Well, long time since my last posting. Like all other university, my course also got a lot of assignment. Some are they are repeated. Some are they are rubbish. While the assignment below is repeated and rubbish. We actually studied about writting our research paper at the very 1st sem of the course. However, this addition subject pop-up from nowhere-English for psychology. I have the feeling like getting back to Form 6. I actually have to study about grammer and writting essay. I even do not know what out exam will look like. The truth is- my universty life is suck.
“Mummy, I don’t want to go to the piano class anymore.” say a little girl. Her mother initially look shock, but she then say, “But honey, you are the one that tells mummy that you love piano at the very first place.” The little girl just shakes her small little head and tells her mother that she is not motivated to go to the class. The mother look surprised. She thought that the girls should be very motivated because she always promises to reward her daughter an ice-cream for finishing the piano class and she did.
It is true that when sometimes children feel not motivated, we try to motivate that by rewarding the things they want such as toys, ice-cream and so on. It is the easiest way to make the children keeping up their handworks. Rewards not only used on the children, but even at work place, employers tend to motivated the workers to perform better by giving them bonuses, and all kind of allowance. A worker will also tend to find a company where he can get extra bonuses during the end of the year. Some say that there is not better to motivate workers than with money. As in the world we are living it is foolish to say we can live without money or other words it is foolish to say we can live without sweets or ice-cream in a children world.
According to Deci & Ryan, motivation is divided into intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation such as interest is the innate propensity to engage one’s interests and to exercise one’s capacities and in doings so, to seek out and master optimal challenges while the extrinsic motivation such as money and food arises from the environmental incentives and consequences. For instance, people who learn out of intrinsic motivation (interest) show more positive emotion than those who are learn out of extrinsic motivation (money). For example, a worker that is interested in his works will be more satisfy with his works and performs better in his works compare to those who are motivated by the money. Extrinsic motivation does help to motivate the people to work harder to perform better. However these do not explain why the girl is no longer motivated to practice piano. She supposes to be more motivated because she involved in something she is interested in and receiving an extrinsic reward from her mother. What happen to the people who are intrinsically motivated being rewarded by the extrinsic reward? Will they become more and more motivated? Will they become more and more motivated or the other way round?
The scientists found surprising results. Increased motivation generally does not occur during the research. Rather, the imposition of extrinsic reward actually undermined the intrinsic reward. In other words, giving extrinsic reward to someone that learns out of intrinsic motivation will only reduce his/her intrinsic motivation. Leeper & Greene named this adverse effect of extrinsic reward on intrinsic motivation as ‘the hidden cost of reward’. This finding actually shocks the whole world. Everyone does not expect a hidden effect of the extrinsic rewards. Who else has expected that the way they tried to motivate the children by promise to give them rewards will actually reduce their interests to ward that particular subject. The mother’s action of rewarding her daughter an ice-cream after every class, expecting to increase her daughter’s motivation, actually incur the hidden cost of undermining her daughter’s intrinsic motivation toward piano. The scientists later also found that there are actually two factors that explain which types of rewards that decrease intrinsic motivation.
The two rewards that undermine the intrinsic motivation are expectancy and tangibility. People tend to engage in activity to receive rewards such as we tend to working harder because we expect to get promoted. However studies show that finishing a task with the expectation of getting reward will actually decrease one intrinsic motivation while unexpected reward will not. The second factor that undermines the intrinsic motivation is tangible reward. Tangible reward such as money, food, and award will actually decrease one’s intrinsic motivation, whereas verbal reward such as praise will not. In other words, rewards that are promised, touchable, testable will generally decrease intrinsic motivation. Therefore as a mother, she should not promise the little one what she going to get after finishing the piano classes, but to praise her after she finishes the class or performs well.
Without any doubt, rewards are the important factor toward one’s motivation. Rewards can actually motivate others to perform better. However we have to be careful as under some situations, rewards can actually undermined the child intrinsic motivation to learn. I strongly agree that under some situations, reward can actually caused people to become less motivated. To avoid such incidents from happening, parents should always reward their children by praising them or giving them unexpected reward rather than promise the children to buy something or giving them money.
(826 words)
References:
Deci, E. L., Ryan, R. M. (1985). Intrinsic
motivation and self-determination in human behavior.New York: Plenum.
Reeve, J. (2005).
Motivation and Emotion. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Son.
