Word.ws English Dictionary

extrinsic motivation

extrinsic motivation noun: the motivation to participate in an activity based on attaining an external goal, such as garnering praise and approval, or receiving an award or payment, rather than engaging in an activity for its own sake.

Noun

extrinsic motivation (countable and uncountable, plural extrinsic motivations)

  1. The motivation to participate in an activity based on attaining an external goal, such as garnering praise and approval, or receiving an award or payment, rather than engaging in an activity for its own sake.

Forms of extrinsic motivation

pluralextrinsic motivations

Questions about extrinsic motivation

What does extrinsic motivation mean?
Extrinsic motivation means the motivation to participate in an activity based on attaining an external goal, such as garnering praise and approval, or receiving an award or payment, rather than engaging in an activity for its own sake.
What part of speech is extrinsic motivation?
Extrinsic motivation is a noun.
What is the plural of extrinsic motivation?
The plural of extrinsic motivation is extrinsic motivations.

Words near extrinsic motivation in the dictionary

  1. extricateth
  2. extricating
  3. extrication
  4. extrications
  5. extrinsic
  6. extrinsic motivation
  7. extrinsic motivations
  8. extrinsic protein
  9. extrinsic proteins
  10. extrinsic reward
  11. extrinsic rewards

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: extrinsic motivation (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “extrinsic motivation.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/extrinsic_motivation. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.