet the inner needs of individuals. The same is true in learning activities. Students study because they can get rewards, praises, excellent grades, etc. in the process. We stimulate students' learning motivation through external reinforcement methods such as rewards and ratings. The reason why students avoid bad behaviors in the classroom is because they will be criticized, criticized, punished, and isolated. We reduce bad behavior by punishing and ignoring these external means. In a word, human beings always tend to benefit and avoid harm. Behaviorism is based on this to stimulate behavioral motivation and shape human behavior. In the theory of extrinsic motivation, Pavlov's classic conditioned reflex theory and later Skinner's operational conditioned reflex theory are the most classic. ^[2]