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The question of motivations has long been of interest to me and closely relates to topics on which Bruce has written as well. Bruce and I are both alumni of the Eastman School of Music of the University of Rochester. The July-August issue of their alumni magazine Rochester Review contains an article titled “Self-Determined” with the subtitle “What motivates you? Two Rochester experimental psychologists are challenging some cherished assumptions.” An online version may be found here.
This article by Karen McCally on the work of professors Edward Deci and Richard Ryan is the sort that can give any reader much to ponder. The bottom line is we are not motivated by the things we may think we are.
…after several years of collaborative research, Deci and Ryan emerged with Intrinsic Motivation and Self-Determination in Human Behavior (1985). In their pathbreaking work, they articulated self-determination theory, a comprehensive repudiation of behaviorist orthodoxy regarding human motivation.
In the broadest sense, the theory, as it has developed over the past quarter century, maintains that motivation develops from within us, grounded in our basic human needs to develop our skills and capacities, to act of our own accord, and to connect to others and to our environment—needs Deci and Ryan refer to as “competency, autonomy, and relatedness.” Self-determination theory, known among psychologists as SDT, holds that we are most deeply engaged, and that we do our most creative work, when we feel that we are acting according to our own will on behalf of goals we find meaningful.
Deci’s and Ryan’s most startling finding was that rewards such as prizes and money were not only less effective than behavioral psychologists had long supposed, but under some circumstances could actually diminish people’s feelings of engagement and motivation.
“We were out of the mainstream,” Ryan says of the early research. “The idea that rewards would sometimes undermine motivation was anathema to behaviorists. There was a lot of resistance to looking at this set of ideas about motivation.”
As is the case with any challenge to long-held wisdom, resistance—or skepticism—endured. But in 1999, Deci and Ryan could point to over 100 studies that confirmed and extended their findings.
The case studies offered in the article are very interesting. Traditionally we think that we are motivated by rewards of some sort, especially financial, but actually we are motivated by “self-determination.” Later in the article this section gets at this point that while rewards may motivate some tasks, they actually are not what motivate us in a larger sense.
Of course, critics point to evidence to the contrary. Indeed, it’s not hard to find grade-schoolers who ace more tests when promised candy. Or teenagers who obey curfews when threatened with the loss of driving privileges. Or adults who continue to work at jobs they hate because the pay is lucrative.
In a 1990 book on goal-setting, psychologists Edwin Locke and Gary Latham, two persistent critics of self-determination theory, disputed the theory on conceptual grounds while noting that if rewards proved detrimental to motivation, “it is doubtful that [self-determination theory] has much application to real life.”
In fact, Deci and Ryan maintain that rewards can be effective and appropriate for simple and rote tasks. But in the context of the complex tasks that make up most of our lives in the professions, the trades, as athletes, artists, or as parents, the motivation that rewards generate is shallow and short-term. More importantly, adds Ryan, people who focus on rewards “miss out on the inner resources of intrinsic motivation and volition that are the wellsprings of true engagement and creativity.”
All of which points to the daunting challenges the theory poses: Just how do you create the conditions in which intrinsic motivation can flourish? And more specifically, how do you guide that motivation toward specific outcomes—at work, at school, or even at the fitness center? Says Deci, “control is easy.” Creating an atmosphere in which people feel free to act autonomously and creatively toward shared goals, he says, “is much, much harder.”
In the sidebar of the article Karen McCally outlines the original study that inspired their research which involved the use of a Soma cube puzzle.
In brief, Deci divided college students into two groups and placed each group in a room with a Soma cube and an assortment of magazines. He instructed the participants to work on the puzzle, but he offered to pay the members of one group for each design they correctly assembled. After a period of time, Deci told the students that puzzle-solving time was up, adding that he would leave for about 10 minutes to record data and would return with a questionnaire.
But rather than record data, he observed the groups from outside the rooms. He saw a noticeable difference: To a significant degree, paid participants were more likely to put down the puzzles and pick up the magazines. Participants who weren’t paid, on the other hand, were more likely to continue to work on the puzzles.
It was an instance, as Deci later explained, of “no pay, no play”—and an inspiration for decades of research on human motivation.
Finally, in another sidebar, we learn that a boss can apply self-determination theory by emphasizing “shared commitments and responsibilities.” The heart of this section is this series of four points.
1. Share decision making. It’s not practical in all circumstances, but it is in more cases than we often assume. If goals are non-negotiable, allow people to determine how they will get there. The more people participate in the decisions that affect them, the more engaged they will be.
2. Explain the reasons for goals and rules. Unless you’re dealing with a small child, explaining why a rule exists, or how a task is important to a larger objective, is almost always useful in promoting engagement.
3. Adopt the other’s perspective. Once you understand another’s perspective, it’s easier to work out—together—how you might help achieve valued aims.
4. Foster an alliance. Hierarchical relationships have their place. But work-related or behavior-related goals are often shared. The manager is not responsible for an employee’s mistakes, but she is responsible for the final product. Make your mutual interest clear—as well as your offer of support.
Again, the entire article is an interesting read, and more can be found on sources such as the Wikipedia, a dedicated site at the University of Rochester, etc . The whole topic of motivation and motivations is an interesting one as it gets at why for example some horn players achieve a high level and others don’t. Teachers who try hard to motivate students run the risk of doing the opposite by only tapping into rewards strategies rather than building self determination. The four strategies above are clues as to how to apply this theory to teaching and how to keep ourselves interested and moving forward as well. For sure the motivation for most of us is not money; as I say perhaps too often there are a lot of things we could do that are easier than horn playing.
