Motivation is the fire that drives humans to keep moving, but we often misunderstand what actually keeps that fire burning. In a world obsessed with achievement and material rewards, we are used to believing that giving prizes is the best way to spur someone’s spirit and productivity. However, psychological reality shows something far more complex because there is a thin line between giving a sincere nudge and accidentally extinguishing the pure passion that has existed from the start. Understanding how external influences can change the way our minds work is a crucial step to ensuring that creativity and love for the process are not destroyed by the promise of transactional rewards.
The Root Problem of the Overjustification Effect
The psychological phenomenon known as the overjustification effect is an interesting paradox in the study of human motivation. Basically, this phenomenon occurs when providing external rewards such as money or prizes for an activity that was previously enjoyed intrinsically actually causes a decrease in interest in that activity. This challenges the common assumption that giving rewards will always increase positive behavior. On the contrary, when someone starts to see the reward as the main reason they do something, the pure joy that comes from within slowly erodes and is replaced by an obligation to get the reward.
Theoretically, this happens because of a shift in an individual’s perception regarding the cause of their behavior. Humans have intrinsic motivation—the drive to do something because the activity itself provides satisfaction—and extrinsic motivation—the drive that comes from external factors. When external rewards are given for something that is already pleasant, individuals begin to experience the overjustification effect on their actions. They conclude that they are doing the activity because of the reward and not because they like it. As a result, when the reward is removed in the future, the external reason for acting disappears and their internal interest has already been damaged by the presence of the reward earlier, so they no longer have the desire to continue the activity.
When Crayons Lose Their Charm
The basis of this understanding stems from a classic experiment conducted in 1973 by psychologists Mark Lepper, David Greene, and Richard Nisbett. They observed preschool-aged children who had a high natural interest in drawing activities. In the experiment, the children were divided into three groups: a group that was promised a reward before starting to draw, a group that was given a reward suddenly after finishing, and a group that was not given a reward at all.
The result was very surprising because when the researchers returned to observe the children several weeks later during a free-play session, the children who had previously been promised rewards showed a much lower interest in touching their crayons compared to the children in the other two groups. For the first group, drawing was no longer a fun game but a task that had to be done to get a certificate. This proves that the promise of a reward can change a child’s perception of the value of creativity.
Critique of Modern Education Systems
If we pull this phenomenon into the context of current education systems, we will find a very worrying pattern. Schools often get trapped in a transactional culture that makes grades, rankings, and diplomas the primary currency. From an early age, students are taught that learning is a way to get rewards in the form of high numbers on a report card or to avoid punishment in the form of red marks. Consequently, the natural curiosity that should be the engine of education is extinguished. Many students end up learning only for the sake of exams, so they become very proficient in memorizing information for the short term but immediately forget it after the test is over because their motivation was extrinsic from the first place.
Rigid standardization systems also exacerbate this condition. When the curriculum only focuses on final results that can be measured quantitatively, space for exploration and failure—which are an important part of genuine learning—becomes closed. Students become afraid to take creative risks because they worry it will ruin their grade reward. Education, which should be a journey of self-discovery, turns into a mass production line that makes students feel like laborers chasing weekly target scores rather than little scientists uncovering the secrets of the world.
The long-term effect of an education system that relies too heavily on external rewards is the emergence of a generation experiencing academic burnout and a loss of independence in learning. When they graduate and there are no more teachers giving grades or parents promising prizes, many individuals feel lost and don’t know how to motivate themselves. They have become accustomed to being driven from the outside, so when that external control is gone, they lose the reason to continue growing and learning independently.
The Dilemma of Commercialization and Efforts to Maintain Passion’s Purity
Outside the world of education, this phenomenon also explains why many highly talented individuals choose not to commercialize their work or hobby even though it has the potential to generate a lot of money. Someone who has a passion for painting, writing, or creating music often feels that turning their passion into a primary source of income will ruin their personal relationship with the work. When a work starts to be valued with money, the creator’s focus tends to shift from inner satisfaction to fulfilling market tastes. Pressure to remain productive for financial demands or the desire to maintain sales figures can quickly turn freedom of expression into a stifling administrative burden.
The decision to let a talent remain just a hobby is often a form of self-defense against the overjustification effect. They realize that once the activity has a work label, their autonomy will decrease because they have to follow external expectations such as clients or audiences. For this group, the pure pleasure of creating is something that cannot be bought with material things. They prefer to earn a living in another field so that the activity they love remains a sacred space free from competition and economic targets, allowing them to continue enjoying it as it is without having to feel indebted to anyone.
Towards More Meaningful Appreciation
However, this does not mean that all forms of reward are bad, as the key lies in how and when the reward is given, both in learning environments and professional spaces. Education and our social systems should start shifting from controlling systems to systems that support individual autonomy so that intrinsic motivation is not eroded by external, transactional targets. Research shows that informative rewards, such as sincere praise for effort and appreciation for the problem-solving process, can actually maintain or even increase someone’s original spirit in creating.
In addition, we need to respect individuals’ choices not to always commercialize every talent they possess because maintaining a distance between the love of the process and economic demands is a wise strategy to avoid the overjustification effect. Therefore, it is important for educators, parents, and leaders to be more wise in providing appreciation by valuing curiosity and self-development more than just chasing numbers. By keeping the fire of intrinsic motivation burning, we not only produce high-achieving individuals but also human beings who have pure happiness in every piece of work, even without the lure of prizes.
