We
often see a lot of people complaining about work. A majority of them regard
working as an extremely hard, vapid and low earning affliction. They always
dream to live a happy life without working. But in reality, it is not possible
to live without doing work. Each individual needs to work for various reasons,
no matter whether he is the son of the billionaire or a layman struggling with
poverty. When it comes to doing work, we are usually driven by an intrinsic or
extrinsic motivation. According to Oxford English Dictionary, intrinsic is
defined as “belonging naturally; essential”, while extrinsic is defined as “not
part of the essential nature of someone or something; coming or operating from
outside’. We can clearly depict from these two definition that people are
either driven by their own passion or self-interest towards a particular
subject, or to the rewards promised upon completing a task that is difficult to
accomplish. Having an intrinsic motivation is kind of normal. People who are
devoted to their target will work and sacrifice everything to achieve them. On
the other hand, extrinsic motivation are usually weak and interdependent.
People rely heavily on the rewards and may be discouraged if they fail to obtain
them. In my opinion, rewarding system is not an effective method to control
human behavior because they creates many negative consequences in the long run.
First and foremost, rewards can create
problems from the science point of view. According to Deci, the extrinsic
motivation, in general, causes decreased feelings of self-determination, which
then result in reduced intrinsic motivation. In the case of organizational
structure, as the organization approaches the mechanistic end of the structural
continuum, a decrease in self-determination ostensibly will result, in increase
of formal rules and standardized procedures (130). Such circumstance should
never happens because a strict rules will only troubles people for petty
reasons. For instance, an accountant relies heavily on monthly bonuses or
incentives before in order to provide good labor. Without these extra credits
he won’t contribute as much as he possibly could. The chief will then have to
set a Key Performance Indicator (KPI) to ensure people work accordingly to run
the company. All this because of a number of people who set incentives as their
main target in doing work. Sherman and Howard also said “Although this effect
(the rewards system’s effect) may be of only minor importance in private and
public sector organizations, it is of critical importance in voluntary or third
sectors organization in which extrinsic incentives are scarce and the
organization is dependent largely on voluntary activity that is primarily
intrinsically motivated” (884). People should never rely on rewards because not
all employers can afford to allocate budget for them. Rewards, if promised,
should never be set as the main priority when doing work. Instead, we should
try to foster ourselves to develop interest towards our work. In this way, even
though we might not get reward for something that we did, at least we can
continue helping the organization we serve to continue developing. Indirectly,
we are actually serving our country by maintaining a stable economy.
Another point of
view that should be taken into account is from the educational point of view.
Students are normally graded and labelled by teachers according to their exam
grades which are parallel with their intellect. Smart students will be given
rewards for their performance in form of praises or even gifts by their parents
or teachers. On the other hand, students who often get low marks will be
ashamed of their bad results, sometimes to the extent of losing their
self-confidence. Expectations from parents and teachers only worsens this
situation. They must study even harder to prevent the same thing from
occurring. Unfortunately, this situation also forces students to cheat as a
solution. The low-achievers will want to get the same rewards as the smart
students and eventually most of them choose the wrong way. An unhealthy
environment was then unintentionally created. In my very own personal
experience, I have seen my close friends cheat during an important exams i.e.
SPM. When asked why they did that, many of the reasons is because they couldn’t
bear to see sadness in their parent’s face if they fail. To witness this kind
of situation first hand makes me question the conventional education system.
The students are kind of forced to score during exams or they will have a hard
time to cope at college or school. Robin Grille said that “Rewards and praise
condition children to seek approval; they end up doing things to impress,
instead of doing things for themselves.” (Rewards and Praise: The Poisoned
Carrot). We can see from this situation that rewarding system deviates students
from learning with pristine values of education. Many of the students will
study for the sake of passing exams and not trying to apply their knowledge to
real life. Perhaps the authority should revise the education system that only
focuses on being the best on exam papers when instead there are people who are
weak in doing so but excel in other fields such as hands on work.
In a nutshell, extrinsic rewards can trouble
humans in a number of ways. Reward system, if fostered to students of young age
through praises or gifts by parents and teachers will create problems in the
future. The same students, when they were grown up, will be very likely to hope
for rewards from the organization they’re working with. Even though it does
have some good minor potential, the major harms can destroy us as a society
ultimately in the long run. We should come to a realization that rewarding to
motivate is not a good method to keep people producing good works. It can
unintentionally persuade people to do things beyond sanity.
Works Cited:
Grille, Robin. “Rewards and
Praise: The Poisoned Carrot – The Natural …” “The Natural Child Project”
http://www.naturalchild.org N.p., n.d.
Web. 23 Oct. 2016
Staw, Barry M. Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation.
Morristown, NJ: General Learning Center, 1976. Print.
Sherman, Daniel J., and Howard L.
Smith. The Influence of Organizational
Structure on Intrinsic versus
Extrinsic
Motivation. 4th ed. Vol. 27. N.p.: Academy of Management, n.d. Print.
