Dessi, Roberta and Rustichini, Aldo (2015) Strong intrinsic motivation. TSE Working Paper, n. 15-567, Toulouse

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Abstract

A large literature in psychology, and more recently in economics, has argued that monetary rewards can reduce intrinsic motivation. We investigate whether the negative impact persists when intrinsic motivation is strong, and test this hypothesis experimentally focusing on the motivation to undertake interesting and challenging tasks, informative about individual ability. We find that this type of task can generate strong intrinsic motivation, that is impervious to the effect of monetary incentives, particularly when the individual is "racing against himself". In our experiments, monetary incentives have no significant impact on performance. In a second experiment using the same kind of task but a setting designed to weaken intrinsic motivation, monetary incentives do have a significant, positive, effect on performance. This result confirms that our experimental setup may, with appropriate conditions, replicate the known crowding out effects.

Item Type: Monograph (Working Paper)
Language: English
Date: April 2015
Place of Publication: Toulouse
Subjects: B- ECONOMIE ET FINANCE
Divisions: TSE-R (Toulouse)
Institution: Université Toulouse 1 Capitole
Site: UT1
Date Deposited: 21 Sep 2015 13:08
Last Modified: 02 Apr 2021 15:49
OAI Identifier: oai:tse-fr.eu:29269
URI: https://publications.ut-capitole.fr/id/eprint/16888
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