[Xmca-l] Re: Intrinsic motivation?

Wed Aug 6 02:36:35 PDT 2014

Andy,
could you please indicate what is the neologism which I would have
introduced and that has brought about such a disagreement from you?

I can think of 'strategy of production' which I intentionally introduced as
a new concept and discussed it in my dissertation. But I guess it is not
this one.

Cristina

2014-08-06 8:43 GMT+02:00 Andrew Coppens <acoppens@ucsc.edu>:

> Hi Greg and all,
> I'm enjoying this thread and wish I could participate more closely.
>
> I want to first respond to the point about "necessity" to labor. The bulk
> of the research I've done here focuses on children's initiative in family
> household chores. Arguably, the families with the most necessity for
> children's help are middle-class dual-earner families with big homes that
> require lots of upkeep but who have very little time and little help from
> extended family members. Yet, these are the families in which children
> contribute the least, and seldom with initiative. Rather, the little they
> do is often assigned by parents, rewarded with praise and allowances, and
> is often accomplished with lots of struggle. Without a doubt the best data
> available on pattern for US middle-class families is here:
> http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520273986
>
> Also, in many Indigenous American communities play and work are inseparable
> for young children (and they also go to school). Inge Bolin's 2006 book
> documents this beautifully. Suzanne Gaskins has found that toddlers in a
> Mayan community actually choose to be involved in work over play. This
> makes sense to me. Why play with dolls when you can climb up on your own
> developmental shoulders and help care for a real baby, sharing this
> fundamental motive with expert caregivers in your community? To be sure,
> these patterns are changing.
>
> On to your question, Greg. Thanks for the correction on dialogic/dialectic;
> I meant the latter. It's the creative tension between subject and
> object-motive that's of interest here to me and to my ideas about
> motivation and children's integration in mature family/community endeavors.
> Let me use the caregiving example above. When children can collaborate with
> adults and contribute to this endeavor, not in a child-specific proscribed
> way but as an integrated novice, I think the "pull" or "motivation" to
> contribute can be immense. And, because the object of the activity is
> shared I think the subjectivity of the child expands along with it. When we
> interviewed children in an Indigenous-heritage community of Guadalajara,
> Mexico about what they personally did to help children insisted on the
> "pronoun" we. We asked again about "your" contributions, and they corrected
> with "we". This is written up briefly here: Coppens, A. D., Alcalá, L.,
> Mejía-Arauz, R., & Rogoff, B. (2014). Children's initiative in family
> household work in Mexico. *Human Development, 57*(2-3), 116-130. doi:
> 10.1159/000356768
>
> Just to make it interesting: I'm also thinking about "helping the family"
> as a leading developmental activity in the sense that Elkonin has written
> about the idea, with long-lasting motivational and developmental
> affordances, for children from many Latino families (at least those who
> have lots of experience pitching in collaboratively throughout childhood).
> There's some evidence that "helping the family" can support academic
> achievement in college for these youth.
>
> Thanks everyone,
> Andrew
> ---
>
>
>
> On Mon, Aug 4, 2014 at 9:16 PM, Greg Thompson <greg.a.thompson@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > Andrew,
> >
> > I think your point about the segregation of children and workers from
> > productive activities seems an important point to consider in the larger
> > context of why psychologists have been so taken by the
> intrinsic/extrinsic
> > dichotomy. I don't know Danziger but I wonder if there might also be
> > something important that comes with separating children from productive
> > work. Obviously something is lost here. But it seems that something is
> > gained in the sense that children are, at least theoretically, freed from
> > necessity. I say "at least theoretically" because in most cases, it is
> just
> > the exchange of one necessity for another: the necessity to labor
> > productively is exchanged for the necessity to get good grades. But there
> > is the theoretical potential for real, engaging play.
> >
> > Also, I wonder if you could expand on this:
> > "This dialogic relation between self and object-motive is, I
> > think, what's intended by mutual constitution of the
> subject/object-motive
> > in Leont'ev and others' formulations. This is where I've started to make
> > headway in thinking about motivation when a child contributes
> > collaboratively and with initiative toward a shared motive."
> >
> > I'm not sure I follow whether or not you are pointing to a dialogical or
