The United States Military Academy is an elite, selective institution with an acceptance rate of less than 10 percent. Despite this, not everyone who matriculates graduates.<\/p>\n
Psychologists Amy Wrzesniewski and Barry Schwartz decided to find out why. Drawing on 14 years of data detailing the motivations and outcomes of over 10,000 cadets, they found intrinsic motivation to be the driving force of success.<\/p>\n
External motivators, even when found in parallel to strong indications of intrinsic motivation, increased the probability of dropping out. This is one of many studies that point to an important shift in how we understand motivation.<\/p>\n
All activities have consequences, some natural and others manipulated. Work earns money, things we do might make our parents proud, and sometimes we get ourselves to the gym with a promise of deliciousness afterwards. These external consequences can easily become our motivation for doing things, but current research indicates this could do more harm than good.<\/p>\n
Dr. Kou Murayama has looked extensively at the outcome differences<\/a> between intrinsically and extrinsically motivated work.<\/p>\n In a 2011 study, he assigned a problem-solving task to two groups of participants. One group was instructed to master the material while the others were told to outperform their peers. The later scored better on a surprise memory test that day, but the former performed better a week later.<\/p>\n\t\t