Deci Case

The study conducted by Deci about the role of extrinsic rewards on motivation adopted an experimental method. The experiment was conducted using four experimental and one control group.

The four experimental groups were placed in environments offering different typed of extrinsic motivation. The first group was offered flat payment for work, the second was offered performance-related pay, the third was offered punishment on failure and the fourth was offered feedback on their performance.

As a result, Group 1 experienced a slight motivation because of the incentive offered. But there would not be any tremendous increase in intrinsic motive, as there is no competition or cultivation of skill.

Group 2 was induced with incentive on betterment of performance. This would cultivate a healthy spirit of competition, therefore acting as an excellent boost for intrinsic motivation. It not only cultivates skill, but it also increases the need to do better because of competing peers.

Group 3 experienced a strong but negative motivator in the form of punishment of failure. Although negative motivation is an option, it is not nearly as effective as positive motivation. As a result, intrinsic motivation in the group reduced drastically leading to lower quality and rate of improvement.

Group 4 was subjected to feedback from the coaches. This is an anomalous factor and its impact on intrinsic motivation depends on the type of feedback offered. Excessive negative feedback can lower intrinsic motivation by lowering self-efficacy levels. Where as, excessive positive feedback can often result on overconfidence among the participants, thus lowering the rate of success. Therefore it is essential to maintain a healthy balance between positive and negative feedback, to keep the intrinsic motive at optimum levels.

Finally, the control group, was kept in a neutral environment that didn't offer any extrinsic motivation. The lack of external factors will therefore result in no measurable increase in intrinsic motives.

This experiment adopted a fairly well planned method and was able to successfully prove that extrinsic motivation has a strong and alterable effect on intrinsic motives