Can money enhance intrinsic motivation? A test of the content-consequence hypothesis.

Abstract

This article contains two conceptual replications of an experiment designed to test the hypothesis that when monetary payments are inherent to the task's content their presence (vs. absence) increases intrinsic motivation, whereas when they constitute the task's exogenous consequence their presence (vs. absence) decreases intrinsic motivation toward the task. The data of both experiments strongly supported the research hypothesis. The findings were interpreted as consistent with the assumption that intrinsic motivation ensues whenever the actor causally attributes his performance of the task to the task's content and inconsistent with the proposal that intrinsic motivation be identified with internal (or self-) attributions and extrinsic motivation with attributions to the external environment.