Learning and growth
Edward Deci
Intrinsic motivation
Edward Deci (United States · 1942–) — Intrinsic motivation.
What actually happened?
Plenty of people refused to believe it. Decades of behaviourism said that rewarded behaviour increases. In 1994 Judy Cameron and David Pierce published a review in the Review of Educational Research concluding that, overall, rewards did not undermine intrinsic interest. Deci, Richard Koestner and Ryan gathered 128 experiments and published their own analysis in Psychological Bulletin in 1999. Spoken praise made people keener. Tangible rewards promised in advance for doing a task reliably made them do less of it when nobody was watching. The two sides went on arguing for years.
Is the reason inside or outside?
He looked less at how much people did than at why. Done for fun or done for pay, the act looks the same. In the first the reason sits with you; in the second it sits in someone else's hand, and they can take it back.
Someone who loved writing starts taking work by the word, and writes nothing on days without a commission.
The deal struck in advance does the damage
In the 1999 analysis the worst effect came from tangible rewards promised beforehand for doing the task. Surprise rewards and spoken praise did not do it. The question is not whether to reward, but whether the reward has become a trade.
Make the top ten and you get a new phone. The top ten is now the phone's price.
Three things people need
He and Ryan named the conditions under which people move on their own: autonomy, the sense that this is theirs; competence, doing it well at a stretch; relatedness, someone nearby who cares. Take one away and they need pushing.
A quiet new hire: check whether he lacks the why, the how, or anyone who talks to him.
Autonomy is not independence
He kept correcting one misreading. Autonomy is not having the final say or being left alone. You can rely on others and follow them and still feel the choice is yours; you can go it alone and simply be avoiding someone.
Taking the pills your doctor prescribed can be compliance or a decision you have made your own.
Outside rules can become your own
Not everything is fun. He and Ryan layered the outside reasons too: doing it because someone watches, because you would feel guilty, because you see its use. The further along, the more it is yours.
Two students learn vocabulary daily. The one afraid of a scolding stops in the holidays; the one who wants to read novels keeps going.
How do I use it today?
Pick one thing you are pushing someone to do with rewards or penalties: a child's homework, a weekly report, your own gym streak. Pause the 'do it and you get this' deal and say three things instead: why it matters, that you know they may not want to, and which parts they can decide. Check in a week whether any of it happens when nobody is watching. If the person you are pushing is you, put the streak chart away and note only the times you wanted to do it anyway.
Deep read
Read alongside
Further
Lines to keep
Buy something a person loved doing, and you buy up the love.
A reason held in someone else's hand can be taken back.
Autonomy is not having the final say. It is meaning it.
Don't ask how to motivate him. Ask what room to build.