Life Discovery: The “Result — Reward” Gap and Achievement

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11 min readFeb 19, 2022

An idea about the Anticipatory Activity System (AAS)

Life Discovery is a “cross-the-gap” activity that aims to explore a new place in a certain direction. There is a spatial distance between the existing place where we are and the expected place where we want to be.

Once we cross the gap, we reach a new place. This is an amazing life achievement.

This article aims to discuss an idea about Anticipatory Activity System and Achievement.

1. The Anticipatory Activity System Framework

The Anticipatory Activity System framework is a hybrid theoretical framework that curates the following two theories together:

Activity Theory
Anticipatory System Theory

This hybrid approach is inspired by Clay Spinuzzi’s book Network: Theorizing Knowledge Work in Telecommunications. In order to understand a telecommunications company’s knowledge work, Clay Spinuzzi focuses on the concept of “Network”, and adopts the following two theories to build an abstract framework for theorizing “Network” of knowledge work:

Activity Theory
Actor-network Theory (ANT)

The above diagram is the standard model of the Anticipatory Activity System framework. It was formed by the following pairs of concepts:

Present — Future
Self — Other
Object — Objective
Result — Reward
First-order Activity — Second-order Activity

You can find more details from D as Diagramming: Strategy as Anticipatory Activity System.

This article will focus on the pair of concepts of “Result — Reward”.

2. The Result — Reward Gap

The concept of Result is inspired by the concept of Outcome from Activity Theory. The Reward is about human motivation.

I prefer to use the diagram below to understand the concept of Outcome in general and the concept of Result for the Anticipatory Activity System framework. The key is the idea of By-product which is adopted from Howard Gruber. You can find more details from a previous article: Life-to-be-Owned: The Achievement Chain.

For the concept of Reward, I’d like to adopt an established theory about human motivation: Self-Determination Theory (SDT) which pays attention to the Self and the Environment. It perfectly matches the Anticipatory Activity System framework because the Other is just an environment of the Self.

SDT claimed that there are three basic psychological needs: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. According to Richard M. Ryan and Edward L. Deci who are the founders of SDT, “Our conceptualization of the effects of social contexts is pertinent to both motivation and behavior in immediate situations and to development and wellness over time. In other words, supports for autonomy, competence, and relatedness not only are theorized to facilitate more self-determined and high-quality functioning in the immediate situation, but they are also understood to promote the development of more effective self-functioning, resilience, and enduring psychological health for the long term.” (p.12) In other words, it is about both Present and Future.

One of the six sub-theories of SDT is the Organismic Integration Theory (OIT) which offers a taxonomy of regulatory styles.

Source: Self-Determination Theory (2017, p.193)

Why do I adopt the OSI for our discussion? Because it is a model of internalization and integration. According to Richard M. Ryan and Edward L. Deci who are the founders of SDT, “We defined internalization as the process of taking in values, beliefs, or behavioral regulations from external sources and transforming them into one’s own. Transformation involves actively making the internalized material one’s own, which, more precisely, means assimilating the regulation or value and integrating it with the other values, behaviors, attitudes, and emotions that are themselves inherent and/or have been deeply internalized by the individual. Thus, when a regulation that was originally socially transmitted has been fully internalized, it will largely be in harmony or congruence with other aspects of one’s values and personality, and enacting it will be experienced as autonomous.”(2017, p.182)

For the Anticipatory Activity System framework, the relationship of “Self — Other” involves internalization and integration through Reward.

However, there is a missing piece in the OSI model. Since the OSI model focuses on the intrinsic—extrinsic continuum, it doesn’t consider the temporal distance between “Result” and “Reward”.

I’d like to call this temporal distance the Result — Reward gap.

3. Result as First-order Outcome

As mentioned above, the concept of Result is inspired by the concept of Outcome of Activity Theory, especially Yrjö Engeström’s Activity System Model. See the diagram below.

The above diagram is also called “Engeström’s Triangle” which is based on the cultural-historical psychologists’ notions of mediation as individual action (subject — instruments — object) at the top of the diagram. Engeström (1987) considered “a human activity system always contains the subsystems of production, distribution, exchange, and consumption.”(p.67), thus, he added the bottom of the triangle to the original individual triangle in order to include other people (community), social rules (rules), and the division of labor between the subject and others.

Engeström also emphasizes the transformation between “Object” and “Outcome” since this is a model of human activities.

