Extrinsic Incentive Bias
We attribute others' motives to external incentives while attributing our own motives to values.
Extrinsic incentive bias is the tendency to attribute others' motivations to extrinsic factors (money, rewards, pressure) while believing our own actions are driven by intrinsic values (passion, purpose, curiosity). This leads to over-reliance on incentive systems in management and policy, and to undervaluing the intrinsic motivations of employees, volunteers, and citizens.
What it looks like in the wild.
- Workplace Manager vs. Employee A manager assumes employees only work hard when bonuses are offered, while the employees feel they work hard because they care about quality — each side misreads the other's motivations.
Recognising a definition is not the same skill as spotting it.
Two scenarios from the app, with distractors drawn from the same family of biases — which is what makes them hard.
After his car breaks down, Mike decides to learn basic auto repair because he values self-reliance. He assumes his friend who is also learning only wants to avoid paying mechanic bills.
Jordan is skeptical of a new wellness trend, thinking followers are just jumping on a bandwagon for social media likes. Jordan himself tries it because he believes it will genuinely improve his sleep.
Biases rarely arrive alone.
Understand more. Assume less.
188 biases, 18,869 scenarios, and a record of how you actually decide.
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