It’s about time: Earlier rewards increase intrinsic motivation.

Abstract

Can immediate (vs. delayed) rewards increase intrinsic motivation? Prior research compared the presence versus absence of rewards. By contrast, this research compared immediate versus delayed rewards, predicting that more immediate rewards increase intrinsic motivation by creating a perceptual fusion between the activity and its goal (i.e., the reward). In support of the hypothesis, framing a reward from watching a news program as more immediate (vs. delayed) increased intrinsic motivation to watch the program (Study 1), and receiving more immediate bonus (vs. delayed, Study 2; and vs. delayed and no bonus, Study 3) increased intrinsic motivation in an experimental task. The effect of reward timing was mediated by the strength of the association between an activity and a reward, and was specific to intrinsic (vs. extrinsic) motivation-immediacy influenced the positive experience of an activity, but not perceived outcome importance (Study 4). In addition, the effect of the timing of rewards was independent of the effect of the magnitude of the rewards (Study 5). (PsycINFO Database Record

Stimulating Intrinsic Motivation in Millennial Students: A New Generation, a New Approach

“…The practice of AST also contributes to the development of IM by providing a rationale for choices (Tai et al, ; Queen and Hess, ), empathizing with the perspectives of students (Ten Cate et al, ; Hickman et al, ), and minimizing the use of controlling language (Mohr et al, ; Lopes et al, ; Meza et al, ) in the teaching environment. These practices provide students with the opportunity to pursue unique individual goals (Woolley and Fishbach, ) and interests (Ezell et al, ; Agius et al, ), and satisfy their needs for autonomy (Woolley and Fishbach, ) and competence (Desy et al, ; Gauer and Jackson, ). It is significant that the practice of AST also benefits students with ingrained low levels of autonomy (Cohn and Lyons, ; Hew and Lo, ) and motivation (Spasenoska et al, ; Melin‐Johansson et al, ; Rotenstein et al, ).…”

“…It is also noteworthy that controlling behavior of educators has been consistently reported to impede student learning (Emerson, ; Mor et al, ), and achieve only short‐term compliance (Fryer et al, ; Nuffer et al, ). Thus, autonomy‐supportive health care education is intrinsically valuable by providing students with opportunities to learn from different perspectives (Vandewaetere et al, ; Burch et al, ; Mestdagh et al, ; Rowland and Kumagai, ; Woolley and Fishbach, ), and thereby enhance a greater conceptual understanding of the material (Abdel Meguid and Khalil, ; Christensen et al, ).…”

“…This conveys to students the notion that their feelings are important to their educators (Perera et al, ; Mabel and Britton, ), and can influence some aspects of their teaching environment (Gillispie, ; Gibson, ). Even the simple realization that an educator is approachable is often enough to motivate students in their learning experience (Dingwall and Allen, ; Garden, ; Woolley and Fishbach, ).…”

“…Hence, test‐enhanced learning practices should emphasize no‐stakes or low‐stakes scenarios (Karpicke and Bauernschmidt, ; Strombach et al, ; Raza et al, ), where the primary purpose is to enhance recall to promote student learning (Sluka et al, ; van Gessel et al, ). In addition, such test‐enhanced learning practices should specifically align with predetermined course objectives to offer students opportunities to practice important skills (Rogers and Tutty, ; Schubert, ; Yan et al, ), analyze complex situations (Elmore et al, ; Woolley and Fishbach, ), and synthesize different points of view (Sinclair et al, ; de Bruin et al, ).…”

“…The majority are extremely motivated (Nuffer et al, 2017;Khalil et al, 2018), and believe that they need a college education to achieve their career goals (Ottenberg et al, 2016;Worly et al, 2018). These individuals consider all aspects of life from a global perspective (Fryer et al, 2016;Berger et al, 2019), tend to adopt technology at its highest levels (Hennessy et al, 2016;Shatto and Erwin, 2017), expect on-demand services (Orsini et al, 2016b) that are always available (Woolley and Fishbach, 2018;Manspeaker et al, 2019) and easily accessible (Fond et al, 2018;Lysak et al, 2018). Hence, they prefer educational opportunities that allow them to stay connected with technology (Agius et al, 2018), and expect their educators to do the same (Joshi et al, 2017;Mor et al, 2018).…”