Why do we do what we do? — Types of motivation (Motivation Miniseries Part 1)

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I’m sure we’ve all had those days when we struggled to motivate ourselves to do anything — I know I’ve had my fair share of such days — so in this article, we’ll look into some things psychology has to say about motivation. Now, motivation is a huge topic, so I won’t attempt to cover everything there is to know; instead, I’ll talk about some bits in a series of articles, the first of which you’re reading right now!

The gist of it

What is motivation? In a nutshell, motivation is the collection of psychological processes that, at the end of the day, makes you do certain behaviours. This makes intuitive sense, although it’s not very informational — motivation can be just about any thought or emotion you have that makes you do something, based on this definition (this, by the way, is technically true, but not very useful). Fortunately for you, psychology has taken the effort to systematise motivation, so we have something to go off of, other than, ‘well, you just gotta find the motivation, innit?’

Ryan and Deci made one of the most successful such systematisation attempts, with Self-Determination Theory[1]. Self-Determination Theory is actually not one, but six theories roped into one, so it’s massive as far as theories go, but it’s pretty good at explaining why we do what we do. The important bit here is that motivation can either be intrinsic or extrinsic. Intrinsic motivation is when you do something because you want to, and extrinsic motivation is when you do something because something or someone else is making you do it. This distinction seems simple enough at first, but there’s actually some overlap, and it’s not always easy to tell which motivation is what. This is because motivation is more or less a spectrum that goes from amotivation — that is, not being motivated at all — to intrinsic motivation, rather than two distinct categories. There are, nevertheless, a few steps between extrinsic and intrinsic motivation, so let’s take a look at each, shall we?

• Extrinsic motivation: This is when what you think about yourself plays effectively no role in your actions — you’re doing something solely because you expect a reward in return, or because you want to avoid being punished. So, if you said, ‘I do karate because I can win medals with it,’ that would be a prime example of extrinsic motivation.
• Introjected motivation: Here, you’re doing something because you don’t want to feel guilty, or because you’d like others to think positively about you, rather than for any materialistic reward. For example, saying, ‘I do karate because then, other people will think I’m tough,’ is a form of introjected motivation.
• Identified motivation: This means you’re acting not just because you’re expecting something in return, but because your actions lead to outcomes that are personally important to you. As an example, if I said, ‘I do karate because it improves my focus and teaches me practical skills,’ it would be a form of identified motivation. As you can see, this is where we start getting closer to home, because from here on out, your motivation actually has to do with yourself, rather than with others.
• Integrated motivation: This is as close as it gets to intrinsic motivation — it means that whatever action you’re doing is an important part of your sense of self. For example, if I say, ‘I practice karate because I’m a karateka’ or ‘I see myself as a person who does karate,’ that would be integrated motivation.
• Intrinsic motivation: This is when you do something because you enjoy it. Going back to our karate example for one last time, if I told you I do karate because I think it’s fun, that would mean I’m intrinsically motivated. Similarly, if you exercise because it makes you feel good or because you enjoy the physical challenge, that would both count as intrinsic motivation.

Illustration by Sophie Keresztes

What’s the difference?

All these forms of motivation can be useful, but as you can see, there is a gradual quality increase as we get closer to intrinsic motivation. For example, Lemyre and colleagues followed 44 NCAA swimmers throughout an academic year, and measured their motivation along the extrinsic-intrinsic continuum every three weeks. Extrinsic motivation was associated with burnout symptoms as the year progressed — that is, the swimmers felt more exhausted and enjoyed training less when they felt that they weren’t swimming for themselves[2]. Even further, Gillet and colleagues demonstrated that the more intrinsic your motivation is, the better you perform: In French tennis players and fencers, those who had more intrinsic motivational profiles ended up performing better throughout the season[3]. So, if you’re looking for motivation, it’s better to start with something you enjoy, rather than doing something boring and using the oft-cited ‘I’ll get myself a cookie afterwards’ approach.

