Psychological needs: Intrinsic Motivation and Autonomy Flashcards
What did Harry Harlow’s puzzle box study with monkeys show?
Monkeys puzzle solving behaviour couldn’t be explained by drives or external incentives
Showed another type of drive: an intrinsic reward
The introduction of food actually disrupted performance
What is Self-determination theory and the 4 key ideas?
1) HUmans are inherently active and constantly engaged with their environment
2) all humans have 3 psychological needs (autonomy, relatedness, and competence)
3) Psychological need satisfaction provides essential nutrients for engagment, growth, and psychological well-being
4) Environments may either support or thwart psychological needs
What does need support lead to?
Greater need satisfaction which leads to engagement, agency, motivation, internalization, skill development, pro-social behaviour, health
adaptive functioning, growth, well-being
What does need-thwarting lead to?
Greater need frustration
which leads to disengagement, passivity and apathy, amotivation, problematic relationships
Maladaptive functioning, defensiveness
What is amotivation?
lack or absence of volitional drive to engage in activities
What is intrinsic motivation?
Motivation to engage in an activity out of one’s interest and enjoyment
Performing an activity for its own reward
What is intrinsic motivation linked to?
linked to greater initiative and task persistence, deeper processing of info, positive behaviour change, more positive emotion, vitality, and wellbeing
What is the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation?
Intrinsic motivation comes from one’s interest, doing something for its own sake whereas extrinsic motivation is tied to some external factor that encouraging an action
What is the need for autonomy?
the psychological need to experience self-direction and personal endorsement in the initiation of one’s behaviour
What is autonomy need satisfaction?
it is characterized by feeling a sense of volition and self-endorsement
genuine, unpressured willingness to engage in activity
What is a motivating style? What are the two types?
the way someone interacts with or influences another person to encourage behaviours
1) Autonomy support style
2) Controlling Style
What is autonomy support motivating style?
Involves a considerate attitude and using an understanding tone. Also involves perspective-taking, to help build trust, foster a sense of social connection, and improve communication.
What is perspective-taking?
the foundation of autonomy support style
Seeing situations as if you were the other person
What is a controlling motivating style?
Tellling other what to think, feel, and do
Inducing guilt or pressure
Countering or trying to change negative feelings
Using pressuring language, pushing for compliance
Controlling behaviour through incentives like rewards and punishments
What are some challenges with autonomy support motivating style?
Empathy Gaps: cold-hot empathy gaps
Insufficeint adjustment: false consensus effect
What are Cold-hot empathy gaps?
when an emotional state is relatively cold/calm , we tend to underestimate how strongly we will feel in a highly emotional (hot) state.
ex) grocery shopping when hungry vs full
What is the false consensus effect?
we tend to overestimate the extent to which others share our opinions, beliefs, preferences, etc. Perceiving similarity feels like a shortcut to an understanding but this is not accurate
How can be better at perspective-taking?
Active listening– asking clarification questions, paraphrasing stuff, non-verbal cues (nodding, attention)
What are the two ways in which we can support interest and intrinsic motivation in another?
1) Encourage pursuit of personal goals and interests
2) Present activities in need-satisfying ways
Critical component is the feeling of choice,even if it is just the illusion of choice
Explain how children were motivated to learn math?
elementary children given math learning program where they could customize the games led to higher levels of liking from the game and more intrinsic motivation (want to keep playing)
Explain the nursing home study
In a nursing home, residents were either in a choice or control condition.
Choice: they could decide how their room is arranged, they decide how they want to spend their time, get to choose a gift, maybe a plant, and what kind of plant
Control: workers choose room arrangement to “look nice”, You are allowed to visit other floors, you get a plant
RESULTS: residents in choice group reported feeling happier, more active, improvments in mental and physical well-being
Is choice always beneficial? When might choice not be?
If there is overt or subtle pressure to pick a particular option negates benefits of choice
Choice must be meaningful and aligned with an individual’s interest and values to have psycholgical benefits (picking from a number of boring options will not yield benefits)
Too many choices can lead to decision fatigue (Ex. participation in 401k is dec when more fund options are obvious)
Choice may also feel overwhelming when we lack the skill or knowledge
Where does the lack of desire to make one’s choices come from?
May stem from a history of controlling actions
- if you could control people enough, they may begin to act as if they want to be controlled
ex) Experimenter acted in either authoritative or supportive way to children, the children then had to make a choice, children exposed to authoritarian experiement expressed less desire for choice
What is internalization?
the process through which a person transforms a formerly externally prescribed way of thinking or behaving into an internally endorsed one
How can we support value and internalization in each other?
1) provide explanatory rationales- stating the benefit of a task
2) acknowledge and accept negative feelings- using a collaborative approach to address underlying causes, support for relatedness needs promote internalization
3) use invitational language rather than demands- suggests, flexible and non-controlling language, choice without pressure
Why does relatedness promote internalization?
Harsh or dismissive responses likely creates friction and resistance between individuals, perpetuates negative affect, and impedes internalization. When we feel connected we are more able to internalize
What are the benefits of autonomy support?
