9.1 Introduction to Motivation

motivation and emotion

War-Torn Somalia Mohamed’s family comes from the East African nation of Somalia (shaded red on the map). They fled their homeland in 1991 during a violent government overthrow that led to more than 20,000 civilian deaths (Gassmann, 1991, December 21). The image on the right shows a group of Somali rebels in the capital city of Mogadishu about a month after the regime was toppled.

Left: Globe Turner, LLC/Getty; Right: AP Photo

By the end of third grade, he had graduated from an English as a Second Language (ESL) program and could converse fluently with classmates. He sailed through the rest of elementary school with As and Bs in all subjects. Middle school presented new challenges, as Mohamed attended one of the poorest schools in the district and occasionally got picked on, but he continued to excel academically, taking the most challenging classes offered. In high school, he took primarily international baccalaureate (IB) or pre-IB classes, which prepped him for his undergraduate work at the University of Minnesota. Now with his bachelor’s degree in scientific and technical communication, Mohamed is contemplating his next step. Will it be law school? A master’s degree? Maybe a PhD?

If you think about where Mohamed began and where he is today, it’s hard not to be awed. He entered the United States’ school system 2 years behind his peers, unable to speak a word of English, an outsider in a culture radically different from his own. Without any tutoring from his parents (who couldn’t read the class assignments, let alone help him with schoolwork), he managed to propel himself to the upper levels of the nation’s educational system in just 12 years.

The Scholar Four-year-old Mohamed (left) dressed in special attire to celebrate his completion of a surah, or chapter in the Qur’an. When this photograph was taken, the Dirie family had left Somalia and was living in a temporary home in Kenya. Some 14 years later, Mohamed graduated from high school in St. Paul, Minnesota (right).

Courtesy of Mohamed Dirie

How do you explain Mohamed’s success? This young man definitely is intelligent. You can tell he is bright after 5 minutes of conversation. But intelligence is not the only ingredient in the recipe for outstanding achievement. Other factors are important as well, including something psychologists consider essential for success in school: motivation (Conley, 2012; Hodis, Meyer, McClure, Weir, & Walkey, 2011; Linnenbrink & Pintrich, 2002).

What Is Motivation?

There are people who get kicks from bungee jumping from helicopters, and those who feel completely invigorated by a rousing match of chess. Human behaviors can be logical: We eat when hungry, sleep when tired, and go to work to pay the rent. Our behaviors can also be senseless and destructive: A beautiful fashion model starves herself, or an aspiring politician throws away an entire career for a fleeting sexual adventure. Why do people spend their hard-earned money on lottery tickets when the chances of winning may be 1 in 175 million (Wasserstein, 2013, May 16)? And what in the world drives teenagers to wrap houses in toilet paper on Halloween night?

One way to explain human behavior is through learning. We know that people (not to mention dogs, chickens, and slugs) can learn to behave in certain ways through classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and observational learning (Chapter 5). But learning isn’t everything. Another way to explain behavior is to consider what might be motivating it. In the first half of this chapter, you will learn about different forms of motivation and the theories explaining them. Keep in mind that human behavior is complex and should be studied in the context of culture, biology, and the environment. Every behavior is likely to have a multitude of causes (Maslow, 1943).

Psychologists propose that motivation is a stimulus or force that can direct the way we behave, think, and feel. A motivated behavior tends to be guided (that is, it has a direction), energized, and persistent. Mohamed’s academic behavior has all three features: guided because he sets specific goals like getting into graduate school, energized because he goes after those goals with zeal, and persistent because he sticks with his goals even when challenges arise.

In this chapter, we will explain why people do the things they do using the concepts of motivators and motivation. But first, let’s take a closer look at how operant conditioning, particularly the use of reinforcers, can help us understand the relationship between learning and motivation. When a behavior is reinforced (through positive or negative reinforcers), an association is established between the behavior and its consequence. If we consider motivated behavior, this association becomes the incentive, or reason to repeat the behavior. Imagine there is a term paper you have been avoiding. You decide you will treat yourself to an hour of Web surfing for every three pages you write. Adding a reinforcer (surf time) increases your writing behavior; thus, we call it a positive reinforcer. It is the association between the behavior (writing) and the consequence (Web surfing) that transforms the Web surfing into an incentive. Before you know it, you begin to expect this break from work, which motivates you to write.