The concept of Object has a different meaning in the Activity System Model. According to Kaptelinin and Nardi (2006), “For Engeström, the object, introduced through the ‘subject — object’ distinction — that is, as objekt — is the object of collective activities. The object is defined as ‘the raw material’ or ‘problem space’ at which the activity is directed and which is molded and transformed into outcome…’ ” (2006, p.142–143)

For the Anticipatory Activity System framework, I adopt Engeström’s notion of “Object (as the raw material or problem space)” and “outcome” as a pair of concepts.

Then, I use “Result” to refer to the First-order Outcome which means the final end of the transformation from “Object” to “Outcome”.

4. Reward as a Second-order Outcome

Now we can discuss the Second-order Outcome with the term: Reward. The logic is clear because the Reward is based on the Result. Also, I consider Punishment as a Negative Reward in order to reduce the number of concepts for the Anticipatory Activity System framework.

Positive Results lead to Positive Rewards
Negative Results lead to Punishments (Negative Rewards)

The Outcome (both Results and Rewards) could lead to a new activity. A new activity could be driven by a Result which is about the material change of an object. Or, a new activity could be driven by a Reward which is about a mental activity about a Result. For Activity Theorists, this is called Reproduction of Activity.

However, Activity Theory, especially the Activity System Model, doesn’t separate Outcomes into Results and Rewards. I’d like to use the distinction between First-order Outcome and Second-order Outcome for the Anticipatory Activity System framework.

The center of “Anticipatory Activity System” is “Self, Other, Present, Future”. So, the rest of the article will discuss the Result — Reward Gap around the center.

5. The “Self — Other” Relevance

The Anticipatory Activity System framework uses the following model to discuss the “Self — Other” relationship.

The above diagram considers four units of analysis of the “Self — Other” relevance.

Intrapersonal Relevance: The Other is potential, not actual.
Interpersonal Relevance: The Other is actual, but the “Self—Other” is not considered as a whole.
Transactional Relevance: The Other is actual, and the “Self—Other” is considered as a whole.
Collective Relevance: The Other is pervasive, not proximal. The “Self — Other” relationship is understood as “Self — Group”.

The core of the framework is three aspects of Other.

Potential v.s. Actual
Independent v.s. Dependent
Proximal v.s. Pervasive

If a person doesn’t have direct interaction with real other people, he considers if his work or actions are relevant to predecessors or any other people. Then, this means Intrapersonal Relevance. Traditional Activity Theory doesn’t consider this unit of analysis. For Activity Theorists, an activity is a social collaboration.

Interpersonal Relevance refers to direct interactions with others. In this situation, the Other is actual, but the “Self—Other” is not considered as a whole since they don’t share reciprocity of motives. How can a person get good feedback from others? It depends on Relevance from the Other’s perspective.

Transactional Relevance is about dependent relationships and interactions. The Other is actual, and the “Self—Other” is considered as a whole. and they share reciprocity of motives. In this situation, the person and Others share reciprocity of motives, challenges, and background knowledge.

Collective Relevance considers the Other as a pervasive group, not a particular person or several people. The “Self — Other” relationship becomes the “Self — Group” relationship.

6. Self-Reward: Enjoyment, Affirmation, and Reflection

Following the above “Self—Other” Relevance, we start discussing the Result — Reward Gap at different units of analysis.

For Intrapersonal Relevance, we can consider Self-Reward. Since the Other is not actual, the provider of Reward should be the Self. From the perspective of “Present — Future”, there are three types of Self-Reward:

Enjoyment: Self-Reward for Present Process.
Affirmation: Self-Reward for Present Result.
Reflection: Self-Reward for Future.

One influenced theory about Enjoyment is Flow Theory which was developed by the psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi in 1975. Flow, or a flow state, refers to the immediate subjective experience that occurs when people are engaged in an activity. We can consider the Flow experience as a Self-Reward for the present since it is all about full involvement in the process of the activity.

However, the Flow experience is about the process of activity. It doesn’t associate with the Results of an activity. I’d like to point out that Affirmation of Result is an important Self-Reward. A person has to evaluate the result of her own activities and offer a positive affirmation for herself.

A deliberate affirmation could lead to Reflection on Results. Reflection is a Self-Reward for Future because it turns results into an object for deep learning and creates a new creative space for exploring new insights. Both deep learning and exploring new insights point to the future.

