In 1949, psychologist Harry Harlow placed puzzles in monkeys’ cages and was surprised to find that the primates successfully solved them.
Harlow saw no logical reason for their motivation. The monkeys’ survival didn’t depend on it, and they didn’t receive any rewards or avoid any punishments.
Harlow offered a novel theory: “The performance of the task provided intrinsic reward.” The monkeys performed because they found it gratifying to solve puzzles.
Further experiments found that offering external rewards to solve these puzzles didn’t improve performance. In fact, rewards disrupted task completion.
This led Harlow to identify a third drive in human motivation:
1. The first drive for behaviors is survival. We drink, eat and copulate to ensure our survival.
2. The second drive is to seek rewards and avoid punishment.
3. The third drive is intrinsic: to achieve internal satisfaction.
But Harlow’s theory was met with disdain from the behavioral scientists who dominated motivational theory at the time. It took almost two decades for scientists to return their attention to intrinsic drives.
Negative Impact of Rewards
In 1969, psychologist Edward Deci ran a series of experiments that showed students lost intrinsic interest in an activity when money was offered as an external reward. The results surprised many behavioral scientists.
Although rewards can deliver a short-term boost, the effect wears off. Even worse, rewards can reduce a person’s longer-term motivation to continue a project.
Deci proposed that human beings have an inherent tendency to seek out novelty and challenges, to extend and exercise their capacities, to explore, and to learn.
Open Source Innovations
The third drive has become more important as our society moves from a manufacturing-based economy to one of knowledge and services.
As proof, examine the case of two companies that set out to publish online encyclopedias:
1. Microsoft hired the best people and devoted considerable funds to achieve Encarta.
2. A global force of volunteers created Wikipedia with no budget or salaries.
Encarta no longer exists, while Wikipedia thrives as a fully functional volunteer project.
Still, most businesses continue to pursue short-term incentive plans and pay-for-performance schemes in the face of evidence against them.