Motivation

After much discussion in class, I've begun to really compare extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. I've found that I am someone who is extremely self motivated, therefore I find ways of making myself doing things not for the reward but for the self-gratifying purposes.
To me, extrinsic motivation is a great way to motivate people who cannot find motivation themselves. This is like people who work for the sole purpose of making money, but not to ever have a career in what they are doing. But, I differ from the current readings because I think some people intrinsic value the extrinsic motivations. By this, I mean some people work for the money (an extrinsic reward) in order to have the funding to support their family, themselves, or do to things they enjoy. Thus, their enjoyment and financial support are these people's motivation, and those are intrinsic values. If this makes any sense, in my view these values become crosslinked.
Likewise, I feel like the workplace and the environment in which one works effect how motivated a person can be. If someone is working with people that are not diverse, or not constructively helping to reach a goal, it is harder to attempt to motivate yourself when people are surrounding you with negative energy.
I also think that Domain Related Skills have a lot to do with a person's intrinsic motivation. If you don't understand the work or possess the domain related skills, one does not have the same motivation as another person who is extremely talented or creative in an area. This differs from Theresa Amabele's view somewhat, but I think that you have to have some sort of knowledge and inner goal to do things.

I see all of those motivations in everyday life. I find that people within the theatre or the arts are extremely self reliant and self motivated, because you cannot always rely on a director to praise your work...no matter how much effort is put into a task. Also, I think that people who work just for the money tend to hate their jobs and try to completely remove themselves from the workplace in order to just complete the task. This goes back to the issue about the rats going through a maze for a piece of cheese. The mouse that races just for the cheese does get the work done quicker, but the mouse that takes its time to get to the cheese and explores the maze more better understands the domain and finds better ways of problem solving. Obviously the second case is a better case for creativity because it allows for greater exploration of the domain. The first mouse is extrinsicly motivated by the cheese and the reward at the end. The second is doing things purely for its own purpose and finds a reward in its own creative work, thus intrinsic motivation.

These are just some of my views on the issue.

Kate Lawrence