Where does motivation collide?

The reason a person has for acting, sorted by how much of it is their own: intrinsic motivation is doing a thing because it is interesting or enjoyable in itself, extrinsic motivation is doing it for a separable outcome, and extrinsic reasons themselves run from external regulation through introjection and identification to full integration. Deci and Ryan fixed the theory in 1985 and restated it in 2000 as a claim about three psychological needs, autonomy, competence and relatedness, whose support moves a reason along that continuum and whose frustration pushes it back. The distinctive move is that motivation has a quality as well as a quantity: two students with equal effort can be differently motivated, and the theory predicts the autonomous one persists and learns better. Information systems borrowed the intrinsic half as hedonic motivation, the UTAUT2 spoke, at /hedonic-motivation.[1][2][3]

Unit

A person's reason for an activity, placed on the autonomy continuum

Recovery means

Internalisation, an external reason becomes identified or integrated when autonomy, competence and relatedness are supported

Measured by

Self-report of reasons by regulation type; free-choice persistence after a reward is withdrawn; the Academic Motivation Scale

The purpose a learner brings to an achievement task: to develop competence (a mastery goal) or to demonstrate it relative to others (a performance goal), each of which can be aimed at approaching success or avoiding failure. Dweck set the two goals against each other in 1986 and tied them to beliefs about whether ability is fixed or can grow; Elliot and McGregor crossed them with the approach–avoidance distinction in 2001 to give the 2 × 2 framework that most classroom research now uses. Pintrich and colleagues built the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire on the same ground, pairing goal orientation, task value and self-efficacy with the strategies students actually use. The difference from self-determination theory is the referent: not why the person is there, but what they are trying to do once they are.[4][5][6]

Unit

A student in a course or domain, over a term

Recovery means

Reorientation, a shift from performance-avoidance toward mastery goals when the task is framed as learning rather than evaluation

Measured by

Self-report of goal orientation, task value and expectancy; the MSLQ; achievement goal questionnaires; persistence and grades as criteria

The process that makes a reward and its cues attractive enough to work for, measured as effort spent under a cost and dissociable from how much the reward is enjoyed. Berridge and Robinson fixed the distinction in 1998: dopamine mediates wanting, the incentive salience attributed to a stimulus, and not liking, the hedonic reaction, which survives dopamine depletion intact. Salamone and Correa's 2012 review made the same point with effort: animals with reduced mesolimbic dopamine still prefer the better reward when it is free, but stop climbing barriers or pressing levers to get it. Motivation here is an activational function, a slope of effort against reward, read from behaviour and from the neurons that set it.[7][8]

Unit

An animal's effort for a reward at a given cost, in a session

Recovery means

Restoration, effort-related choice returns when dopamine transmission is restored

Measured by

Breakpoint on progressive-ratio schedules; effort-based choice between a costly good reward and a free poor one; cue-triggered approach; dopamine release, lesion and antagonist effects

The reason a person had for committing an act, which the criminal law separates from intent, the state of mind directed at the act and its result. Hall stated the orthodox rule in 1960: the offence is defined by conduct and the intent that accompanies it, and the end the actor was pursuing is not an element and need not be proved, though it is admissible as circumstantial evidence of intent and weighs at sentencing. Binder's 2002 study showed how much the rule concedes in practice, since ulterior intents such as the intent to commit a felony in burglary, and the selection of a victim because of a protected characteristic in hate-crime statutes, put a motive into the definition of the crime. Wisconsin v. Mitchell in 1993 held that a penalty enhancement keyed to that selection does not offend the First Amendment, because motive has always been a permissible consideration at sentencing and antidiscrimination law already turns on it. Motivation in this field is the one thing the fact-finder is told they need not decide.[9][10][11]

Unit

A defendant's reason for an act, in relation to the elements of an offence

Recovery means

Not applicable, the question is whether the elements are proved, and motive is not ordinarily one of them

Measured by

Not measured; argued from evidence as proof of intent, considered at sentencing, or found as a fact where a statute makes it an element

The force that leads an employee to choose one level of effort over another, modelled so that a manager can change it. Vroom's 1964 expectancy theory made the force a product of three beliefs: that effort leads to performance, that performance leads to outcomes, and that the outcomes are valued. Herzberg, Mausner and Snyderman's 1959 interviews sorted the outcomes into two lists, motivators in the work itself and hygiene factors around it, and claimed only the first list moves effort; Maslow's 1943 hierarchy supplied the needs the outcomes were supposed to satisfy. Locke and Latham's goal-setting work, summarised in 2002, is the version with the strongest evidence: specific, difficult goals raise performance more than any of the earlier models predicted. The field asks how much effort, not what kind of reason; the quality distinction of self-determination theory arrives here only as the hedonic spoke at /hedonic-motivation.[12][13][14][15]

Unit

An employee's choice of effort on a job

Recovery means

Redesign, enriching the job, resetting goals or repairing instrumentality so that effort rises; hygiene fixes remove dissatisfaction only

Measured by

Self-reported valence, instrumentality and expectancy; goal commitment and goal difficulty; performance against goals; critical-incident interviews

The effort an agent supplies at a given incentive, read off behaviour rather than asked about, with the standard prediction that a higher price buys more. The anomaly that gave the word a life in economics is that it sometimes buys less. Gneezy and Rustichini showed in 2000 that a fine for late pick-up at day-care centres raised late pick-ups and that removing it did not bring them down; Frey and Jegen's 2001 survey named the pattern motivation crowding and collected the field evidence. Bénabou and Tirole then gave it a model in 2003 in which a reward is a signal: the principal who pays reveals that the task is unattractive or the agent untrustworthy, so the reward can lower the agent's own reason for doing it. The economist keeps one utility function throughout; intrinsic motivation is whatever remains when the price is zero.[16][17][18]

Unit

An agent's supply of effort at a given incentive

Recovery means

Not applicable, a crowded-out motivation is not assumed to return when the incentive is withdrawn, and in the day-care study it did not

Measured by

Effort, compliance or contribution observed before and after an incentive is introduced; field and laboratory experiments; elasticities