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Many studies indicate that for tasks that require cognitive skills and creative thinking, monetary reward does not work to improve performance. Rather, we should give people purpose, autonomy and mastery to make them part of something bigger and give them the freedom to do what they think is important to solve the problem.

But while that might get people to perform better at a certain task, how does this relate to motivation? Are purpose, autonomy and mastery more intrinsic-oriented and could motivation be more long-term (extrinsic) oriented in terms of profit (in the broadest sense, including all costs and benefits)?

Any thoughts or even scientific insights on this?

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You seem to have quite a few questions here that might be overwhelming for a single user to answer. Have you tried breaking them down into separate questions? –  Seanny123 Dec 26 '14 at 16:38
@Seanny123 I guess you're right, I'll try to break them up. Thanks :-) –  Willem Mulder Dec 27 '14 at 17:15
I split it up! Other question here: cogsci.stackexchange.com/questions/8951/… and cogsci.stackexchange.com/questions/9127/… –  Willem Mulder Jan 22 at 12:10

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