Working Paper #2013-006
The importance of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation for measuring IQ
This research provides an economic model of the way people behave during
an IQ test. We distinguish a technology that describes how time
investment improves performance from preferences that determine how much
time people invest in each question. We disentangle these two elements
empirically using data from a laboratory experiment. The main findings
are that both intrinsic (questions that people like to work on) and
extrinsic motivation (incentive payments) increase time investments and
as a result performance. The presence of incentive payments seems to be
more important than the size of the reward. Intrinsic and extrinsic
motivations turn out to be complements.
- Keywords
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- incentives
- cognitive test scores
- JEL codes
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- J20
- J24
Cite this as
APA 7th ed.Borghans, L., Meijers, H., & ter Weel, B. (2013). The importance of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation for measuring IQ (UNU-MERIT Working Paper No. 2013-006). UNU-MERIT. https://unu-merit.nl/publications/working-papers/abstract/?id=4869