Extrinsic Motivation And Motivation

Goals and desires require an individual to be motivated to move from one state of being to the next. This motivation encompasses the emotional, cognitive, social, and biological drives that trigger behavior. Accordingly, the word motivation befalls the frequently used description of why an individual achieves a goal, and the word motivation comes from the Latin word movere, which means “to move.” Therefore, motivation stands as the state that “moves” an individual to behave in certain ways. For example, when a person is relaxing on the beach on a warm summer day and begins to feel hot, the physical need to cool down might cause a person to stand up, go to the water for a dip. If the heat is great enough, the person might even leave the beach

Sometimes people remain driven to do something because of external reward, or the by the avoidance of an objectionable consequence, as when one obeys the permitted speed limit to avoid a costly speeding ticket. When the motivation leads to an outcome that is outside of the self, it is called extrinsic motivation. In extrinsic motivation, a person performs an action because it leads to an outcome that is separate from the person (Ryan & Deci, 2000). For instance, giving a student money for every A grade, proffering a bonus to a salesman for the most contracts signed, or tipping a stylist for a good haircut. The student, salesman, and hairdresser remain motivated to work for the external extrinsic rewards. In contrast, intrinsic motivation is the form of motivation in which an individual implements an action because the act itself is enjoyable, satisfying, interesting, or rewarding in some internal

The author trusts that all humans have some level of motivation as long as they exist. In turn, there are several well-known classic approaches that consider motivation such as instinct, drive reduction, arousal, incentive, and humanistic approaches. It is beyond the scope of this paper to describe all in detail, but a brief synopsis of each follows: (1) Instinct approach theorists suggest that humans have many diverse instincts that are biologically determined and cause innate patterns of behaviors such as reproducing, territorial protection, curiosity, acquisition, and fight, flight or freeze to name a few (McDougall, 1908). (2) Drive-reduction theory proposes that individuals have needs that are essential for survival and this need cause a tension to act called a drive. These drives entail the primary drives for physical needs (water and food) and the acquired drives learned through experience or conditioning (need for money or social approval); whereas, one must meet the need to return to a state of homeostasis (Hull, 1943). (3) Theorists who support an Arousal approach believe that humans are motivated by stimulation and people develop an optimal level of stimulus tension; whereas, task performances may suffer if the level is too high such as severe test anxiety or even too low such as boredom (Teigen, 1994). (4) Incentive