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Overjustification Effect Theory

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Over Justification Effect Theory
Origins of the theory
The overjustification effect theory was developed by Edward Deci in the year 1971. He was a professor of psychology in University of Rochester and director of its human resource. He is well known with his self-determination theory along with Richard Ryan the co-founder of the theory. The overjustification effect is a psychology effect on intrinsic motivation. Overjustification effect states that how individuals will feel toward performing certain tasks is determined by whether they are intrinsically or extrinsically motivated to perform the task . Deci conducted a study in which students were either asked to solve puzzles for money or no money. After the payment stopped, the researchers …show more content…

The theory somehow shows the degree of changes in desire or inner motivation when the external factors involved in performing tasks or activities but at the same time it is crucial to understand the intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation in first place. Intrinsic motivation is a desire to perform an activity or job out of the enjoyment produced by the activity itself. An individual expects no reward and consider the enjoyment he or she had is the reward for the activity. Extrinsic motivation is when an individual is performing something for external causes and not solely because he or she enjoys the task or the …show more content…

It is a natural instinct to seek for more or to have more but somehow it can decrease the level of enjoyment in performing task because they might working so hard for the rewards and may cause them stress or fatigue. It would not be a problem when the rewards are certain but the problem is when the rewards are abruptly unavailable due to several reasons. An employee who has been working so hard for the rewards must be really disappointed and probably reluctant to perform their daily task because of the transformation of their motivation dependency from enjoyment to rewards. In addition, organization also should strategically plans on how to give compensation or rewards. Once organization starts giving out too many rewards, employees will always ask for more compared to the previous rewards and at some point employees’ intrinsic motivation may be shifted wholly to extrinsic

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