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Essay on Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation

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When a person plans or wants to do something, he or she has a motivation for that specific thing. In other words, when a person does something, that person has a reason why he or she should do that thing. Not always there is a reason to do something, but sometimes may be many reasons that are backing a person to take those actions to do it. This happens not only to humans, or living organisms, but also in nonliving organisms. An example is when a rock which had bounced after it hit the floor while falling down. Scientists may tell some of the reasons why the rock does that kind of action, but they cannot tell all of the reasons that back the rock’s actions. A similar thing, as the scientists, was Alfie Kohn trying to do in his essay, “Why …show more content…

The reason is that the reward is not the main thing that is backing up the action; but something else that could be self-develop, peace, etc. An example is a boy does his homework just because he was told by his parents to do his homework. Based on that the boy believes that his parents know what is best for him to do.
On the other hand, extrinsic motivation is when a person takes actions knowing that at the end of that action there is a reward waiting for him or her. In this case, the person does it not because thinking about self-development, peace, etc. but about the reward. An example could be that the boy’s mother will not let the boy watch his favorite cartoons, until he finishes his homework. That way the boy will finish his homework just to be able to watch the cartoons, but does not care if he fully understands the materials on which the homework was about.
Third possibility is the both type of motivations, intrinsic and extrinsic, are the reason for someone’s action. It is when the person is doing something knowing there is going to be a reward at the end, also during that action the person will develop in skills, professionalism, etc. The example could be taken from the essay that Kohn wrote. The reward that Kohn could have got is being paid for writing the essay, with the main back up that the action will bring development of experiences in writing professionally. Another example could be a man runs in a burning building to save his neighbor’s kid. That man

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