Removing financial incentives demotivates the brain
Year: 2010
Type: article
Abstract: Social scientists and many biologists are all preoccupied in different ways with the nature and effects of the ways incentives influence behavior. One type of incentive is clearly intrinsic; it originates within a person and is often linked to exploratory behavior, hedonic pleasure from self-determined mastery, and desire to satisfy curiosity for its own sake (1). Another type of incentive is extrinsic; typically, it is designed and administered by an outside person or authority, is precise, and is usually financial, tied to fame, or has some other kind of monetizable status. Because of its various natures, intrinsic motivation is difficult to measure and observe. An adventurous step is to measure brain activity during conditions of apparent intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Murayama et al. (2) do exactly this. Their results are striking evidence for a phenomenon often noted in social psychology—namely, extrinsic incentives (e.g., pay) can undermine intrinsic incentives (e.g., fun).
Author: Colin F. Camerer
Institution: California Institute of Technology
Language: English
Subfield: Safety Research
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1998774323