[Xmca-l] Re: Intrinsic / Extrinsic Motivation
Andy Blunden
andyb@marxists.org
Sun Aug 25 15:53:34 PDT 2019
Every rational action is done for a purpose. This is the
distinction between goal and motive in A N Leontyev and
between Purpose and Intention in Hegel, between action and
concept in Vygotsky. This distinction goes back to
Aristotle. Where this distinction is absent we do no have
human life.
The distinction between extrinsic and intrinsic is a
different one. In Hegel it is the distinction between
Intention and Welfare, in A N Leontyev between the really
understood motive and the really effective motive. The
alienated wage worker turns up at work only in order to earn
a wage. Unless "work" is a government make-work program or
prison labour, this is an extrinsic motivation.
To say that attending a political meeting because you enjoy
meetings is an /intrinsic/ motivation is to reduce modern
social life to pure hedonism. Like the old argument that
altruism is a logical impossibility, because if you do
something to help someone that is only because you get
pleasure from helping someone.
Andy
------------------------------------------------------------
*Andy Blunden*
https://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm
On 26/08/2019 2:32 am, Glassman, Michael wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
> The earliest I have read about extrinsic and intrinsic
> motivation (the earliest is was mentioned) was, as with so
> much else in John Dewey – Democracy and Education. It may
> have been mentioned earlier and it was probably an idea
> floating around. I would be it came up at some of the
> salons at Jane Addams place. The general distinction (I
> don’t think dichotomy is the correct word here) is that
> the extrinsic reward is something that an agent is
> offering an individual (in Dewey’s case a child) to get
> them to do something. Dewey’s criticism is – for lack of a
> better word – pragmatic. Extrinsic rewards tend to fade
> or disappear. If somebody it paying you to do something
> and the reason you are doing it is because they are paying
> you, then you stop doing it when you stop getting paid.
> There is nothing inherently bad in this but it is not what
> Dewey might call vital experience, it doesn’t change the
> way you approach the world, has not impact on lifelong
> learning. However if you are doing something because you
> want to do it, without an outside agent or the outside
> agent is superfluous then there is a greater chance you
> will keep doing. The action is not dependent on anybody
> else. So Andy I think your example or somebody attending a
> political meeting because they enjoy is actually intrinsic
> motivation while somebody attending a meeting because they
> want to get things done is extrinsic, in other words they
> will stop attending if they don’t think things will get
> done (something like this has been defined as political
> efficacy). If I read this wrong I apologize.
>
> The reason I think it might be unwise to consider it a
> dichotomy is because of the way the two have been define
> since Bandura. It is more of a process. You need to start
> with extrinsic motivation but through a process of
> feedback (yes, Bandrua like cybernetics) and positive
> reinforcement through success it slowly becomes intrinsic.
> It is one of the fundamental tenets of socio-cognitive theory.
>
> I have no idea why socio-culturalists do not like this, it
> seems to fit pretty well, but I am interested to here.
>
> As for Deci and Ryan’s self-determination theory I don’t
> really think of intrinsic motivation as innate (do they
> say that). It is more emergent. You have to have the
> right circumstances, which include autonomy, relatedness,
> and competence and this perfect storm leads to intrinsic
> motivation. But it is difficult to attain without it. Can
> you call that innate?
>
> Michael
>
> *From:*xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu
> <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> *On Behalf Of *Andy Blunden
> *Sent:* Sunday, August 25, 2019 11:53 AM
> *To:* xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu
> *Subject:* [Xmca-l] Re: Intrinsic / Extrinsic Motivation
>
> Artin, is there any chance that your 'trouble' can be
> expressed in a paragraph here?
>
> Andrew, I also suspect that the making of the distinction
> into a dichotomy, a behaviourist interpretation of the
> distinction and an ahistorical understanding of the idea
> may cause others to reject it, throwing the baby out with
> the bathwater.
>
> We have politicians in this country, and I do believe that
> some of them participate in the practice of politics for
> the purpose of furthering and even perfecting that
> practice, maybe only a few, but some. But I am sure that
> there are some who in there for other purposes, mostly
> enrichment and/or fame. True, it is not a dichotomy; some
> who are there in order to advance political practice also
> enjoy the game and the fame in can bring. But to collapse
> the two would be madness. The practice of politics has an
> object which is not self-enrichment. Individual motivation
> must be judged against that concept of politics.
>
> A while ago I was giving a talk on my book "Origins of
> Collective Decision Making," explaining the ethical and
> instrumental differences between Consensus and Majority,
> and a young anarchist said she /enjoyed/ consensus much
> more than majority decision making. That there could be
> reason for choosing one mode of action rather than another
> other the pleasure derived had not occurred to her. I was,
> I admit, a bit shocked. This case brings out the subtlety
> of the distinction. Acting in political meetings for the
> sheer pleasure of doing it is actually an /extrinsic/
> motive, whereas acting in meetings to produce good
> decisions implies /intrinsic/ motivation. But
> superficially, it seems to be the other way around.
