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Hi!

I left some loose ends on my last post about motivation, because they would distract us from the point. I said we would discuss it later so here we are, and I guess this will be a three-parter since I'll still leave a loose end for another post...

Mr. Deci shaking things up

Edward Deci is a rewarded psychologist for his work on intrinsic motivation and self-determination theory, which he founded with Richard Ryan. You can learn more about self-determination theory here - please do! It is vast and covers many aspects and they actually divide it in six mini-theories. In the website you can grab questionnaires for free and apply them to your students or make your own investigations. How cool is that?

In a study from 1971 (1), Deci shook things up a little: he made a group of people choose between playing a puzzle game and do something else, and timed how much they spent having fun with the puzzle. Then rewarded the subjects with money for each puzzle correctly assembled. Then took out the rewards and compared it with a control group: the rewarded people spent less time playing the game after the reward was over. Which kind of "proved" or suggested that extrinsic motivation could undermine intrinsic motivation, something that had been defended by a lot of psychologists before.

Of course all this is science, and as such, others studies concluded that the effect was minimal for educational policy (2), and other studies defended it had indeed a substantial effect (3). Anyway, we can all have an opinion on it, but it seems scientific community is more prone to accept Deci's conclusions since they seem to have a strong empirical meaning.

So what? Is Steemit a dead end?

Short answer: it can be. If you're here for the money
As one can understand by my previous post, motivation is a very complex and broad theme. We cannot say "rewards spoil intrinsic motivation" because that would simply be wrong. To take a very portuguese approach, does anyone think Cristiano Ronaldo (#1 soccer player) still plays soccer to make more money? He already has more than he can ever spend in his life!

_{Source: Football.ua, CC BY-SA 3.0}

Self-Determination Theory explains it by introducing relationships between concepts such as competence, autonomy and relatedness, as what drives motivation. Cristiano Ronaldo is here not for the money, but because he's free, he feels competent, and he's intrinsically related to soccer since that's what he does since he learned how to stand up. So money will never spoil his intrinsic motivation. Competence may spoil his intrinsic motivation: that's why wise athletes choose to end their career while they're still on the top, instead of making the way down to oblivion in misery.

The same with you and Steemit. It WON'T spoil your intrinsic motivation if you focus on these concepts. If you ever feel demotivated, ask yourself what the platform has made you do. Did you write/draw/sing more? Think more? Did it changed your life? How competent do you feel in here? Did you grow your own style?

In school

Again, in school. Extrinsic rewards work. For example: you get a child that has no intent of learning about the civil war. You reward him if he memorizes something, he does and suddenly he finds the subject interesting, then he wants to see some battle reconstitution, then he goes to youtube to see videos about it, then everybody tells him he knows a lot about it. If you take out the reward he will not give up because he feels competent, he is an autonomous learner and he created a relationship with the theme.

In my cello lessons, whenever I find a demotivated child I have absolutely no problem in applying extrinsic rewards in small doses. I aim to the internalization process and I poke them with questions, youtube videos, and I try my best to make them feel like a real cellist. Because they are real cellists , even if they don't play much at first.

_{(1) Deci, E. L. (1971). Effects of externally mediated rewards on intrinsic motivation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, (2) Cameron, J., & Pierce, W. D. (1994). Reinforcement, reward, and intrinsic motivation: A *meta-analysis. Review of Educational Research, 64, 363-423. (3) Deci, E. L., Ryan, R., Koestner, R. (2001). Extrinsic Rewards and Intrinsic Motivation in Education: Reconsidered Once Again. Review of Educational Research, 71, 1-27}

What do you think of self-determination theory?

Did you ever felt you were doing one thing just for the money?

Do you have a different view from this one?

If you enjoyed this post please consider:

_{Source: @runicar}