Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation
In my day to day life, I have the intrinsic motivation to work on my personal writing and art pieces. There is no real reason for me to do these things other than for my own personal satisfaction. It is true that there could be some extrinsic motivation behind some of what I do. For instance, ideally I would like to see some of my writing be published one day, and I know that writing every day inevitably improves my skills as a writer. However, that is not my main reason for writing, so I believe it still counts as intrinsic motivation.
Going to class everyday is mostly because of extrinsic motivation. I don’t study hard and do my homework for the sake of it. I have a goal, a degree to earn, and I don’t want to do anything that could mess that up. I’ll be honest, there are days where I don’t want to go to class, where I ask myself if its worth leaving my warm bed. In the end, I always end up rolling myself out of bed and going to class regardless of how much I may not want to at the moment. This is solely because of the extrinsic motivation I have to do well in college so that I can have a good job that pays well.
Personally, I don’t share much online. On occasion, I do post my writing on forums to get feedback and improve my skills as a writer, but that’s only rarely and I don’t share that on my personal accounts where my friends and family can see it. I try to be very careful about what I share online because I don’t want to post something that could make it difficult for me to get a job in the future. I’m not going into a field that requires me to have an outstanding, morally-sound social media presence — but I’m cautious anyway, because I don’t want that to be the reason I am passed over in favor of someone else.
When I share, it is usually because of extrinsic motivation. I either want to broadcast my work in order to get feedback, to document something, or because I know my family and friends would like to see it.
I think companies try to engage their consumers with intrinsic motivation a lot. Most companies with a social media presence engage their audiences through questions or contests. For example, Taco Bell recently tweeted to their followers, “How do you customize your favorite #TacoBell menu items? Submit your creations to #TBHacks.” Going to the hashtag showed that many people responded, for no other reason than because they wanted to engage with their favorite brand online. I feel like some of this leveraging, such as this tweet from Taco Bell, is relatively harmless. However, it definitely does have the potential to be exploited if a company chose to ask their consumers to buy their products in order to participate in some sort of online competition.
