Incentives are stimuli in our environment that motivates us to perform actions. They can, of course, be both good and bad. Like going for a run or eating a nasty McDonald’s ultra-processed “chicken” sandwich. These incentives move us to behave one way or another, rather than using our own internal motivation to drive us to do things. Just think of giving a dollar to your kid every time they do their homework. That’s an incentive, but maybe not the best one according to studies on extrinsic reward systems.