7. Interpersonal Reward: Perception, Conception, and Curation

Now we can consider the Other as the provider of Reward, we can start from the Interpersonal Reward.

Since there are various types of Interpersonal Relationships, there are many kinds of Interpersonal Rewards. For example:

Feedback: The Other gives feedback to the Self.
Share: The Other publicly mentions the Self’s Result.
Exchange: The activity is considered as a service that is ordered by the Other. The reword is committed as a cost for Self to take action. Others may pay Material Rewards to Self.
etc…

I’d like to discuss the mechanism of interpersonal reward, instead of categories. Based on the Epistemology of Curation model (see the diagram below), we can focus on Perception, Conception, and Curation.

Traditionally, researchers tend to use “perception, conception, and action” as three keywords to discuss mind-related topics. From the perspective of Curativity Theory which is about turning pieces into a meaningful whole, I want to expand the foundation of mind-related topics from three keywords to four keywords.

Perception: How does the Other perceive Self’s Performance and Result?
Conception: How does the Other think about what he perceived?
Curation: How does Other connect a particular Result with other Results?

Interpersonal Rewards are based on the above three cognitive operations. If the Other can’t receive enough information about the Self’s Performance and Result, the Other may perceive the Self’s Performance and Result incompletely and incorrectly.

Due to individual differences in knowledge, belief, and motivation, Others may think about what they perceive in a certain direction. The same Result could be conceptualized as a successful achievement or a failed end.

Finally, a particular Result is part of a web of Self’s life and it might connect to other activities. Others may need to curate the Self’s multiple life activities together in order to understand the context of a particular Result.

8. Transactional Reward: Emotional Support

All Interpersonal Rewards are part of the level of Transactional Reward. The “Perception — Conception — Curation” mechanism is also suitable for Transactional Reward.

However, there is a difference between Interpersonal Rewards and Transactional Rewards. For the latter, the “Self — Other” is considered as a whole, So the Other could offer Emotional Support for the Self.

A good thing about Emotional Support is that it can respond to negative results.

9. Collective Reward: Public Recognition

Collective Relevance considers the Other as a pervasive group, not a particular person or several people. The “Self — Other” relationship becomes the “Self — Group” relationship.

In a small-scale social group such as an organization, public recognition is a powerful tool for employee motivation. For motivation psychologists, this type of reward is considered as extrinsic motivation.

As mentioned above, Self-Determination Theory expands the “intrinsic motivation — extrinsic motivation” dichotomy into a continuum.

10. The Time Distance between Result and Reward

An important issue of the Result — Reward Gap is the time distance.

T1: When the Result is produced
T2: When the Reward is offered

This issue is critical because it is related to the reproduction of activity which requires various types of resources. If a creative person’s Result can’t be recognized as a Creative Achievement in time, the person can’t receive a Reward in time. Thus, the person couldn’t get enough resources to continue his creative activities.

This issue echoes the Explore — Exploit Cycle. The creative person has to manage the balance between two types of activities:

The “Exploration” activity: It takes a long time to get a Result and takes a long time to get a Reward too.
The “Exploitation” activity: It takes a short time to get the Result and takes a short time to get the Reward too.

I have used the “Resource — Result” analysis for my 2017 work on the Life Curation framework. The “Resources — Results” Analysis can be applied to different time-scale analyses. The framework suggests that a person could build his or her own creative containers in order to curate pieces of resources into meaningful results.

An “Anticipatory Activity System” is a social container too. A person can manage multiple Anticipatory Activity Systems for his creative life enterprise.

11. The Relevance of Achievement

The above discussion leads to a new typology of Achievement:

Potential Achievement: Unfinished products or projects.
Actual Achievement: Actual result.
Perceived Achievement: Result is perceived by Other.
Recognized Achievement: Result is recognized by the Public.

This typology roughly matches the typology of Relevance:

Potential > Potential Achievement
Independent > Actual Achievement
Dependent > Perceived Achievement
Pervasive > Recognized Achievement

If we connect these two ideas together, we can name it the Relevance of Achievement.

12. The Journey of Life Discovery

For Life Discovery, it is important to discover your life patterns of dealing with the relevance of achievement.

How do you deal with your own Results?
How do you deal with others’ Rewards?
How do you manage the Explore — Exploit Cycle?
How do you manage the Reproduction of Activity?
How do you claim your Achievement?

It’s not easy to answer the above questions. So, we should consider the Life Discovery Activity as a long journey.

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