It is also a question I ask myself. I haven't found a single motivation in myself that is not in some degree externally triggered. Even the fear of losing respect of your equals (coworkers, friends, family), although maybe just a fantasy in your head, can still be argued to be external.
“But there is no real evidence that intrinsic motivation even exists.”<p>Yes, there is.<p>I have a Labrador dog, every time she watches a puddle, she wants to get in. Most Labrador dogs do the same with every source of water. I have not told my dog to like water.<p>Dogs also respond naturally to bunnies in the field.<p>We are not that different from dogs. I need to know how things work internally, I disassembled every electronic machine in my house when I was a kid because I HAD TO KNOW how those things worked, and nobody told me to do it, on the contrary I was punished by my parents as some of those did not come back to live(until I learned to do it well).<p>No matter the punishment I will do it anyway because there was something inside me that pushed me. I got so good that I will disassemble something and nobody will notice.<p>I have met people that needed to dance, or paint, or play music or create no matter how badly paid they were.
Very misleading title. His points are roughly tl;dr:<p>- Intrinsic vs. extrinsic is not sufficient to fully describe the range of motivation<p>- intrinsic isn't well-defined<p>- Extrinsic can work well, too<p>- It's not proven that intrinsic makes happier
Daniel Pink wrote a great book about this called "Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us". Review: <a href="http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/218852" rel="nofollow">http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/218852</a>
Is this just the lame philosophical trivia game where if you can name the thing that motivates you, by definition it's not intrinsic?<p>Booooooooooooooooooooooring.