> > dialectical relationship, or whether that is a distinction that matters
> to
> > you? (some people make too big a deal about this distinction and others
> use
> > the terms internchangeably so I'm just wondering what you mean by it -
> for
> > my two bits, "mutual constitution" sounds more dialectical to me).
> >
> > But more importantly, I was wondering about the headway you are making in
> > thinking about motivation. It sounded like there is more here and I'd
> love
> > to hear more.
> >
> > Cheers,
> > -greg
> > p.s. I clipped the message so responses going forward won't have that
> > terribly long thread trailing behind (although those threads can be
> useful
> > for finding one's way back...).
> >
> > On Mon, Aug 4, 2014 at 3:46 PM, Andrew Coppens <acoppens@ucsc.edu>
> wrote:
> >
> > > Hi everyone -
> > > Thanks in advance for bearing with a long post from a usual listener
> > here.
> > >
> > > I'm also working on an alternative to the deeply entrenched
> > > intrinsic/extrinsic dichotomy. I'm trying to explain a pervasive
> cultural
> > > pattern among Indigenous American children: the motivation to
> contribute
> > > autonomously (i.e., under their own initiative) and with responsibility
> > to
> > > productive family and community endeavors, as integrated participants
> and
> > > meaningful collaborators in cultural activities. What are the
> > motivational
> > > affordances of children having opportunities to "take part" in mature
> > > endeavors? What is the draw of "bigger than me" activities?
> > >
> > > First, I've found it instructive to consider parallels in historical
> > timing
> > > between the emergence of a motivational science and the segregation of
> > > children from productive work in the middle-class West, both around the
> > > turn of the 20th century. Kurt Danziger has written on this in *Naming
> > the
> > > Mind. *I believe this cultural pattern (the segregation of children and
> > > workers from productive activities and their motives) has become
> somewhat
> > > of an unquestioned epistemological principle in canonical motivational
> > > theory, and certainly in the intrinsic/extrinsic dichotomy.
> > >
> > > >From a CHAT perspective, would the idea of an "extrinsic reward" even
> > hold
> > > water? Mainstream motivational research gives enough evidence to defend
> > the
> > > idea that when "extrinsic rewards" undermine intrinsic motivation, what
> > > might be happening is a transformation of the student's/child's
> activity
> > > and the material reward is the pivot. That new activity (e.g., getting
> a
> > > grade) is not nearly as compelling as mastering material to do
> something
> > > productive and interesting. But "getting a grade" is
> inherent/intrinsic,
> > > not extrinsic, to the activity of IPBSchooling. This motivational
> > > transformation can happen in the reverse direction too (see WM Roth and
> > RM
> > > Larson), through a move from periphery to center a la Lave & Wenger.
> > >
> > > So, not "extrinsic" but also not "intrinsic" in the conventional sense.
> > > When self-in-activity is the unit of analysis for questions about
> > > motivation, the intrinsic-as-internal metaphor seems very inadequate.
> > > "Intrinsic" comes to encompass the entire activity, and the self in
> > > relation to it. This dialogic relation between self and object-motive
> > is, I
> > > think, what's intended by mutual constitution of the
> > subject/object-motive
> > > in Leont'ev and others' formulations. This is where I've started to
> make
> > > headway in thinking about motivation when a child contributes
> > > collaboratively and with initiative toward a shared motive.
> > >
> > > There is definitely work on this topic. Ruth Paradise (2005) has a very
> > > nice paper in Spanish also using the term "inherent" motivation, and
> > > Barbara Rogoff has alluded to this idea in several places in the
> > mid-1990s.
> > > Dan Hickey and others have written wonderfully about sociocultural
> > > perspectives on achievement motivation theory, in ways that would
> > coincide
> > > with thoughts on this thread so far. Dorothy Lee (1961) calls this
> > > "autonomous motivation". There are many others, including key insights
> > from
> > > Carol Dweck and Mark Lepper.
> > >
> > > Thanks for listening and hopefully correcting,
> > > Andrew
> > >
> > > ---
> > > Andrew D. Coppens
> > > www.andrewcoppens.com
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > --
> > Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
> > Assistant Professor
> > Department of Anthropology
> > 883 Spencer W. Kimball Tower
> > Brigham Young University
> > Provo, UT 84602
> > http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson
> >
>

-- 

Maria Cristina Migliore, Ph.D.

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IRES Istituto Ricerche Economico Sociali del Piemonte

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