Motivation

Motivation

Motivation is the driving force which makes people act in order to fulfill their needs, uphold their values and achieve their goals.

 Needs are the creation of nature. They are the basic requirements for survival. Everybody needs food to eat, water to drink, air to breathe in and a house to live in. We cannot live without love, friendship etc. One cannot survive without them. 

Values are the product of culture. They are one’s beliefs about things which are worth having or avoiding. 

Goals are the desires, the wishes, the aspirations and ambitions one wants to realize. These are personal to individuals and may differ from person to person.

 It is these three things which impel people to work with all the energy and resources at their command to make their life more worthwhile, more beautiful. In the absence of this driving force, one may not have any inclination towards work. The desire to have them keeps him on his toes all his life. People work with more or less energy, work more or less hard in accordance with the motivation they have.

Motivation gives us the energy or rather drives us to summon up all the energy that we have and put it into action for the desired objective.

Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation

Intrinsic motivation is the motivation that comes from within oneself. It is an individual’s own desire to pursue a goal, to indulge in an activity, to make an achievement. No force outside him drives him to do these things. He does them because he considers them worthwhile, because they give him pleasure and satisfaction, because he enjoys doing them, or because he considers them honourable. It is the value he attaches to them, his interest in doing them and the joy he gets from them that urges him to do them or work for them. The reward he hopes for is his own happiness or satisfaction. A man may play a game, do some kind of social service, or make a donation not for any reward to be given by anybody other than he himself. He does so not for the sake of appreciation or honour he will get but for the joy he feels by doing them. An external reward does figure anywhere.

Extrinsic motivation is the motivation that comes from some outside source. When works hard to achieve wealth, power, fame, honour, appreciation etc. or to avoid some kind of punishment  or harm or disaster, the motivation that is driving him is extrinsic. Of course, achievement of these goals gives him joy and satisfaction but this joy and satisfaction is attached to the external awards that he gets. What we have to consider is whether he would do those things if the promise or hope of getting them were not there. What he works for the rewards. The happiness is only incidental. The activity itself is not the source of happiness or satisfaction.

The motivation behind the same action may be external or internal. If a child behaves well or respects the elders because it gives him pleasure, the motivation is intrinsic. But if he does the same things to avoid being rebuked by the parents or to earn the good opinion of the parents or to get a reward like a chocolate or a new shirt, the motivation is external. Similarly, a man may play a game for the sake of the joy it gives him. The motivation in this case is intrinsic. He may play the same game to win a medal, get a certificate or monetary reward, the motivation is extrinsic. So motivation is specific to the individual, not to the goal or the activity.

Intrinsic Motivation: 

1. Participating in a sport  because it gives you pleasure.
2. Cleaning you room because you like tidying up. 
3. Solving a word puzzle for the fun it affords. 
4. Studying a book because it is interesting.  
                                    

Extrinsic Motivation: 
1. Participating in a sport to win awards. 
2. Cleaning your room to avoiud being rebuked by your parents 
3. Solving a puzzle to win a prize. 
4. Studying a book to pass an examination.

Advantages of Intrinsic Motivation

Intrinsic motivation is long-lasting and self-sustaining because the source of motivation is within the person and is not likely to be discontinued.

Disadvantages of Intrinsic Motivation

It is very difficult to develop intrinsic motivation in an individual because it has to come from within.

Efforts to develop intrinsic motivation, even when they succeed, work very slowly and demand special preparation spreading over long period.

The same approach does not work with everybody because individuals are made of different psychological stuff. So the approach has to be subject centred and not subject matter centred.

Advantages of Extrinsic Motivation

1. Extrinsic motivation works faster. 

2. It is easy to plan and put into use. It is easy to plan and decide what kind of reward would be the best to motivate people to achieve a goal such completing a project or achieving a target.

3. It can be used to stimulate and sustain peoples’ interest in an activity which they do not like or enjoy or have interest in. In the case of unpleasant chores, only extrinsic motivation works because they do not offer any fun or pleasure.

4. It can be used to motivate people to acquire new skills or knowledge that they are not otherwise interested in. Once the skills are learned, the learners may begin to like and enjoy them and be intrinsically motivated.

5. It can be a kind of feedback for the intrinsically motivated people as it tells them whether or not they have reached a level worthy of appreciation or reward or not.

Disadvantages of Extrinsic Motivation

1. It is short lived. It lasts only as long as the reward is there. As soon as the reward is discontinued, motivation comes to an end. So it is like a bribe.

2. Sometimes, it develops into an addiction. People begin to expect the rewards regularly and work only when they are offered. They lose interest in the job and become lazy when the reward is discontinued.

3. In some cases, extrinsic motivation tends to have an adverse effect on intrinsic motivation. If an individual pursuing an activity as a result of intrinsic motivation comes to be rewarded too often or regularly for pursuing it, the intrinsic motivation slowly begins to weaken and extrinsic motivation begins to replace it.

Therefore it should be avoided where a person finds an activity intrinsically rewarding.

It should be used in such a manner that it does not make an activity pursued as a hobby like a job or task.

When to Use It

The majority opinion is that intrinsic motivation is the best motivation. But it is not there in every situation. Sometimes people have to be induced to perform tasks such as cleaning a sewer for which they have no intrinsic motivation as they find them unpleasant or repugnant. In such situations, extrinsic rewards can be a useful tool if they are used rightly and not excessively.

Researchers have arrived at three important conclusions about the effect of extrinsic rewards on intrinsic motivation.

 Three important conclusions

1.     It does not typically or always decrease intrinsic motivation. It has that effect when it is offered regularly or too often and the person concerned begins to expect it.

2.     Praise and positive feedback can increase intrinsic motivation when it comes automatically and spontaneously without appearing to be reward for doing something better than others.

3.     Intrinsic motivation begins to decrease when extrinsic rewards are given for accomplishing small tasks and regularly.

Conclusion

Some scholars are of the view that extrinsic rewards have an advers effect on intrinsic motivation. Others are of the opinion that they motivate people to work harder and become more competent. David G. Meyers has this to say in this regard, “A person’s interest often survives when a reward is used neither to bribe nor to control but to signal a job well done ………… If a reward boosts your feeling of competence after doing good work, your enjoyment of the task may increase.”

We may conclude by saying that while intrinsic motivation is looked upon as ideal motivation, both intrinsic an extrinsic motivation are important ways of driving  behavior. To use them judiciously, we have to understand the important differences between them and the effect that each of them has on the behavior of individuals.+