Lecture 8 Flashcards
What is Motivation?
• The processes that account for an individual’s direction, intensity, and persistence of effort toward attaining a goal
Types of motivation
Extrinsic motivation: Engage in an activity for tangible reward.
-reward, punishment. “study to get a good grade”
Intrinsic motivation:
Engage in an activity for its own sake (no tangible rewards)
-pure enjoyment of a task, to achieve mastery. “ study to increase knowledge”
Early theories of motivations
McGregor’s theory X and Y: negative “x” and positive “y” view of employees.
Herzberg’s two factor theory: Satisfiers annd dissatisfier factors (motivation hygiene factors).
McClelland’s theory of needs: need for achievement, power, affiliation.
Extrinsic: Reinforcement Theory
Operant Conditioning
• Shape behavior through reward and punishment.
- > Reinforcement: increase desirable behavior.
- > Punishment: decrease undesirable behavior
Applications of Reinforcement Theory
Examples
• Example of positive reinforcement
̶ Praising an employee for coming early for job.
• Example of negative reinforcement
̶ An employer offering an employee a day off is an example of negative reinforcement
• Example of positive punishment
̶ Suspending an employee found stealing from work
• Example of negative punishment
̶ Demonstrated in the form of withholding promotions/docking pay
Extrinsic: Equity Theory
• Basic Premise
– Individuals seek balance (or equity) between their own ratio of inputs (e.g., effort) to outputs (e.g. money, promotions) as compared to others
• Equity -> Satisfaction
We both study 10 hours and we both get a B
• Under-/ Over-reward (inequity) -> Tension
Organizational Justice
- Distributive justice: perceived fairness of outcome. “I got the pay raise I deserved”
- Procedural justice: perceived fairness of process used to determine outcome
- Interactional justice: perceived degree to which one is treated with dignity and respect
Intrinsic: Self-Determination Theory
- Our behavior can be self-motivated and selfdetermined.
- People inherently want to feel like they have control over their own actions (autonomy)
- When people do something they enjoy without reward, they attribute their behavior to their love for the activity (intrinsic interest)
- The introduction of extrinsic rewards for work that was previously intrinsically rewarding tends to decrease intrinsic motivation
Coloring Experiment
Giving someone an incentive to do something they enjoy decreases their intrinsic motivation (“crowding out”):
“I must be doing this for the reward, not because I really like it.”
Intrinsic: Goal-Setting Theory
- Goals tell us what needs to be done and how to do it
- Specific goals lead to better performance
- Challenging/Difficult goals lead to better performance
• Performance feedback about progress lead to
better performance
• Goal acceptance: For goals to be effective, they need to be accepted
Performance Goal, Learning Goal
Performance/ outcome goals:
- Focus on demostrating competence. “study to get A in English”
Learning goals:
- Focus on increasing competence. “Try to become fluent in english”
What’s wrong with telling kids they’re smart?
̶ Praised for ability/intelligence: they want to see how others scored, are more likely to lie about their scores and prefer easy task after failure.
̶ Praised for effort: want to see problem-solving strategies, are less likely to lie about their scores, and prefer a challenging task after failure.
̶ Praised simply for doing well (control conditions)
Performance goals vs. Learning goals
Performance goals:
- are an idealistic view of your current abilities.
- can be great in the short term.
Learning goals:
- help increase your performance potential.
- learning goals are great in the long term.
- > a combination of goals is often the best
- > when facing difficulties, people with performance goals lose motivation more quickly than people with learning goals.
How to increase self-efficacy
- Enactive mastery: gaining successful experience with the task.
- Vicarious modeling: becoming more confident when you see someone else doing the task.
- Verbal persuasion: a person is more confident when someone convinces you that you have the skills.
- Arousal: which leads to an energized state driving a person to complete the task.
The Intrinsic-Extrinsic Motivation Debate
• Extrinsic rewards & punishments can be effective for:
– Simple behaviors (brushing your teeth)
– Short-term behaviors (aversion therapy, e.g. Antabuse - drug for alcoholism)
– Behaviors that are inherently unpleasant (getting a shot)
• But are ineffective, and actually desmotivating for complex cognitive behaviors.
