Monica, Elaine and Koreena became affiliated with the Psychology Society for different reasons. For Monica, it was because it’s what is expected of overachievers like her. As the achiever in her batch, she constantly needs to be on top of grades, as well as extracurricular activities. For Elaine, the Psychology Society has been her whole life—even with all the controversies that surrounded last year’s administration of which she is a part of. And for Koreena, the Psychology Society was the more risk-free and less time-consuming organization.
The three ladies each joined for different motivations. So, how exactly does motivation begin? There are a number of motivation theories which explain how and why a person is motivated. Here are a few of these motivation theories:
• Acquired Needs Theory states that motivation is based on the human nature to seek for power, achievement or affiliation.
• Affect Perseverance, like belief perseverance, explains that motivation continues even if there is invalidation of the original cause of the motivation.
• Attitude-Behavior Consistency tells us that we are motivated when there is parallelism between our attitude and the behavior.
• Attribution Theory explains motivation as the human need to attribute to causes that support our ego.
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My class in Organizational Development was very boring. I could never get into the concepts and the ideas that my professor always babbled about. I tried my best to concentrate and to listen to him but nothing could ever get through my head. I did not exactly know if it was my professor or if organizational development was just as exciting as a computer bug, what I knew at that time was that the class was the perfect antidote to my insomnia.
Then my professor announced that we were supposed to research and write on motivation. I groaned at the thought and silently muttered “GREAT – a boring paper on a boring topic, what fate could be worse than this?” To my surprise however, once I started raiding the university’s library for resources and scavenging online databases for the write-up, I discovered that motivation is actually an interesting topic. I also found out that there are a number of internet sites with a glossary of concepts in motivation. But what in the world is a glossary of motivation? It’s basically a list of theories and terms that are relevant to the subject. Below is a preview of what a glossary of motivation looks like.
• Motivation – Daft (1997) states that motivation generally comes from internal or external forces that either awaken or increase a person’s enthusiasm to pursue a particular action, whether it may be related to his academics, employment or personal life. Similarly, motivation is also defined as an individual’s ability to change his behavior and attain a specific life goal.
• Motivational Principles – Quick (1985) emphasizes that there are four principles that are quintessential to motivation. First in line are the reasons that a person may have for doing whatever it is that he is doing. This is followed by the same individual’s belief that the goal of his action is for his own welfare. Therefore, if a person does not deem it necessary to engage in a behavior because the behavior will not do him any good, he will not engage in such. The third principle revolves around the attainability of the person’s goal. Finally, the conditions under which a behavior is executed may affect an individual’s motivation in carrying it out. For instance, if the behavior involves too much risk – e.g. the possibility that an individual may lose his fiancée if he accepts the division office managerial promotion at his job and move to another state – he may think twice before making his decision. If he values his career over his personal relationship, then he is likely to perceive the promotion as a motivating factor and is also likely to accept the position.
• Intrinsic Motivation – Intrinsic Motivation is a type of motivation. It includes the person’s need to achieve or need to fulfill and his interest in the pursuit of an action. Here a person may say that he is doing something because he enjoys it and it is in concordance with his perception of doing things and doing them well, whether or not there are specific rewards.
• Extrinsic Motivation – Another type of motivation is one that is rooted on external factors, thus the term extrinsic motivation. There are people who are motivated to complete a task because of the incentives that are attached to them – rewards which may be monetary or in kind, praises from one’s boss or promotions in one’s job or academics. For instance, there are students whose grades are in tiptop shape not because they like having an exemplary record for the sake of it but because their parents reward their consistent excellent performance. These rewards may be anything from gift cards to a substantial allowance increase or even a new car. Sometimes though, instead of rewards, external coercion may force a person to engage in an action. This external factor may be seen as a punishment or a necessary action that is forced on an individual. A divorced parent then may pay alimony to his spouse and children due to impositions of the law rather than due to his own accord.
• Identified Regulation – When one engages in an action that is a vehicle to his goal, this is known as identified regulation. Hence a person, who normally does not kiss the ass of anyone, may do exactly this in order to get his objective. For instance, a reporter who may not agree with a political candidate’s program may attend the latter’s rallies and campaigns in order to line up an interview with him because the interview may be the big-break that the reporter has been waiting for.
• Integrated Regulation – In motivation, integrated regulation simply says that a person does a behavior because it represents who he is and what he stands for. This is common among volunteers in non-profit organizations wherein members volunteer because the act is in their blood, even when they do not receive enough stipends for it.
• Introjected Regulation – People who carry out behaviors because of the tension or pressure that they feel within if they do not carry out the said behaviors are considered as using introjected regulation. With this as their reference then, there may be wealthy individuals who would give to charity because they feel guilty of their wealth if they do not do so.
• Self-motivation – A person may be naturally gifted or intellectual and yet may find himself as consistently unmotivated to do something about his life or about his studies. Here then the role of self-motivation is underlined wherein it is believed that a person’s expectations, drives and desires set the stage for him to become motivated and act towards obtaining these things.
There comes a time in everyone’s life that there is a need to perform unpleasant and daunting tasks for a reason or two–that kind of stuff hits me every once in a while. You know, having to tango with a colleague I don’t like, going to school on Mondays, washing the dishes, studying for exams. Stuff like this sucks every inch of motivation I have in me and, in the end, I feel frustrated, weary and even irritated. But you know what? I manage to go along—all thanks to a little bit of motivation 101.
