Extrinsic motivation

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Extrinsic motivation is the motivation that comes from external sources. In the case of learning, this motivation may come from teachers, parents, threat of failure, bribe, penalty, etc. It is not possible to extrinsically motivate effective learning. Extrinsic motivation is based on reward or penalty separated from the value of knowledge itself. As such, it easily leads to violations of the fundamental law of learning. When learning is not its own reward, incoherent learning may occur. Such learning is subject to interference. Not only does it not last, but it also results in accelerated forgetting in other areas of knowledge. Intrinsic motivation is the key to efficient learning.

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This glossary entry is used to explain "I would never send my kids to school" (2017-2024) by Piotr Wozniak

Figure: The figure presents the mechanism by which coercion affects mental health and well-being:

Figure: Concept map activation in learning motivated by extrinsic rewards. In the presented example, instead of learning sparked by the learn drive underlying intrinsic motivation, the teacher asks a student to learn "how we can train NK cell metabolism". The extrinsic reward is a good grade, which the student may translate in his head as future earnings or the value of goals that have not been determined yet. Goals of health and productivity are grayed (either absent or inactive). The student does not intrinsically relate the learning process to her dreams. The goal imposed by the teacher does not probe student's prior knowledge. Perhaps she even does not know what NK cells are. The entire process is deprived of reward, unless the student is well-schooled and conditioned to find satisfaction in any form of imposed learning even if that learning scores low on value, coherence or consistency. The simplest differentiation of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation is the fact that only the first is accompanied by the pleasure of learning.


Compare: The same concept map activated via intrinsic motivation routes