[Xmca-l] Re: Intrinsic / Extrinsic Motivation

Sun Aug 25 10:19:00 PDT 2019

Thanks, David.

I will look at Reeve’s et al. as you suggest, but I’m not too encouraged by Ryan and Deci (2000), that I cited earlier.
They do reference sociocultural constructs like internalization and notions of identity:

Given that many of the educational activities prescribed in schools are not designed to be intrinsically interesting, a central question concerns how to motivate students to value and self-regulate such activities, and without external pressure, to carry them out on their own. This problem is described within SDT in terms of fostering the internalization and integration of values and behavioral regulations (Deci & Ryan, 1985). Internalization is the process of taking in a value or regulation, and integration is the process by which individuals more fully transform the regulation into their own so that it will emanate from their sense of self. (p. 60)

But their underlying explanatory framework provides no room for any constructs that extend beyond the individual, so the basis for what comes to be identified as motivational is simply generalization of what has been observed to be motivational in practice:

Cognitive Evaluation Theory (CET) was presented by Deci and Ryan (1985) to specify the factors in social contexts that produce variability in intrinsic motivation. CET, which is considered a subtheory of self-determination theory, argues that interpersonal events and structures (e.g., rewards, communications, feedback) that conduce toward feelings of competence during action can enhance intrinsic motivation for that action because they allow satisfaction of the basic psychological need for competence. Accordingly,
for example, optimal challenges, effectance promoting feedback, and freedom from demeaning evaluations are all predicted to facilitate intrinsic motivation. CET further specifies that feelings of competence will not enhance intrinsic motivation unless they are accompanied by a sense of autonomy or, in attributional terms, by an internal perceived locus of causality (IPLOC; de- Charms, 1968). Thus, people must not only experience perceived competence (or self-efficacy), they must also experience their behavior to be self-determined if intrinsic motivation is to be maintained or enhanced. (p. 58)

Yes, as socioculturalists we can build a story of how and why self-efficacy and autonomy come to be part of a developmental trajectory of becoming (for some students), but Ryan and Deci can’t. For them, this is just empirical generalization, and their claim to having a predictive theory is just posturing. The weakness comes from their basic definition I quoted earlier that talks of some things being “inherently interesting or enjoyable” and hence intrinsically motivating. But “inherent” and “intrinsic” are mere synonyms, there is no content to this definition beyond what empirically has proven to be “inherently interesting or enjoyable.”

David
PS. Appreciate the many replies so far, and am working my way through them.

From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> On Behalf Of David Atencio
Sent: Sunday, August 25, 2019 11:03 AM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>; Coppens, Andrew <Andrew.Coppens@unh.edu>
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Intrinsic / Extrinsic Motivation

David, I encourage you to read more work from the self determination lab at Rochester. You can access much of their work by registering as a member.  In particular, I recommend you take a look at Deci and Ryan’s chapter in Dennis McInerney and Shawn Van Etten’s edited book “Big Theories Revisited”
Reeve, J. M., Deci, E. L, & Ryan, R. M. (2004). Self-determination  theory: A dialectical framework for understanding sociocultural influences on student motivation.

I understand their Organisimic Integration Theory to be quite consistent with Vygotsky’s general law of cultural development.  This is their unique account of how extrinsic motivation can develop into self-determination through the same inter psychological – intra psychological transformational process Vygotsky spoke about.

David J. Atencio, Ph.D.
Associate Professor,
Family & Child Studies Program
Department of Individual, Family, & Community Education
College of Education MFC 05-3040
1University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, New Mexico 87131
(505) 277-3757
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Date: Sunday, August 25, 2019 at 6:29 AM
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>>, "Coppens, Andrew" <Andrew.Coppens@unh.edu<mailto:Andrew.Coppens@unh.edu>>
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Intrinsic / Extrinsic Motivation

That's correct about the intrinsic/extrinsic dichotomy mostly being approached as an individual manner. Deci and Ryan do research intrinsic motivation in groups for example fitness motivation with technology.

Hi David,

I agree; from a sociocultural account there are many problems with the intrinsic/extrinsic dichotomy.

One problem has to do with the “origin” of motivation. Self-Determination Theory (SDT) claims intrinsic motivation is innate. From a theoretical perspective, in Psychology, this innate needs and drives perspective has been replaced by cognitive perspectives such as goal theories (e.g., Eccles, Dweck). Here, the origin of motivation changes to cognitions but the individualistic perspective remains.

The next problem with the dichotomy is that it contrasts – indeed opposes – the individual and the social and argues that intrinsic motivation is an individual phenomenon. There are many critiques of this aspect, and the field of educational psychology has a number of examples where motivation is conceived as much more social. Although social cognitive theories are now more popular in psychological research, the internal location of self-regulatory mechanisms that contrast with external “forces” is also central to many of those theories. The need to theorize an “internalization” mechanism in SDT reflects this individual/social division.

Cultural-historical critiques address both of these problems in historicizing motivation as a social and cultural phenomenon. Mariane Hedegaard, Marilyn Fleer, Richard Walker, Dan Hickey, and others have written on this. Not referring to these authors necessarily, “sociocultural” perspectives on motivation more generally tend to focus on the social and secondarily the historical shifts in theorizing motivation that a CH perspective would offer.

Empirically, I and colleagues have critiqued the intrinsic/extrinsic dichotomy for its inability to account for striking motivational differences in young children’s helpfulness across cultural communities. At ages as young as 2, we’ve found that toddlers from a US Mexican-heritage background voluntarily help around the house more often and with more sophistication than do middle-class European American toddlers – a difference that seems to increase with age. A theory of motivation focused on innate and universal drives isn’t helpful in accounting for these differences. Ruth Paradise (2005) has a phrase I like – “inherent” motivation, as in motivation that is inherent to taking part in shared cultural activity – that captures the essence of a CH perspective on motivation. US Mexican-heritage toddlers’ deep inclusion in family and community activities, I believe, sets the developmental foundation for this inherent motivation to help voluntarily. I’m attaching her paper (it’s in Spanish).

Finally, in the early 1970s an interesting explanation by Mark Lepper of the undermining quality of extrinsic incentives (which Deci was among the first to write about in American psychology) on young children’s motivation was that such rewards “over-justified” their actions – they were being incentivized to do things they already wanted to do. CHAT perspectives on object/motive offer, I think, more explanatory power: the apparent reduction in motivation may have also been a shift in the object/motive that organized the young children’s actions. The children in Deci’s early studies may have been motivated, inherently, in a variety of different activities with different motives.

(I’m happy to share more references if any of this is helpful.)

/ Andrew

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Andrew D. Coppens
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From: <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>> on behalf of David H Kirshner <dkirsh@lsu.edu<mailto:dkirsh@lsu.edu>>
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Date: Saturday, August 24, 2019 at 11:03 PM
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>>
Subject: [Xmca-l] Intrinsic / Extrinsic Motivation

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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