Question

Research suggests that when we increase extrinsic motivation to learn, we may actually decrease intrinsic motivation. What does this say about parents “paying for grades?” Should parents ever offer extrinsic rewards for good grades?

Answer 1

Extrinsic motivation refers to an organism acting on the basis of a reward or punishment from someone but intrinsic motivation refers to the organism’s own efforts to accomplish something without an external force. This means internal or intrinsic motivation would be successful on the long run whereas external or extrinsic motivation would last until the reward or punishment exist. Parents should motivate the children to find out the reasons for doing something and they shouldn’t keep asking their children to accomplish something. When they stop the reward, the child would stop acting too. This would only make the child weak because left alone, the child wouldn’t have any reason to do that thing which was attached to a reward earlier. This would also cause the child to become more dependent which would further put the child down when faced with challenging tasks that they have to do without any rewards.

Thank you for your question. Please rate if you like the answer.