Intrinsic motivation is crucial for students to perform at their very best. However, to improve intrinsic motivation, previous research tends to contrast intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and focuses on the overjustification effect (less intrinsically motivated with the involvement of incentives), focusing on the addition of rewards to an activity. Additionally, there has been no research conducted on how immediate rewards influence people to associate the activities with their goals. Wooley and colleagues investigate whether the timing of rewards influence intrinsic motivation, how reward timing impacts the activity-goal association and the experience of an activity as an end in itself, and if immediate rewards affect intrinsic motivation more significantly compared to delayed rewards or no rewards.

In order to close the gaps, 5 studies were done to test if immediate rewards increase intrinsic motivation by strengthening activity-goal association. For the first 3 studies, participants were asked to complete a task for each experiment respectively (for example, reading a section of a novel), participants either received an immediate reward or a delayed reward. Participants were then asked to rank on a scale from 0-6 of their enjoyment, interest, and if the task was fun or felt like work. As a result, participants were more intrinsically motivated to complete a task when there was an immediate reward ranging from money to a candy, depending on the study. For studies 4 and 5, similar tasks were assigned with the addition of measuring extrinsic motivation and the size with timing of each reward. As a result, people perceived a greater overlap between reading and receiving rewards which increased intrinsic motivation, but not extrinsic motivation. Additionally, the study found a three-way interaction between reward timing, reward magnitude, and motivation type. The timing of the reward also influenced the participants' choice to continue reading, with immediate rewards leading to a higher likelihood of participants choosing to continue reading the book excerpt, while the size of the reward did not have a significant impact on intrinsic motivation, suggesting that the timing of the reward was more important than size. 

Wooley et al.’s (2018) study provides educators insight as to how to utilize intrinsic motivation. Since people tend to have higher intrinsic motivation when given an immediate reward, educators should consider rewarding students immediately after good behavior to encourage their intrinsic motivation in learning. Future EPIC studies can examine if offering immediate rewards for students who attempt to overcome failure will encourage intrinsic motivation for persisting through failure.

To learn more about Wooley and Collegues’ study, check out the link to retrieve this article: https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2018-22169-002

This post is written by Katelyn Chow. 

Reference: 

Woolley, K., & Fishbach, A. (2018). It’s about time: Earlier rewards increase intrinsic motivation. Journal of personality and social psychology, 114(6), 877.