Intrinsic/extrinsic motivation: A false dichotomy?

The impact of Deci & Ryan’s self-determination theory in social psychology is difficult to overstate. This is the source of the frequently argued point that intrinsic motivation (motivation to do something based on inherent properties of the task that make it interesting or enjoyable) is undermined by extrinsic rewards (i.e., points, money, badges, etc.). The theory is not universally accepted: Extrinsic rewards offered for performing boring tasks have been demonstrated to lead to greater intrinsic motivation, and two (controversial) meta-analyses have argued that rewards that reflect competence increase inherent interest in a task. Chris Hecker has sorted through the literature to illuminate the two points on which most researchers seem to agree:

Let’s focus on the first point. Why is this true? Some argue that it’s because we tell ourselves stories about why we do what we do: when rewards are present, our story is more likely to become “because I’ll get a reward” than “because I want to.” Others say it’s because we feel that we are being cajoled or bribed, which causes us to devalue the task—if someone has to reward us for doing it, it must not be worth doing on its own. In either case, it is our beliefs about the inherent value of the task that drive intrinsic motivation. The danger in both cases is that when the rewards are removed or become uninteresting, our motivation for the task will vanish as well.

However, things get complicated in the case of games, in which some tangible, expected, contingent rewards also happen to make a game more inherently interesting or enjoyable. Furthermore, rewards that are extrinsic to one aspect of a game can provide intrinsic motivation for another, often in an indirect or unpredictable way. A thought experiment from Jesse Schell’s 2010 Gamasutra interview illustrates how easily things can get hairy:

And another from Ted Castronova (reprinted with permission):

The research on intrinsic motivation suggests that if the mining task is “interesting” (in the absence of reward), then receiving a reward is likely to make it seem more dull; if the mining task is dull, receiving a reward might make it seem more interesting, or it might not, depending on whose theory you subscribe to.

If we assume the mining task is dull, then fewer people are likely to put in the effort to perform it, making the resulting gold pieces objectively more valuable. Also, independent of the actual economics, self-perception theory suggests that the duller the task, the more valuable the reward will seem (I wouldn’t be swinging this heavy pick, the player tells herself, if I weren’t getting something totally awesome in return). I’m speculating here, but it doesn’t seem too implausible that having an in-game currency of high psychological value enables a more interesting economy, more difficult and compelling choices about how to allocate one’s resources, and other high-level phenomena that make the game inherently enjoyable. So here, as in Schell’s example, eliminating a mechanic that seems superficially extrinsic is likely to undercut an intrinsic motivator that supports the experience of playing the game as a whole.

If we can’t be sure about the effects of eliminating seemingly extrinsic motivators, a logical alternative strategy would be to amp up seemingly intrinsic ones. In the next post, I’ll talk about how multifaceted theories of motivation provide game designers with more actionable ways to do just that.