Competency-Contingent Motivation Essay

2.3.2. Competency-Contingent Rewards (Specific) Competency-contingent rewards are rewards administrated for mastery of performance. Exceeding a specific standard of performance that can increase intrinsic motivation through enhancing recipients’ self-efficacy, interests, and performance can coerce them to believe they are competent or self-efficacious. Bandura’s claim has been supported by Cameron and his colleagues’ findings (Salkind, 2008), whereby they submitted that rewards for achievements indeed increase intrinsic motivation as opposed to Deci et al.(2001)’s claim. This type of reward, for Cameron and Pierce (2002), increase also the performer’s self-efficacy, interest, and engagement with the task.

2.4. Over-Justification Hypothesis The over-justification hypothesis is rooted in self-perception theory. The main tenet of this theory is that people often

(1973) examined the over-justification hypothesis that is consistent with self-perception theory. Nursery school children, who had been observed to disclose initial intrinsic interest, were asked to draw some pictures using a set of attractive marker pens. They were exposed to one of three experimental conditions. The first condition is the expected-award condition. Subjects were told in advance that they would be given “Good Player Award” if they agreed to utilize the pens to draw some pictures for the experiment. The second condition is the unexpected–award condition. Subjects were not informed about the reward until after they had completed the experimental task. In the no-reward condition, subjects were not informed or received any rewards. The findings clearly illustrated that students in the expected-award condition revealed less intrinsic motivation as opposed to those in the two conditions, indicating that children who were promised the “Good Player Award” in advance justified their use of the pens to be caused by the reward rather than because it was intrinsically