Benefits of Motivation

Finding ways to increase motivation is crucial because it allows us to change behavior,

develop competencies, be creative, set goals, grow interests, make plans, develop talents, and
boost engagement. Applying motivational science to everyday life helps us to motivate
employees, coach athletes, raise children, counsel clients, and engage students.

The benefits of motivation are visible in how we live our lives. As we are constantly
responding to changes in our environment, we need motivation to take corrective action in the
face of fluctuating circumstances. Motivation is a vital resource that allows us to adapt,
function productively, and maintain wellbeing in the face of a constantly changing stream of
opportunities and threats.

There are many health benefits of increased motivation. Motivation as a psychological state is
linked to our physiology. When our motivation is depleted, our functioning and wellbeing
suffer.

Some studies show that when we feel helpless in exerting control for example, we tend to
give up quickly when challenged (Peterson, Maier, & Seligman, 1993). Others have proven
than when we find ourselves coerced, we lose access to our inner motivational resources
(Deci, 1995).

High-quality motivation allows us to thrive, while its deficit causes us to flounder. Societal
benefits of increased motivation are visible in greater student engagement, better job
satisfaction in employees, flourishing relationships, and institutions.

But unhealthy fluctuations in motivation also explain addiction, gambling, risk-taking, and
excessive internet usage. The motivation that underlies addictive behaviors shares the
neurological underpinning associated with dopamine centric rewards system and tricky inner
working of the pleasure cycle.

This makes it challenging and often difficult to change behavior in situations involving
addiction. See our article on Motivational Interviewing to learn more about the stages of
change and motivational interviewing techniques practitioners use to motivate clients to
change unwanted behaviors.

Extrinsic Motivation

Is any source of motivation more potent or more effective in motivating people than the
other? Are people primarily motivated by internal motives or by external rewards, or are
people driven equally by internal and external triggers?

Human motives are complex, and as social creatures, we are embedded into our environment,
and social groups are often an important source of influence through the presence of rewards
and considerations of potential consequences of our choices on those around us.

Self-Determination Theory (SDT) explains how external events like rewards or praise

sometimes produce positive effects on motivation, but at other times can be quite detrimental
(Ryan & Deci, 2008). The hidden cost of certain types of rewards is that they undermine
intrinsic motivation by decreasing the sense of autonomy and competence.
 

There is a tradeoff between satisfying and undermining the need for competence when we
offer rewards (Reeve, 2018). This form of extrinsic motivation also can undermine our sense
of autonomy since rewards are used for both purposes: to control behavior and to affirm
someone of their level of competence. We want to reward in a way that encourages
competence without threatening the sense of autonomy.

My grandfather once told me that there were two kinds of people: those who
do the work and those who take the credit. He told me to try to be in the first
group; there was much less competition.

Indira Gandhi

Rewards should be reserved for activities that are not interesting and should be given when
not expected. Praise is preferable to monetary rewards, for example, as it supports
psychological needs and is of more lasting value (Reeve, 2018).

Similarly to rewards, imposed goals were found to narrow focus and impair creativity. Studies
show that imposed goal setting increases unethical behavior and risk-taking, narrows focus,
and decreases cooperation, intrinsic motivation, and creativity. This is an excellent example
of goals gone wild (Pink, 2009).

Much of contemporary research shows that intrinsic motivation is more effective more often
and of more enduring value. In some circumstances, however, extrinsic motivation may be
more appropriate, as in the case of uninteresting activities.

It is also possible to make use of incentives more effective by encouraging people to identify
with it and integrate it into their sense of self (Reeve, 2018). To give an example of
identifying and integrating extrinsic motives respectively would be like describing the
difference between saying: “I do this because it’s the right thing to do” versus “I do this
because I am a good person.”

Intrinsic Motivation

Intrinsic motivation is inherent in the activities we perform for pure enjoyment or satisfaction.
We engage in intrinsically motivated behavior because we want to experience the activity for
its own sake. Unlike extrinsically motivated behavior, it is freely chosen (Deci, & Ryan,
1985).

