What is the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic rewards

But, alas, we don't live in such a motivation-Utopia, and being extrinsically motivated doesn't mean anything bad -- extrinsic motivation is just the nature of being a human being sometimes. If you have a job, and you have to complete a project, you're probably extrinsically motivated -- by your manager's praise or a potential raise or commission -- even if you enjoy the project while you're doing it.

If you're in school, you're extrinsically motivated to learn a foreign language because you're being graded on it -- even if you enjoy practicing and studying it. So, intrinsic motivation is good, and extrinsic motivation is good.

The key is to figure out why you -- and your team -- are motivated to do things, and encouraging both types of motivation. Research has shown that praise can help increase intrinsic motivation. Positive feedback that is "sincere," "promotes autonomy," and "conveys attainable standards" was found to promote intrinsic motivation in children. But on the other side of that coin, external rewards can decrease intrinsic motivation if they're given too willy-nilly.

When children received too much praise for completing minimal work or single tasks, their intrinsic motivation decreased. The odds are, if you're reading this blog post, you're not a child -- although children are welcome subscribers here on the HubSpot Marketing Blog. But the principles of this study are still sound for adults. If you're a people manager, be intentional with your praise and positive feedback. Make sure that it's specific, empowering, and helps your direct reports understand your expectations and standards.

But make sure you aren't giving too much praise for work that's less meaningful for your team, or they might lose intrinsic motivation. If you're an individual contributor, tell your manager when their feedback is motivating -- give them positive feedback, too.

By providing positive feedback to your manager when they give you praise that keeps you motivated, you, in turn, will extrinsically motivate them to keep managing you successfully. Meta, huh? Extrinsic rewards don't just involve bribery although bribery can work. In some cases, people may never be internally motivated to complete a task, and extrinsic motivation can be used to get the job done.

In fact, extrinsic rewards can promote interest in a task or skill a person didn't previously have any interest in. Rewards like praise, commissions, bonuses, or prizes and awards can also motivate people to learn new skills or provide tangible feedback beyond just verbal praise or admonishment. But tread carefully with extrinsic rewards: Studies have shown that offering too many rewards for behaviors and activities that people are already intrinsically motivated to do can actually decrease that person's intrinsic motivation -- by way of the overjustification effect.

In these cases, offering rewards for activities the person already finds rewarding can make a personally enjoyable activity seem like work -- which could kill their motivation to keep doing it.

If you're a people manager, use extrinsic rewards sparingly to motivate your team to take on new responsibilities or achieve lofty goals. Bonuses, commissions, recognition prizes, and promotions can be an effective way to motivate or reward your team for learning new skills, taking on new challenges, or hitting a quarterly goal.

But make sure you're giving your team members the time and resources to explore skills and projects they're already excited about independently -- without making them a part of their regular responsibilities, which could demotivate them. An extrinsic reward is an award that is tangible or physically given to you for accomplishing something. It is a tangible recognition of ones endeavor. Because extrinsic rewards are tangible, they are usually given to the person doing the activity; as such, they are typically not from within the person.

Therefore, extrinsic rewards means the reward is extrinsic to the performer of the activity or behavior. Here is an important distinction that I like to emphasize. When talking about rewards, intrinsic rewards are those that originate from within the person, and extrinsic rewards are those that originate from something beyond the person. However—as you might recall the previous post—when talking about motivation, intrinsic and extrinsic has nothing to do with whether the motivation originates from within the person or outside the person.

Instead, it means whether the motivation is intrinsic to the activity or not. Here is the tricky part, so stay with me. Some people may be driven by rewards. So rewards can sometimes be the reason that drives people to do things.

Thus the rewards we get, can sometimes be the motivation. However, people do thing for many reasons beyond the rewards, so there are many motivations that are not rewards.

Since rewards can sometimes be a motivation, is it an intrinsic motivation or extrinsic? This is an important question and one that has confused many in the gamification industry.

You see, I said it was tricky! So when an activity or behavior is motivated by rewards, it is always extrinsically motivated. Therefore all rewards —both intrinsic rewards and extrinsic rewards—are by definition extrinsic motivations i. Just because we happen to use the same set of words i. This is an unfortunate consequence of the fact that human language is simply not precise enough compared to mathematics and computer science.

This is compounded by the fact that academic research tends to be very narrowly focused, and disparate disciplines often do not have enough communication with each other. Or, along the same lines but in more simplistic terms, why do your employees work for your company?

Many surveys and studies have strived to understand why people work. Psychologists Edward Deci and Richard Ryan identified six reasons: play, purpose, potential, emotional pressure, economic pressure, and inertia.

Employees want to find meaning in the work they do and want to see opportunities for personal and professional growth and development. By recognizing the desires of your employees and ensuring your culture is hyper-focused on supporting their play, purpose and potential , you can build, influence, and sustain a positive work environment that promotes creativity, respect, productivity, and — above all — continued motivation for greatness.

Without this foundation, your strategy for motivating employees is going to vary widely. Extrinsic rewards are usually financial or tangible rewards given to employees, such as pay raises, bonuses, and benefits.

They are extrinsic because they are external to completing the work itself and are controlled by people other than the employee. They can be essential in jump-starting initial buy-in or participation from people in the initial stages of readiness to change pre-contemplation or contemplation.

Think of them as a defibrillator to a stopped heart. Their job is to get the heart beating on its own. Intrinsic rewards are psychological rewards that employees get from doing meaningful work and performing it well. Can be created by allowing employees to do more self-managing and adding value to their work by innovating, problem-solving and improvising. Think of them as a pacemaker for a heart that is already beating.

Their job is to keep the heart on-pace and in rhythm. That switch from external to internal motivation is critical. Employees may work hard in the short-term to avoid a negative consequence, but this can decrease engagement and job satisfaction over time, leading to burnout and turnover.

In conclusion, extrinsic rewards and motivators can be used effectively to engage employees in a short-term situation to push them towards a goal. You want a highly-committed, motivated workforce — as every HR professional, manager, business owner and CEO does. Employees crave control and allowing them to take responsibility for their job and tasks and ditching a micromanagement approach will empower employees to take ownership and pride in their work and see to it that projects are completed with excellence.

How this applies to wellness: Wellness committees are a perfect place for this to happen. Give your committee actual control over decisions instead of just the ability to provide input for things like programming, external events, challenges and even spending the budget. Employees want to make a difference. Developing an authentic culture of purpose that your employees rally around and believe in is vital.