Why? ‘If-then’ rewards require people to forfeit some of their autonomy.” Only contingent rewards-if you do this, then you’ll get that-had the negative effect. “When children didn’t expect a reward, receiving one had little impact on their intrinsic motivation.“When money is used as an external reward for some activity, the subjects lose intrinsic interest for the activity.”-Edward Deci.The new approach to motivation has three essential elements: (1) Autonomy-the desire to direct our own lives (2) Mastery-the urge to get better and better at something that matters and (3) Purpose-the yearning to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves.Research shows that the secret to high performance isn’t our biological drive or our reward-and-punishment drive, but our third drive-our deep-seated desire to direct our own lives, to extend and expand our abilities, and to live a life of purpose.We have three innate psychological needs-competence, autonomy, and relatedness.But goals imposed by others can sometimes have dangerous side effects. Goals that people set for themselves and that are devoted to attaining mastery are usually healthy.But for more right-brain undertakings-those that demand flexible problem-solving, inventiveness, or conceptual understanding-contingent rewards can be dangerous.

Researchers have found that extrinsic rewards can be effective for algorithmic tasks-those that depend on following an existing formula to its logical conclusion.The carrot and stick approach to motivation is flawed.Tasks are either: (1) Algorithmic-you pretty much do the same thing over and over in a certain way, or (2) Heuristic-you have to come up with something new every time because there are no set instructions to follow.Much of what we know about motivation is wrong.Print | Audiobook | Get My Searchable Collection of 100+ Book Notes

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