External Motivation

Notes

External motivation is when we Desire perpetuates endless wanting over satisfaction something as a means to something else, not in it's own right. Usually it involves someone who offers us these benefits as rewards if we commit this action.

There are many problems with external motivation. The main ones are:

It crushes "good" motivation - It crowds out Intrinsic motivation drives action through internal alignment and passion. When we are offered tangible rewards such as money or status for completing something, it extinguishes softer, more abstract reasons such as passion, enjoyment or Curiosity is the joy of filling knowledge gaps for performing the same action. It turns us into Econs are purely rational agents who maximize utility that view the world in a transactional way. External rewards essentially try to commodifie motivation into a matter of transaction.
No rewards = no motivation - Once these rewards stop, we lose all motivation to continue with that action, meaning that they create Dependency rather than cultivate motivation.
It backfires - Promising a reward for completing an action usually makes us worse off at performing that action. A reward shifts our attention to it rather than the action, limiting our ability to experience Flow is deep immersion where performance peaks and self-awareness disappears and doing it well, while also encouraging us to do as little as possible while meeting the criteria for getting the reward Goodhart's Law.

Most of us work for money, and not for the pleasure of productivity. Status, recognition and reputation are often examples of external motivation.