Adrenaline Junkie Why are some people drawn to thrill-seeking activities like bungee jumping? Their behaviors are best explained by intrinsic motivation—the stimulation from these experiences is highly rewarding. “Sensation seeking” appears to be an inherited trait associated with certain patterns of dopamine activity in the brain (Derringer et al., 2010).

VisualCommunications bungee jumping/Getty Images

When a learned behavior is motivated by the incentive of external reinforcers in the environment, we would say there is an extrinsic motivation to continue that behavior (Deci, Koestner, & Ryan, 1999; TABLE 9.1). In other words, the motivation comes from consequences that are found in the environment or situation. Bagels and coffee might provide extrinsic motivation for people to attend a boring meeting. Sales commissions provide extrinsic motivation for sales representatives to sell more goods. For most people, money serves as a powerful form of extrinsic motivation.

But learned behaviors can also be motivated by personal satisfaction, interest in a subject matter, and other variables that exist within a person. When the drive or urge to continue a behavior comes from within, we call it intrinsic motivation (Deci et al., 1999). Reading a textbook because it is inherently interesting exemplifies intrinsic motivation. The reinforcers originate inside of you (learning feels good and brings you satisfaction), and not from the external environment.

Consider some of the forces motivating other behaviors. Do you exercise on a regular basis, and if so, why? If being able to show off your washboard abs is what you desire, then extrinsic motivation is sending you to the gym. If you exercise because it gives you pleasure (you like feeling “the burn,” or releasing pent-up stress), then intrinsic motivation is your fuel. What compels you to offer your seat to an older adult on a bus: Is it because you’ve been praised for helping others before (extrinsic motivation), or because it simply feels good to help someone (intrinsic motivation)? Perhaps your response is a combination of both.

Many behaviors are inspired by a blend of extrinsic and intrinsic motivation, but there do appear to be potential disadvantages to extrinsic motivation (Deci et al., 1999). Researchers have found that using rewards, such as money and marshmallows, to reinforce already interesting activities (like doing puzzles, playing word games, and so on) can lead to a decrease in what was initially intrinsically motivating. Why is this so? It could be that external reinforcers make it more difficult for people to develop self-regulation. Receiving external rewards may cause them to feel less responsible for initiating their own behaviors. In general, behavior resulting from intrinsic motivation is likely to include “high-quality learning,” but only when the activities are novel, challenging, or have aesthetically pleasing characteristics. Extrinsic motivation may be less effective, resulting in resentment or disinterest (Ryan & Deci, 2000). Unfortunately, researchers have found that “tangible rewards—both material rewards, such as pizza parties for reading books, and symbolic rewards, such as good student awards—are widely advocated by many educators and are used in many classrooms, yet the evidence suggests that these rewards tend to undermine intrinsic motivation for the rewarded activity” (Deci, Koestner, & Ryan, 2001, p. 15).

For Mohamed, the most powerful source of extrinsic motivation was the approval of his mother. He recalls how proud she had been after returning from a parent–teacher conference in which the first-grade teacher said, “Your child is as bright as the sun.” Mohamed doesn’t remember his mom rewarding him with material things like toys and candy; apparently, making her proud was gratifying enough. But there were also forces driving Mohamed from within (intrinsic motivation). He enjoyed the process of learning. It was rewarding to master a second language and nail down his multiplication tables. Outside of class, Mohamed read books for fun. He still enjoys reading science fiction, so much that he hopes to write his own novel one day. Says Mohamed, “I want to be the first Somali to write a science fiction [book] in Somali.”

We now have developed a basic understanding of what motivation is: a stimulus or force that can direct the way we behave, think, and feel. We also have established that motivation may stem from factors outside of ourselves (extrinsic) or from within (intrinsic). But what underlies motivation? Let’s take a look at the major theories.