Extrinsic Motivation Quotes

Typically, if you reward something, you get more of it. You punish something, you get less of it. And our businesses have been built for the last 150 years very much on that kind of motivational scheme.

So many of today's programs are about trophies and jackets, and we think that's a big mistake.

The first gold star a child gets in school for the mere performance of a needful task is its first lesson in graft.

Everyone is motivated a little or a lot to do something or nothing. Motivation is the internalized drive toward the dominant thought of the moment. By definition, motivation is "motive in action."

Everyone gets motivated or inspired by different things.

If you want people to perform better, you reward them, right? Bonuses, commissions, their own reality show. Incentivize them. [...] But that's not happening here. You've got an incentive designed to sharpen thinking and accelerate creativity, and it does just the opposite. It dulls thinking and blocks creativity.

If you're looking for immediate rewards, you're only looking for the money.

Rewards and punishments are the lowest form of education.

It's concerning to me when people look at the course of education as just a means for getting a job four years later. If you're just doing this because it is going to lead to a 'good job,' you're better off doing something you're genuinely interested in.

One of the things I have tried to do with this book and with all of them really is avoid that simple, easy, reductionist view of motivation and to show we do things for a complex net of reasons, a real braid of reasons.

Money can extinguish intrinsic motivation, diminish performance, crush creativity, encourage unethical behavior, foster short-term thinking, and become addictive.

I'm curious about what makes people do things that they do, unless it's absolutely terrifying to me.

Motivation is undoubtedly the single greatest influence on how well people perform. Most productivity studies have found that motivation has a stronger influence on productivity than any other factor.

The nature of our motivation determines the character of our work.

You read a book, write a detailed review as proof you've read it, and they give you a badge. That's where my competitive nature came out. Give me the badges! I would sit in the library all day, not 'cos I loved reading, just because I needed those badges.

The wrong kind of praise creates self-defeating behavior. The right kind motivates students to learn.

Years of research in psychology has shown that rewards and punishments can be very effective in changing behavior. But, at the same time, they can create an addiction to rewards and punishments.

What motivates most people to change their behavior is consequences. No consequences? No behavior modification.

I think the reason we might hesitate to pay cash to students for doing well on tests or getting good grades or reading books is that we sense that the monetary payment is an extrinsic reward.

Competition is enjoyable only when it is a means to perfect one’s skills; when it becomes an end in itself, it ceases to be fun.

The prize and punishments are incentives toward unnatural or forced effort, and, therefore we certainly cannot speak of the natural development of the child in connection with them.

The modern man thinks that everything ought to be done for the sake of something else, and never for its own sake.

If I was doing something for the money, I'd be quite miserable.

If the reason you’re taking on a mission is for the money you’ll make, I believe you’ll fail.

You can motivate by a mission or motivate by money. The mission will work.