As predicted, those who received an extrinsic reward for completion of the puzzles chose to do fewer puzzles during the free period than those who did not have such incentives attached to that activity. What had been an intrinsically rewarding activity had been undermined by extrinsic rewards. "This is interesting!" was replaced by "What’s in it for me?"

What Can We Do to Cultivate Intrinsic Motivation?

Given that intrinsic motivation stimulates achievement, especially in situations where people work independently (as students, teachers, executives, artists, scientists, etc.), how can we encourage it?

First, provide tasks that challenge and trigger curiosity. Second, avoid snuffing out people’s sense of self-determina-tion with an overuse of controlling extrinsic rewards. Under-stand that we can use extrinsic rewards in two ways: to control, as when a parent says, "If you clean up your room, you can have some ice cream," or to inform someone of success, as when a teacher or coach says, "That was out-standing - congratulations!" Attempts to control people’s behavior through rewards or watching over them (surveillance) may be successful as long as these controls are present. But, if taken away or when absent, a student’s interest in the activity often drops. Teachers who try the hardest to boost their students’ achievement on competency tests tend to be most controlling, thus ironically undermining their students’ intrinsic interest.

On the other hand, rewards that inform that their efforts are paying off can boost their feelings of competence and intrinsic motivation. For example, rewarding employees for high performance can boost intrinsic motivation. In one experiment not unlike Deci’s 1971 study involving Soma, researchers asked college students to work on puzzles. Those given informative compliments ("Compared with most of my subjects you are doing really well.") usually continued playing with the puzzles when they were left alone. Those given either no praise or a controlling form of praise ("If you keep it up, I’ll be able to use your data.’) were less likely to con-tinue. So, depending on whether we use rewards to inform or control, they can either raise or lower intrinsic motivation. In other words, all rewards are not bad, it is the type of reward that affects motivation.

It is also beneficial to praise effort more than ability. In a 1998 study researchers gave a large and diverse group of elementary school students a test with some fairly easy problems. Some they told, "You must be smart at these problems," while others they told, "You must have worked hard at these problems." After then struggling with some more difficult problems, those who had been praised for their intelligence enjoyed the task less and gave up sooner. By comparison, those praised for their effort stayed more focused, tried new strategies, and were less defeated by knowing that they had not done well.

There is an important practical principle here. Because the use of rewards to control undermines intrinsic motivation (and creativity, which is another study), parents, teachers, and managers should take care not to be overly controlling. It is important to expect, support, challenge, and inform, but if you want to encourage internally motivated, self-directed achievement, make every effort not to overly control.

Cultivating Intrinsic Motivation at Church