ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the more powerful intervention approach — manipulating consequences. Most applied behavioral scientists view "intrinsic motivation" differently from the description used in pop psychology books. The behavior-based perspective is supported by research and everyday experience. Most athletic performance, for example, includes natural or intrinsic consequences that give rewarding or correcting feedback. Intrinsically motivated tasks, or behaviors, lead naturally to external consequences that support the behavior or give information useful for improving the behavior. The intrinsic and extrinsic consequences are external to the individual. Behavioral scientists, however, do not deny the existence of internal factors that motivate action. They have found negative consequences can permanently suppress behavior if the punishment is severe, certain, and immediate. When people feel controlled by negative consequences, they are apt to simply resign themselves to doing only what is required.