If you’re a normal human being then sudden bouts of non-motivation will bother you. But fear not! Here’s a little crash course on motivation 101:
• Motivation is a drive that sets in motion behavior and gives this behavior direction. It is an internal condition that fuels the human being to act. Motivation is anchored in the most basic need to decrease physical pain and increase pleasure. Whereas a goal is something you strive to achieve, motivation is the fuel that powers the vehicle to get you there.
• Intrinsic motivation is motivation derived from rewards built-in to a task or activity itself. To be intrinsically motivated means doing an activity with no evident reward other than the activity itself.
• Extrinsic motivation is rooted outside the person—either to get a reward or to avoid punishment. This type of motivation can extinguish and replace inherent motivation. There must be a balance between intrinsic motivators and extrinsic motivators.
• The mind set can be a deciding factor in being motivated. A mindset filled with growth-inhibiting beliefs, prejudices and biases will hinder the person in pursuing his goals. Furthermore, the fear to move out of one’s comfort zone will make a person hard to motivate as he will blatantly refuse a new idea if it doesn’t fit his comfort zone.
• The level of motivation is dependent on grasping knowledge about possible obstacles ahead of time. By doing so, you can avoid them or, if not, focus your motivation when they are near.
There you have it—what you need to know about motivation from a crash course on Motivation 101. To stay motivated is a Herculean task. But, you see, it is not impossible. You can do something about that alleged elusive bachelor called motivation. Just do your homework in Motivation 101.
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Dale’s hobby of collecting toy race cars is nothing short of amazing. It’s a mystery how he manages to spend at least an hour a day polishing the nearly 300 models that he has. He cleans them as if he is bathing a baby and handles them with the care that a glass sculptor would give to his masterpiece. Dale is extremely devoted to his hobby so much that whenever he goes to the mall, his first stop would always be the toy store and he would stay glued to one section for hours – the vehicle section.
He loves toy race cars so much that he can differentiate one car from the other just by the mere mention of the model. What is even more amazing (and perhaps extravagant to most people) is how much Dale spends on his toy car collection. One time, Dale saved 80% of his weekly allowance just so he could buy the latest “Let’s Go” toy car model. Dale not only spends money on his collection, he invests even more time and effort in putting a toy car together! Mind you, he disassembles and assembles at least 2 cars each day to the point that he could assemble at least 50 of his toy cars with a blindfold!! Beat that!
When I asked Dale why he goes to such lengths for his toy cars, his reply was simple—he just loved toy cars.
A hobby such as toy car collection is a great exemplification of intrinsic motivation. According to Malone and Lepper, intrinsic motivation is basically “what people will do without external inducement”. In simple terms, it is motivation devoid of any external or outside rewards, such as money or grades. If you have intrinsic motivation, you do a task simply for the pleasure or satisfaction in doing and/or completing that task. However, it doesn’t mean that an individual will not seek rewards if he has intrinsic motivation. An intrinsically motivated person acknowledges the perk of rewards, but these rewards are not enough to keep that person motivated. In other words, with or without the reward, the person will continue to do the task, for as long as he has interest or believes in it.
If you can make someone align his values to yours, thus giving him an internal desire for the idea or value, you can set a very powerful motivation in the area. That is the power of intrinsic motivation. Plus, unlike extrinsic motivation, intrinsic motivation lasts longer because desires take time to be extinguished.
How do you increase intrinsic motivation? Here are a few things you should consider:
Rica spends the longest hours reading the most boring novels just to get the exemption privileges that our English Literature professor gives us. When all of us have given up hope on solving a Calculus problem for additional merits, Rica will waste precious neurons and hours until she could solve them. She even grabbed the tedious job of checking the class attendance for our Psychology class just so she could get extra credits for the course. Weird huh? But what makes it stranger is the fact that she doesn’t even like any of these courses. I know this because she writes about it in her blog. Rica’s other penchant is active participation in school organizations. She is the president of the school chapter of an organization that promotes the rights of animals, a member of the IT club and is also one of the lead actresses of the theatre group. The only school organization that Rica isn’t a member of is the male honor students fraternity. In the event that they start accepting female applicants, she will probably be the first one to whip it. But Rica doesn’t even like dogs so why is she the president of an organization that deals with animals, many of which are dogs? She hates IT and wrote essays on its disadvantages for the school publication so why is she in the IT club? She loves acting but despises many of the members of the theatre group so why can’t she just find another venue for her talent? I can only think of one answer to all my questions. They are all magnets for popularity. The animal club has been featured in local television for the work that it has done, IT members are esteemed by the student body and the theatre group is famous for its modern versions of classic plays. I assume that Rica’s frenzy for good grades is matched by a strong desire for popularity, hence the memberships.
Grades and acquiring popularity are two sources of extrinsic motivation. Extrinsic motivation is motivation that is rooted in an external stimulus, something that is in the individual’s environment. Extrinsic motivation provides the individual satisfaction in performing a task that even if the individual doesn’t really like doing it, he or she continues to accomplish the work because of his or her anticipated reward.
Extrinsic motivation has been the fuel of many of man’s activities – from education to the workplace. The various types of extrinsic motivation ranging from the more common ones such as money, fame and recognition, awards and prizes, status and privileges to the extreme ones like bribery, threats and punishments have been utilized by man of all ages and sizes, and in different circumstances.
Is extrinsic motivation effective? I wonder. Here are a few points on the matter that we should consider:
