[Xmca-l] Re: Intrinsic / Extrinsic Motivation

[Andy Blunden]

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 
> <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> on behalf of Andy 
> Blunden <andyb@marxists.org>
> *Sent:* Sunday, August 25, 2019 1:28:40 PM
> *To:* xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu <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
> 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
>>
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