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Intrinsic Motivation and Extrinsic Incentives Jointly Predict Performance:
A 40-Year Meta-Analysis
Christopher P. Cerasoli
The Group for Organizational Effectiveness, Inc. (gOE),
Albany, New York
Jessica M. Nicklin
University of Hartford
Michael T. Ford
University at Albany, State University of New York
More than 4 decades of research and 9 meta-analyses have focused on the undermining effect: namely,
the debate over whether the provision of extrinsic incentives erodes intrinsic motivation. This review and
meta-analysis builds on such previous reviews by focusing on the interrelationship among intrinsic
motivation, extrinsic incentives, and performance, with reference to 2 moderators: performance type
(quality vs. quantity) and incentive contingency (directly performance-salient vs. indirectly performance-
salient), which have not been systematically reviewed to date. Based on random-effects meta-analytic
methods, findings from school, work, and physical domains (k⫽183, N⫽212,468) indicate that intrinsic
motivation is a medium to strong predictor of performance (⫽.21–45). The importance of intrinsic motivation
to performance remained in place whether incentives were presented. In addition, incentive salience
influenced the predictive validity of intrinsic motivation for performance: In a “crowding out” fashion,
intrinsic motivation was less important to performance when incentives were directly tied to performance
and was more important when incentives were indirectly tied to performance. Considered simultaneously
through meta-analytic regression, intrinsic motivation predicted more unique variance in quality of
performance, whereas incentives were a better predictor of quantity of performance. With respect to
performance, incentives and intrinsic motivation are not necessarily antagonistic and are best considered
simultaneously. Future research should consider using nonperformance criteria (e.g., well-being, job
satisfaction) as well as applying the percent-of-maximum-possible (POMP) method in meta-analyses.
Keywords: productivity, academic achievement, literature review, employee motivation, rewards
If you want people to perform better, you reward them, right? Bo-
nuses, commissions, their own reality show. Incentivize them. But
that’s not happening here. You’ve got an incentive designed to
sharpen thinking and accelerate creativity, and it does just the oppo-
site. It dulls thinking and blocks creativity.
—Dan Pink, The Puzzle of Motivation
Motivation is a fundamental component of any credible model
of human performance (D. J. Campbell & Pritchard, 1976;Maier,
1955;Pinder, 2011) and has been a core focus of industrial and
organizational (I/O) psychology for many years (Steers, Mowday,
& Shapiro, 2004). It is a central component of healthcare systems
(Franco, Bennett, & Kanfer, 2002), a critical issue for academic
performance (Hidi & Harackiewicz, 2000), and a deciding factor
in personal health and well-being (W. A. Fisher, Fisher, & Har-
man, 2003). It is arguably the number one problem facing many
organizations today (Watson, 1994). Although an exact under-
standing of motivation continues to evolve (Kanfer, Chen, &
Pritchard, 2008), motivational forces can be described for practical
purposes as either extrinsic or intrinsic (Pinder, 2011),
1
guiding the
direction, intensity, and persistence of performance behaviors
(Kanfer et al., 2008). Extrinsically motivated behaviors are gov-
erned by the prospect of instrumental gain and loss (e.g., incen-
tives), whereas intrinsically motivated behaviors are engaged for
their very own sake (e.g., task enjoyment), not being instrumental
toward some other outcome. Yet, despite the importance of both
1
This is a substantial oversimplification of existing theory. A more
complete perspective of motivational regulation is forwarded under self-
determination theory by Ryan and Deci (2000) and Vallerand (1997).In
this nuanced perspective, behavior regulation can be classified as one of six
or seven types on a continuum from external (controlled) to internal
(autonomous), nested hierarchically by global, contextual, and situation-
specific factors. Thus, autonomous regulation is a broader concept than
intrinsic motivation. However, we suggest that our simplification of this
rich theory is forgivable, if only for the practical purposes this article
serves.
This article was published Online First February 3, 2014.
Christopher P. Cerasoli, The Group for Organizational Effectiveness,
Inc. (gOE), Albany, New York; Jessica M. Nicklin, Department of Psy-
chology, University of Hartford; Michael T. Ford, Department of Psychol-
ogy, University at Albany, State University of New York.
A previous version of this research was presented at the 2012 Annual
Academy of Management conference in Boston, Massachusetts. We would
like to thank Kevin Williams, Marcus Crede, and Mitchell Earleywine for
their feedback on previous versions of this article.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Chris-
topher P. Cerasoli, The Group for Organizational Effectiveness, Inc.
(gOE), 727 Waldens Pond Road, Albany, NY 12203. E-mail:
chris.cerasoli@groupoe.com
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Psychological Bulletin © 2014 American Psychological Association
2014, Vol. 140, No. 4, 980–1008 0033-2909/14/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0035661
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