A child who loved drawing for fun begins to draw less after being paid for every picture. This drop in intrins

Concept understanding — The Overjustification Effect

Imagine you love sketching in your free time. You do it because it feels good, because you lose track of time, because the act itself is rewarding. Now imagine someone starts paying you ₹500 for every sketch you finish. At first, you’re thrilled. But after a while, you notice something strange: you only want to sketch when you’re being paid. The moment the payment stops, the joy of sketching itself seems to have vanished. What happened?

That shift is the Overjustification Effect. It describes what happens when an external reward (like money, a grade, or a prize) is introduced for an activity you already found intrinsically motivating — that is, you did it for its own sake. Your brain, which originally justified the activity with "I do this because I enjoy it," now has a new, more obvious justification: "I do this because I get paid." The intrinsic motivation gets crowded out, or "over-justified," by the external reason. Once the reward is removed, you’re left with no strong reason to continue, because the original internal spark has been dimmed.

Important

The Overjustification Effect is not about laziness or ingratitude. It is a predictable psychological shift: when a clear external reason for an action appears, the internal reason becomes less salient. The activity itself stops feeling like its own reward.

This effect matters deeply in real life, especially for students and professionals in commerce and humanities. Consider these examples:

A student who reads history for the sheer fascination of it starts getting graded on every chapter. Over time, reading becomes a chore done only for marks. The love of the subject fades.
An employee who takes pride in crafting excellent reports is given a bonus for each report. Soon, they only write reports when the bonus is guaranteed. The pride in the work itself evaporates.
A volunteer who helps at a shelter out of compassion is offered a small stipend. The act of helping now feels like a job. If the stipend ends, the volunteer may stop coming. …

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The overjustification effect describes how an external reward can decrease a person's intrinsic motivation to perform an activity they previously enjoyed for its own sake.

The question describes a classic psychological phenomenon related to motivation. To understand it, we first need to distinguish between two types of motivation:

Intrinsic Motivation: This is the drive to engage in an activity purely for the enjoyment and satisfaction derived from the activity itself. The child drawing for fun is an example of intrinsic motivation.
Extrinsic Motivation: This is the drive to engage in an activity to earn a reward or avoid punishment. Being paid for drawing is an example of an extrinsic motivator.

The scenario presented illustrates what happens when an extrinsic reward is introduced for an activity that was previously intrinsically motivated.

The correct option is (b) the overjustification effect.

This effect occurs when an expected external incentive, such as money or prizes, decreases a person's intrinsic motivation to perform a task. When the child was drawing for fun, their motivation was intrinsic. Once they started being paid, their perception of why they were drawing shifted. They began to attribute their drawing to the external reward (money) rather than their inherent enjoyment. This "overjustifies" their engagement with the activity, leading to a decrease in their intrinsic interest. If the payment stops, or if the payment becomes the sole reason for drawing, the child may draw less or stop altogether because the original intrinsic joy has been undermined.

Let's look at why the other options are incorrect:

(a) burnout: Burnout is a state of physical, emotional, or mental exhaustion combined with doubts about one's competence and the value of one's work. It often occurs in high-stress environments or due to prolonged effort without adequate recovery. While a child might experience burnout from excessive drawing, the scenario specifically describes a drop in intrinsic interest caused by external rewards, which is a distinct psychological effect, not general exhaustion. …

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Q.A child who loved drawing for fun begins to draw less after being paid for every picture. This drop in intrinsic interest caused by over-use of external rewards is called:

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