Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation

A central place in psychology has always been accorded to the study of the effects of reward and reinforcement on behaviour. The ‘law of effect’, that the probability of a response being emitted varies as a function of its consequences for the subject, is one of psychology's most basic postulates. But does this ‘law’ adequately describe the effects of rewards and incentives on more complex forms of human social behaviour? Is a simple manipulation of reward and punishment, incentive and deterrent, all that is required to change people's behaviour in a ‘desired’ direction? The answer to this question has profound implications for educational, clinical, criminological, industrial and marketing psychology, and indeed for any applied area of psychology one could think of. It also raises more general issues concerning the potential abuse of psychological techniques for political purposes. It is not just an abstract theoretical question. Nonetheless, it is in social psychological research that some of the clearest evidence can be found concerning how this principle may and may not usefully be applied.

A distinctive feature of a social psychological approach to this issue is a concern with how incentives and deterrents are interpreted by those to whom they are offered. Confronted with incentives and deterrents, individuals might ask themselves: ‘Am I behaving in this way because of my own feelings towards what I am doing, or because of what I hope to get out of it?’