Not quite convinced yet? There’s even more: decades of research has consistently shown that extrinsic motivation can actually extinguish intrinsic motivation — we call this the undermining effect. For example, in the very first study in the Self-Determination Theory literature, Deci conducted 3 experiments with undergraduate students, and found that when he gave an extrinsic reward (money) for a task, subsequent intrinsic motivation decreased — that is, with the absence of extrinsic motivation, participants were not interested in completing the task anymore, even if they had been before[4]. This is true even on the long-term: fairly recently, Moller and Sheldon asked over 300 people who had received an athletic scholarship — an extrinsic reward — about their post-university enjoyment of their sport. Perhaps unsurprisingly, they found that those who had been on a scholarship enjoyed playing their sport less, and felt that they had had less control over their actions while at university[5]. The are many more studies showing the same effect: extrinsic motivation quickly erases intrinsic motivation, and this effect persists for long periods of time[6].

Not all extrinsic motivation is necessarily bad, though. Identified and integrated motivation, for example, can work pretty well, because even if you don’t outright enjoy what you’re doing per se, it still aligns well with how you want to be as a person. Vlachopoulos and Karagheorgis did an interesting study on the topic, measuring the different types of motivation and overall exercise enjoyment of a massive 516 people. They found that not only intrinsic, but integrated and identified motivation was also positively associated with exercise enjoyment. Introjected motivation, however, was not associated with it at all, and even worse, extrinsic motivation was negatively associated. That is, the people who had motivation originating from themselves — also referred to as self-determined regulation — enjoyed exercise more, even if their motivation wasn’t exactly intrinsic[7]. Guérin and Fortier also found something similar, looking specifically at relatively inactive people[8]. So, as weird as it sounds, you don’t need to be doing things for their own sake to enjoy them; it’s enough if the idea is important to you in some shape or form. Because I’m a bit short on space, how we can make it so will be the next topic of discussion in this miniseries.

…Is there anything else?

What’s the catch? There isn’t a whole lot of them, but here’s a few things to keep in mind:

• As I have emphasised previously, research findings are, most often, generalised. So, by and large, extrinsically motivated people will enjoy activities less, but this doesn’t mean that everyone will invariably feel so: it might happen that you’re just about content doing stuff for a material reward.
• What’s more, you may find that you don’t always enjoy the same activity, even if you have a relatively self-determined form of motivation for it. That happens on some days to everyone.
• Although we talked about the different types of motivation as categories, most of the time, our reasons for doing things are a mish-mash of these.
• As mentioned before, motivation may actually be a spectrum, rather than a collection of categories, which sort of renders the typology of motivational profiles meaningless.

Nevertheless, the message is clear: you can have all sorts of motivations to do a certain activity, but the closer that motivation is to your heart, the more likely it is that you’ll enjoy said activity. I think even conventional wisdom would agree with this — I know for sure that I enjoy reading books much more when I do it because I would like to, than when I’m required to. So, the next time you don’t feel like doing something that you think you should perhaps do, examine why you’d usually do it, and think about how you can perhaps make it personally more important.

References:

1. Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2019). Brick by brick: The origins, development, and future of self-determination theory. Advances in Motivation Science, 6, 111–156.
2. Lemyre, P. N., Treasure, D. C., & Roberts, G. C. (2006). Influence of variability in motivation and affect on elite athlete burnout susceptibility. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 28(1), 32–48.
3. Gillet, N., Vallerand, R. J., & Rosnet, E. (2009). Motivational clusters and performance in a real-life setting. Motivation and Emotion, 33(1), 49–62.
4. Deci, E. L. (1971). Effects of externally mediated rewards on intrinsic motivation. Journal of personality and Social Psychology, 18(1), 105.
5. Moller, A. C., & Sheldon, K. M. (2020). Athletic scholarships are negatively associated with intrinsic motivation for sports, even decades later: Evidence for long-term undermining. Motivation Science, 6(1), 43.
6. Deci, E. L., Koestner, R., & Ryan, R. M. (1999). A meta-analytic review of experiments examining the effects of extrinsic rewards on intrinsic motivation. Psychological Bulletin, 125(6), 627.
7. Vlachopoulos, S. P., & Karageorghis, C. I. (2005). Interaction of external, introjected, and identified regulation with intrinsic motivation in exercise: relationships with exercise enjoyment. Journal of Applied Biobehavioral Research, 10(2), 113–132.
8. Guérin, E., & Fortier, M. (2012). Motivational profiles for physical activity: cluster analysis and links with enjoyment. Revue PhénEPS/PHEnex Journal, 4(2).