Why We Do What We Do: Understanding Self-Motivation,
Edward L Deci with Richard Flaste, 1995
[T]his book decries
much of the state of things. The insidiousness of advertising that hooks
people’s egos; the way people in dominating positions control and demean the
people with whom they interact; the incredible emphasis on instrumental
thinking (of seeing everything as a means to an end); the overvaluing of
material possessions; and the erosion of community giving. But in this book
social criticism is secondary; it is more implicit than explicit. What is
primary is a delineation of the processes through which society’s fragmentation
affects the lives of its members and a consideration of what can be done about
it. (12)
The aims of this book
are simply stated: They are to use a comprehensive body of motivational
research to examine the relation between autonomy and responsibility and to
reflect on the issue of promoting responsibility in an alienating world. The
book is full of hope, for it speaks to what we can do for ourselves, and
what we can do for our children, our employees, our patients, our students, and
our athletes – indeed, what we can do for our society. The prescriptions is
offers are not panaceas, and they are not easy. (11)
One More Time: How Do You
Motivate Employees?
"How do I motivate people to
learn? to work? to do their chores? or to take their medication? -- are the
wrong questions. They are wrong because they imply that motivation is something
that gets done to people rather than something that people do. A more
fundamental and useful way to think about the issue involves accepting the
concept of intrinsic motivation, which refers to the process of doing an
activity for its own sake, of doing an activity for the reward that is inherent
in the activity itself. (21)
An example -- an
"exemplar" -- of
"excellence"
The
behavior of these dancers helps illustrate the extremely important point that
responsibility need not be felt as obligation, but instead can be associated
with freedom. (199)
Robert Henri, perhaps the greatest
American art teacher of the twentieth century, once captured the essence of
being intrinsically motivated when he wrote: “The objective of painting a
picture is not to make a picture...The object, which is back of every true work
of art, is the attainment of a state of
being, a high state of functioning, a more than ordinary moment of
existence.” Henri’s point, quite simply, is that being intrinsically motivated
has to do with being wholly involved in the activity itself and not with
reaching a goal (whether the goal be making money or making a picture). (21)
MAJOR CONFUSIONS
autonomy independence individualism
freedom
responsibility authenticity
People
have often portrayed the needs for autonomy and relatedness as being implicitly
contradictory...Part of the confusion stems from equating autonomy and
independence, which are in fact very different concepts. (88)
Like
independence, individualism has also been confused with autonomy, and many
writers have used the terms interchangeably. Yet the two concepts are
profoundly different. (134)
Freedom
involves being open to one’s inner nature, and there one finds the tendencies
for both relatedness and autonomy. (205)
Unfortunately,
the concepts of freedom, authenticity, and responsibility have been so badly
misportrayed by social critics over the past few decades that the issues
surrounding these concepts have become hopelessly muddled. (206)
Philosopher
Robert Young...said that acting autonomously requires rational capacities and
strength of will. Of course, individualism requires these as well. But
autonomy, according to Young, also requires self-knowledge. This point is an
extremely important one, for self-knowledge implies personality
integration, and that is what distinguishes autonomy from individualism.
Through self-knowledge one becomes more integrated and comes more into
connection with one’s true inner being – with one’s intrinsic predilections and
integrated values. Individualism, with its rational capacities and strength of
will, can be autonomous only when accompanied by self-knowledge. (136)
Plus beyond merely "nature" or "nurture"
The
problem with that view of the self as socially defined is that it makes no
distinction between a true and false self. It fails to recognize that we each
begin with an intrinsic self (nascent though it be), as well as the capacities
to continuously elaborate and refine that self. Thus, self can develop in
accord with its nature, or it can be programmed by society. But the self that
results from these two processes will be very different.
The intrinsic self is not a
genetically programmed entity that simply unfolds with time, however. It is
instead a set of potentials, interests, and capabilities that interact with the
world, each affecting the other. At any given time, self is the developmental
outcome of this dialectical relationship. When the process operates
effectively, true self is the result; when the process goes awry, the result is
a less-true self. As such, the development of self is significantly influenced
by the social world, but the self is not constructed by that world. Instead,
individuals play an active role in the development of self, and true self
develops as the social world supports the individual’s activities. (111-112)
Of course
social, political, and economic systems affect the extent to which people are
psychologically free...Social contexts greatly influence the extent to which
individuals are free, but they do not determine it. Freedom is a characteristic
of an individual’s psychological functioning at any given moment...Freedom
involves being open to one’s inner nature, and there one finds the tendencies
for both relatedness and autonomy. (205)
GOOD NEWS!
The strivings for competence and autonomy together – propelled by
curiosity and interest – are thus complementary growth forces that lead people
to become increasingly accomplished and to go on learning throughout their
lifetimes. The research reported thus far, along with more to come, indicates
quite clearly that, on every level, the person who feels competent and
autonomous, who directs his or her own life, is immeasurably better off than
the person who does not. (71)
Some bad news
[T]he
seeming fragility of this intrinsic motivation is quite haunting. (21) [O]nce you have begun to use rewards to control people, you
cannot easily go back. (51)
It is
truly amazing, as pointed up by our findings, that if people are ongoingly
treated as if they were either passive mechanisms or barbarians needing to be
controlled, they will begin to act more and more than way. (84)
Some more good news!
It is
particularly interesting that autonomy support, which is a crucial contextual
nutriment for individuals’ maintaining intrinsic motivation and as a result
being more creative, processing information more deeply, and enjoying their
activities more, also turns out to be essential for promoting internalization
and integration of the motivation for uninteresting, though important,
activities. (100)
And the key vis-à-vis others is
ê ê
ê
And the answers all boil down to one crucial point: Regardless of how
others treat the child, the best thing for you to do is be autonomy
supportive. That’s also our bottom line when managers and health-care
providers ask us about motivation. (142)
Autonomy support, which is the opposite of control, means being able to
take the other person’s perspective and work from there. It means actively
encouraging self-initiation, experimentation, and responsibility, and it may
very well require setting limits. But autonomy support functions through
encouragement, not pressure. (42)
At one level of analysis, autonomy support means to relate to others –
our children, students, and employees – as human
beings, as active agents who are worthy of support, rather than as objects to be manipulated for our own
gratification. That means taking their perspective and seeing the world from
their point of view as we relate to them. (100)
Autonomy support is a personal
orientation you can take toward other people – particularly other people in a
one-down position. This orientation flavors every aspect of your interactions
with them. It requires being able to take their perspective – being able to see
the world as they see it. It thus allows you to understand why they want what
they want and why they do what they do. Simply stated, to be autonomy
supportive as, say, a manager means being able to grasp what it is like to be
an employee of yours, in your company,
community, and industry. (142)
"seek first to
understand"