>
> In a certain context, e.g. playing tennis, doing it for
> the pleasure of doing it counts as an intrinsic
> motivation, and when you become a profession and maybe
> then start playing for the prize money and adulation/,
> /rather than in the perfection of the game, then that is
> extrinsic motivation. It depends on whether tennis is
> taken as a game or a sport, professional or otherwise.
>
> But maybe it is just the difficulty in making a nice clear
> dichotomy which sets people against the distinction?
>
> Andy
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
>
> *Andy Blunden*
> https://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm
>
> On 26/08/2019 12:34 am, Coppens, Andrew wrote:
>
> I don’t know much about a characteristically CHAT
> objection to the distinction but, to my mind, the main
> problem is in how intrinsic motivation is
> characterized (i.e., acultural, ahistorical) and that
> extrinsic motivation is set up as its opposite (i.e.,
> not just a distinction but a dichotomy). These two
> features of the theory create many problems regarding
> what I need a theory of motivation to help explain.
>
> My objections might counter some primary CHAT texts,
> but there are a number of reasons I can imagine being
> OK with that.
>
> / Andrew
>
> ---
>
> Andrew D. Coppens
>
> UNH Education Dept., 302 Morrill Hall
>
> 603-862-3736, @andrewcoppens
>
> Schedule a meeting: calendly.com/acoppens
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
>
> *From:* xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu
> <mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> <mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> on behalf of
> Andy Blunden <andyb@marxists.org>
> <mailto:andyb@marxists.org>
> *Sent:* Sunday, August 25, 2019 1:28:40 PM
> *To:* xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu
> <mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu> <mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> *Subject:* [Xmca-l] Re: Intrinsic / Extrinsic Motivation
>
> *Caution - External Email*
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
>
> For some reason which I have never understood many
> CHAT people seem to be set against this distinction.
> And yet the distinction is intrinsic to A N Leontyev's
> Activity Theory. In addition, Alasdair MacIntyre uses
> it to, in my opinion to great effect, such that I
> cannot imagine a theory of motivation that lacked this
> distinction.
>
> What is the problem?
>
> Andy
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
>
> *Andy Blunden*
> https://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm
> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.ethicalpolitics.org_ablunden_index.htm&d=DwMF-g&c=c6MrceVCY5m5A_KAUkrdoA&r=T292xnKwVOMtoHKpeIK_s9mDPzJBSXg6AqnqQfLlAoc&m=d4qKpoX8iBmMCrxfuKZ29rBuT4OVmseKPD3o9xA9qwQ&s=PhLbeiPXKpKBLPnSUpAm_95fDmRRopwgDK14cp4c9zc&e=>
>
>
> On 25/08/2019 1:00 pm, David H Kirshner wrote:
>
> I’m reading a behaviorally oriented account of
> intrinsic and extrinsic motivation by
> authoritative authors Ryan and Deci (2000):
>
> “The most basic distinction is between /intrinsic
> motivation/, which refers to doing something
> because it is inherently interesting or enjoyable,
> and /extrinsic motivation/, which refers to doing
> something because it leads to a separable outcome
> [one undertaken for instrumental reasons]” (p. 55).
>
> This seems to me an impoverished account for a
> variety of reasons, most pressingly because it
> attempts to naturalize what is pleasurable or
> intrinsically motivating as inherent to the
> organism, without respect to individuals as
> people, engaged in socioculturally constituted
> life histories.
>
> Does the construct of intrinsic / extrinsic
> motivation surface anywhere in sociocultural theory?
>
> Alternatively, can anyone point me toward a
> sociocultural critique of the intrinsic /
> extrinsic construct?
>
> David
>
> Ryan R. M., & Deci E. L. (2000). Intrinsic and
> extrinsic motivations: Classic definitions and new
> directions. /Contemporary Educational Psychology,
> 25/, 54–67. https://doi.org/10.1006/ceps.1999.1020
> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__doi.org_10.1006_ceps.1999.1020&d=DwMF-g&c=c6MrceVCY5m5A_KAUkrdoA&r=T292xnKwVOMtoHKpeIK_s9mDPzJBSXg6AqnqQfLlAoc&m=d4qKpoX8iBmMCrxfuKZ29rBuT4OVmseKPD3o9xA9qwQ&s=PIxeXNE4clr3Jrl5eX2Rj6bw92pwZxqgSO9opx54rtU&e=>
>
>
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