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The extrinsic incentives bias is an attributional bias according to which people attribute relatively more to "extrinsic incentives" than to "intrinsic incentives" when weighing the motives of others rather than themselves.
It is a counter-example to the fundamental attribution error as according to the extrinsic bias others are presumed to have situational motivations while oneself is seen as having dispositional motivations. This is the opposite of what the fundamental attribution error would predict. It also might help to explain some of the backfiring effects that can occur when extrinsic incentives are attached to activities that people are intrinsically motivated to do. The term was first proposed by Chip Heath, citing earlier research by others in management science.