Psychological need satisfaction, intrinsic motivation, efficacy, evaluations at work, job satisfaction, agency, passion for one’s profession, relationship satisfaction, well-being, less burnout, improved health
Longitudinal study shows that adopting an autonomy supporting style leads to benediys for the support PROVIDER as well. Following teaching interventions they saw:
- need satisfaction, passion for teaching, job satisfaction, and declines in emotional and physical exhaustion.
What is interpersonal control?
Controlling behaviour through incentives like rewards and punishments
-examples) telling other what to think, feel, and do, countering or trying to change negative feelings, pushing for compliance
What are some major issues with the controlling motivating style?
-Thwarts the individual’s psychological needs
-Creates long-term motivational problems
-Promotes negative emotions like guilt and anxiety
-Harms relationships
Do punishments work?
Punishments can lead to compliance in a short term, but has a number of side effects:
- undermines need for autonomy
- negative emotionality
-impairs relationship between the punished and the punisher
-Negative modelling of how to cope
-corporal punishment has been linked to serious issue slike antisocial and criminal behaviour, aggression, poor mental health
What are the two types of controlled behaviour?
Compliance: conforming to an expectation or request
Defiance: doing the opposite of what you are expected to do just because you are expected to do it. Not autonomous, you are still controlled.
Describe Deci’s study on extrinsic rewardsand summarize his findings. Why is this significant?
Deci did a study where participants are assigned to either an experimental or control group, both with a puzzle.
1st day: everyone plays with puzzle for a set time.
2nd day: the experiment group were paid $1 per puzzle configuration they could make.
3rd day: no pay for anyone, just play.
After each session Deci would leave the room for a few minutes and leave the person with the puzzle.
RESULTS:
1st day: no diff, ppl kept playing after Deci left
2nd day: the exp. group spent more time playing
3rd day: exp. group spent less time playing than control and less time than on day 1
Rewards DECREASE intrinsic motivation, but INCREASE extrinsic motivation
Ventral striatum activated in no payment group, dec in VS activity in paid group
How do extrinsic rewards affect intrinsic and extrinsic motivation?
Extrinsic rewards undermine intrinsic motivation but boost extrinsic motivation
How is learning impacted by extrinsic rewards?
- interfere with process and quality of learning
-focus shifts from mastery to just getting the reward
-surface level memorization, shallow encoding leads to poorer memory performance later on
-persistance becomes dependant on rewards
What is the difference between an algorithmic vs heuristic task?
Heuristic task: a more complex task requiring deep thinking, creativity, and problem-solving
Algorithmic: more straight-forward, step-by-step tasks
What do extrinsic rewards affect more, heuristic or algorithmic tasks?
they may increase output for algorithmic tasks but hurt performance and intrinsic motivation on heuristic tasks
–> they don’t undermine algorithmic tasks because they are dull
How do extrinsic rewards undermine creativity and motivation? (evidence)
STUDY: participants are in a room with a candle, thumbtacks, and matches. They are asked to mount the candle to the wall.
- usually takes people a whiel due to functional fixedness
They incentivized half the group and didn’t the rest
RESULT: incentivized Ps took longer!!
STUDY: children playing with magic markers (high intrinsic interest). They are split into groups and either expectedly rewarded, unexpectedly rewarded, or not rewarded.
RESULT: decline in intrinsic motivation in expected group (no longer interested in playing after the reward)
Why do extrinsic rewards undermine intrinsic motivation?
When we are given external rewards (or are threatened) we lose our perception of autonomy and sense of ownership over the action.
We shift from an internal locus of causality to an external locus of causality.
What circumstances are rewards less likely to undermine creativity and motivation?
The extent to which extrinsic rewards undermine creativity depends on the extent to which they limit autonomy depends on the way you perceieve the rewards
How did google attempt to boost autonomy?
20% time” at Google led to creation of products such as Gmail, Google Translate, & Google New
- a company policy where employees are encouraged to dedicate 20% of their work time to personal projects or ideas outside regular work
How does money factor into motivation?
There are baseline “rewards” like getting paid for working, but if baseline needs aren’t met focus will be on unfairness and anxiety.
Unmet baseline rewards lead to undermining satisfaction and motivation
Summarize the research evidence suggesting that extrinsic rewards undermine prosocial behaviour.
STUDY: children are either in no reward condition or material reward condition after helping.
They are then tested again on a helping task.
RESULT: child in no-reward condition helps but the material condition does NOT HELP.
STUDY: Blood donation is either volunteer, paid, or option to donate to charity
RESULT: volunteer condition, 52% of women donated, paid, 30% donated, and charity, 53% donated.
The provision of extrinsic reward diminishes intrinsic motivation
How are rewards and unethical behavior related/
External regulation in the form of rewards may increase cheating, dishonesty, and othe r unethical behaviour
Research shows that setting compensation goals can increase dishonesty when managers are paid a bonus for hitting certain targets.
Are all rewards bad?
They can be useful when trying to motivate ourselves or others to do boring tasks but we should avoid them for intrinsically interesting tasks.
