Intrinsic Motivation For The Target Activity example essay topic

central focus of Deci and Ryan's (1987) cognitive evaluation theory is the impact of contextual variables on motivation. Their model has been successfully used to predict and explain how events associated with the performance of a particular activity affect motivation to pursue the same activity again. We describe here an extension of Deci and Ryan's model, integrated with notions adapted from de Charms' (1968) discussion of Origin and Pawn states. This extension and integration provides a model for predicting the generalization of motivational effects across different activities. Deci and Ryan (1987) proposed that intrinsic motivation stems from drive-like human needs to be self-determining and competent, i. e., to be autonomous rather than externally-controlled.

In concrete terms, an intrinsically motivated behaviour is that which appears to be spontaneously initiated by the person in pursuit of no other goal than the activity itself. According to Deci and Ryan, events that foster self-determination or competence will enhance or maintain intrinsic motivation, whereas events that weaken self-determination or competence will decrease intrinsic motivation. (1) Supporting research evidence shows that events that enhance self-perceived autonomous functioning produce increased intrinsic motivation for the target activity. The ability to make choices about how to pursue an activity, for example, has been shown to enhance or maintain intrinsic motivation (Enzle, Roggeveen, & Look, 1991; Zuckerman, P orac, Lath in, Smith, & Deci, 1978), as has positive performance feedback (e. g., Enzle & Ross, 1978; Valle rand & Reid, 1988). Externally-controlling events that are antagonistic to self-perceived autonomy, on the other hand, result in decreased intrinsic motivation and perceptions of external causality. Thus, task-contingent rewards (e. g., Lep per, Greene, & Nisbet t, 1973), negative performance feedback (e. g., Enzle & Ross, 1978), and controlling forms of surveillance (e. g., Enzle & Anderson, 1993) have been shown to undermine intrinsic motivation.

The same body of research that supports Deci and Ryan's model also highlights what may be an artificial limit on the generality of intrinsic motivation effects. Because of the way hypotheses have been framed, the dependent variable in all research to date has been intrinsic motivation to pursue the same activity with which the autonomy-supporting and externally-controlling variables were associated. This makes good sense, of course, when the point of the investigation is to learn how people develop or lose intrinsic motivation to pursue particular activities. Deci and Ryan's theory, however, is not necessarily restricted to this level of specificity. When a person exercises choice with respect to some activity, is the person's sense of self-determination enhanced only as it relates to that activity, or does the effect also contribute to the individual's overall sense of personal autonomy? When a person learns that he or she has performed a task competently, is the person's enhanced sense of competence limited to the original activity, or does the effect also influence the person's level of general self-perceived competence?

Because the needs for self-determination and competence discussed by Deci and Ryan are general ones, we believe that the answers to these questions should be that both types of change occur. Experience with a particular activity should provide information about self-determination and competence specific to the activity. As well, self-determination and competence information from the specific experience should contribute to the person's general self-perceptions of autonomy. Parallel considerations apply to the impact of externally-controlling events on motivation to pursue specific activities and on the person's general self-perceived autonomy. If specific experiences do contribute to changes in general levels of self-determination and competency, then it follows that general changes in intrinsic motivation should also occur, changes that should be manifested behaviour ally when the person encounters a new activity.

Experiment 1 The present formulation yields the general prediction that self-determination experiences during the pursuit of one activity will produce enhanced intrinsic motivation to engage in new activities, whereas externally-controlling experiences during one activity will undermine intrinsic motivation to engage in new activities. Experiment 1 provides a test of the cross-activity generalization prediction by producing intrinsic and extrinsic motivational states with one activity and testing intrinsic motivation to engage in a new activity. The experiment was also designed to assess another potential quality of intrinsically and extrinsically motivated states. According to de Charms (1968), once an intrinsically ('Origin') or extrinsically ('Pawn') motivated state is established, the person meets new activities, at least in the short-run, from that same motivational orientation.

(2) Moreover, de Charms claims that Origin and Pawn states perseverate, and are capable of overwhelming contemporaneous contextual influences. This perseveration occurs, according to de Charms, because intrinsically and extrinsically motivated states are associated with expectancies about the person's causal capabilities. A person in the Pawn state because of prior experiences of external control will expect to be externally controlled in subsequent situations, even if the objective characteristics of those new situations would permit autonomous functioning with the new activity. Likewise, de Charms suggested that once an Origin state is established, the person will expect to be autonomous, will tend to disregard evidence of external control, and will proceed as if he or she were in fact an autonomous agent. Our experimental investigation includes a test of this integration of Deci and Ryan's (1987) and de Charms' (1968) theoretical frameworks. Participants in Experiment 1 were initially given (a) an intensive period of autonomous functioning with one activity, (b) an intensive period of external control during the same activity, or (c) no prior activity experience.

Participants were then either offered and given an extrinsic reward for engaging in a new activity, or they unexpectedly received the same reward after the new activity. All participants then had a free-play period with the new activity. We predicted, overall, that participants who had a recent autonomous experience would show greater behaviour al involvement in the new activity during the free-play period than would participants who had no prior activity experience and than participants who had had the prior externally-controlling experience. Those who had been subjected to the external control pretreatment were expected to show less behaviour al interest in the new activity during the free-play period than were participants in the other two groups.