What is Motivation?

, , Leave a comment

What is Motivation?
People are often driven by motivation to accomplish things. However, most people are not aware that what drives them is actually motivation. Different people have different personalities and so different motivation may be needed to drive an individual to achieve something. As for its definition, motivation is a force which drives a person to achieve a definite objective. Motivation is a broad topic and must not be mistaken to be associated to positivism. However, motivation is considered to be highly related or associated with emotion.
According to the concepts of motivation, motivation may be considered as intrinsic or extrinsic.

Intrinsic Motivation

When you say intrinsic motivation, it refers to the concept with which a motivation is driven a mere attraction or fascination about a certain task. In other words, a person feels enjoyment to do a definite undertaking. It was explained that the motivation is present within the person and not on some external factors. Since the early 1970s, psychologists doing a study on society and education have already made researches about the intrinsic motivation.

The research resulted that intrinsic motivation is typically related to high accomplishment in education and happiness by students. The study explained that students are considered to be intrinsically motivated if their educational outcomes are characterized by controllable internal factors. Moreover, students also suppose that they are capable of achieving such objectives and more importantly, students are fascinated or determined to master a specific topic.

Intrinsic motivation is well backed up by several theories and studies from Bandura, his work on self-efficacy, ‘theory of cognitive evaluation’ by Deci and Ryan, and theory of attribution by Fritz Heider. Such works explained and gave context to the intrinsic motivation concept.

Extrinsic Motivation

Derived from the word extrinsic, meaning outside, this concept of motivation takes place from the individual’s outside. Extrinsic motivation may mean reward or incentive. Examples of rewards are money or compensation, high grades, fame, compulsion and punishment threat. People motivated are intrinsically relying more on what they will gain achieving a goal. Competitions also urge people to be under an extrinsic motivation. The desire to beat other people in a competition is extrinsic motivation.

Researches on social psychology denote that rewards may result over rationalization. Its effect may consequently reduce the intrinsic motivation. A study about children motivated by a gold star and a ribbon as reward for drawing images demonstrated the effect of extrinsic motivation towards intrinsic motivation. Those children motivated by the rewards used little time in toying with their materials for drawing. Children who were not motivated by rewards did the opposite.

Moreover, another theory known as the ‘self-determination theory’ suggests that an individual can internalize an extrinsic motivation if a certain assignment corresponds to a person’s beliefs and values. In turn extrinsic motivation aids in satisfying their fundamental psychological needs.

Motivation, whether intrinsic or extrinsic plays a vital role in pushing an individual to achieve something. Without motivation people will not have a meaningful life. People will seem to live like robots accomplishing things without that emotional drive. As for conclusion, motivation helps people create a better life.

Tea Time Quiz

[forminator_poll id="23176"]
 

Leave a Reply