Intrinsic motivation can be driven by curiosity, which is linked to a desire to know and
motivates us to learn and explore our environment for answers (Loewenstein, 1994). Intrinsic
motivation can also come from the need to actively interact and control our environment. The
effectance motivation theory explains how intrinsic motivation drives us to develop
competence (White, 1959).

Finally, Allport’s concept of the functional autonomy of motives explains how behavior
originally performed for extrinsic reasons can become something to perform for its own sake
(1937).

Destiny is not a matter of chance; it is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to

be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.

William Jennings Bryan

When it comes to intrinsic motivation, it is important to distinguish between activities that are
intrinsically motivating and the development of what Csikszentmihalyi calls autotelic self
(1975, 1988). The term autotelic is derived from the Greek word auto, which means self
and telos meaning goal.

Intrinsic activities are self-contained because performing them is a reward in itself. The
autotelic experience produced by an intrinsic activity makes us pay attention to what we are
engaged in for its own sake and away from consequences. When the experience is
intrinsically rewarding, life is justified in the present and not tied to some hypothetical future
gain.

The most important characteristic of the autotelic experience is its intrinsically motivated
nature. Professor Csíkszentmihályi, who coined the terms flow, defined this optimal
experience as a pursuit of enjoyable, interesting activities for the sake of the experience itself,
where the satisfaction derived from the action itself is the motivational factor (1990).

An autotelic self actively seeks out intrinsically motivating activities. A person who is said to
have an autotelic personality values opportunities where she or he can experience complete
absorption in the tasks at hand. They transform the self by making it more complex. A
complex self has these five characteristics:

 Clarity of goals
 Self as the center of control
 Choice and knowing that life is not happening to you
 Commitment and care for what you are doing
 Challenge and increased craving for novelty (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975, 1988).

Autotelic self, according to Csikszentmihalyi, tends to create order out of chaos because it
sees a tragedy as an opportunity to rise to the occasion and tends to focus all the psychic
energy on overcoming the challenge created by the defeat (1990). Cultivating autotelic
personality is, therefore, a worthwhile endeavor as it breeds resilience.

Falko and Engeser, in their recent study on motivation and flow, used the term activity related
motivation as a substitute for intrinsic motivation to speak more specifically to the “Extended
Cognitive Model of Motivation” (2018).
They measured various activity-related incentives in qualitative and quantitative ways and
found the experience of flow to represent one of the most intensely studied. Positive
incentives stemming from learning goal orientation, experience of competence, interest, and
involvement lead to us engaging in activities purely for the enjoyment of it (Falko & Engeser,
2018).

Our plans miscarry because they have no aim. When a man does not know
what harbor he is making for, no wind is the right wind.

Seneca, 4 B.C.–A.D. 65

Professor Mihaly Csíkszentmihályi, who developed the theory of flow, argues that happiness
depends on inner harmony, not on the control we can exert over our environment or
circumstances, and therefore describes flow as an optimal state of being that brings order to
consciousness.

He discovered, in his years of research into creativity and productivity and interviews with
people who were deemed successful in a wide range of professions and many of whom were
Nobel Prize winners, that the secret to their optimal performance was their ability to enter the
flow state frequently and deliberately.

They would describe feeling a sense of competence and control, a loss of self-consciousness,
and such intense absorption in the task at hand that they would lose track of time.

Many of the most accomplished and creative people are at their peak when they experience “ a
unified flowing from one moment to the next, in which we feel in control of our actions, and
in which there is little distinction between self and environment; between stimulus and
response; or between past, present, and future” (Csíkszentmihályi, 1997, p. 37).

The contemporary research on motivation shows that intrinsic motivation that originates from
internal motives is often experienced as more immediate and potent than extrinsic motivation.

Today we know that intrinsic motivation affects the quality of behavior more, such as school
work, while extrinsic motivation influences the quantity of behavior more (Deckers, 2014).

It has also been shown that intrinsically motivated goal pursuit has greater long-term
outcomes because it satisfies our psychological needs for autonomy and competence, and in
turn, creates more positive states which reinforce the positive feedback loop and increase the
likelihood of repetition (Reeve, 2018).

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%20engagement.&text=When%20our%20motivation%20is%20depleted%2C%20our
%20functioning%20and%20wellbeing%20suffer.