I have been doing a lot of reading recently about what motivates us to do what we do, and I am amazed that there are so many different theories still in operation out there and that a lot of it is bosch. One of the most cited is the idea that we there are two kinds of motivations: instrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic rewards are those that come from the pleasure of doing the task itself, while extrinsic rewards are things like money and social status. The idea is that intrinsic rewards will have lasting motivational value, while extrinsic rewards lose their luster and can actually undermine motivation to perform a task. This idea has been a central feature of educational theory.
I’ve come to believe Steven Reiss’s idea that the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation is meaningless. He says there are 16 basic motivations or needs, and that they are all intrinsic. Whether the need is hunger, sex, exploration, creativity, social affirmation, love, power or vengeance (Reiss’s interesting sixteenth need), they all create an internal feeling of pleaure. Which should be obvious on its face–you can’t have an external pleasure, it has to be based in internal neural circuitry.
Reiss points out that a lot of the studies on intrinsic/extrinsic rewards are single trial studies that have a “head I win, tails you lose” quality. If you give a prize to Joey for painting and Joey stops painting, subscribers to this theory say that the prize has undermined his internal motivation to paint. But if Joey continues to paint, they will say that he is just doing it for the reward.
It makes much more sense to say that we have a certain number of basic needs (16 or whatever), and that some needs are more fundamental than others (a la Maslow’s hierarchy of needs). You can live many years without social contact, but only a few days without water. Money itself, which is often used as an example of an extrinsic reward, is not really a basic need, but only a means to satisfy one of many other basic needs. If the money keeps you from starving, that’s pretty fundamental, but if the money is a means to social affirmation, that may be less immediately important. But still important in the end, if we want to satisfy our needs (and we all do).
The only problem is that people sometimes have an unmet need, such as the need to feel safe or the need for love, and try to ammeliorate that desire through the positive rewards provided by filling other needs such as hunger (eating) or self-reliance (through money or power). Those may provide a temporary balm, but ultimately they fail to make us happy.
If there really is no reality to the the theory of intrinsic and extrinsic motivations, then we need to make a huge shift in our thinking about education and work.