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AbstractThe nature of a person's motivation (whether it is intrinsic or extrinsic) is a key predictor of how committed they are to a task, and hence how well they are likely to perform at it. However, it is difficult to reliably communicate and make inferences about such fine nuances regarding another person's motivation. Building on the social functional view of emotion and the evolutionary and psychophysical characteristics of facial expression of emotions, this research suggests that displayed enjoyment, as evidenced by the size and type of someone's smile, can serve as a strong nonverbal signal of intrinsic motivation. Taking the perspective of both actors and observers, five studies show that people infer greater intrinsic motivation when they see others display large Duchenne (vs. small) smiles, and that actors intuit this relationship, strategically displaying larger and more Duchenne-like smiles if they have an accessible goal to signal intrinsic (vs. extrinsic or no specific) motivation.

In an experiment investigating the effects of performance standards on the intrinsic motivation of college students, male and female subjects were presented with one of two levels of a performance standard (constant or accelerating) in a number guessing task. During a free time period
after completion of the task, observations of the subjects' continued play with the number task were made. A self report questionnaire of intrinsic motivation was also administered. Subjects who were given an accelerating standard of performance spent significantly more time playing the
game during the free period than those who were given a constant standard. A similar difference was not obtained on the questionnaire. The results indicate that accelerating standards of performance can enhance intrinsic motivation and that questionnaire answers such as those used in prior
studies and the current one may not be adequate measures of intrinsic motivation.

Employing intrinsically motivated individuals has been proposed as a means of improving public sector performance. In this article, we investigate whether intrinsic motivation affects the sorting of employees between the private and the public sectors, paying particular attention to whether extrinsic rewards crowd out intrinsic motivation. Using British longitudinal data, we find that individuals are attracted to the public sector by the intrinsic rather than the extrinsic rewards that the sector offers. We also find evidence supporting the intrinsic motivation crowding out hypothesis, in that, higher extrinsic rewards reduce the propensity of intrinsically motivated individuals to accept public sector employment. This is, however, only true for two segments of the UK public sector: the higher education sector and the National Health Service. Although our findings inform the literature on public service motivation, they also pose the question whether lower extrinsic rewards could increase the average quality of job matches in the public sector, thus improving performance without the need for high-powered incentives. Adapted from the source document.