Behavioral view of Motivation

Presented by: Amir Hamid Forough Ameri

ahfameri@gmail.com

October 2015

What is Motivation?

• The word motivation derives from the Latin verb movere meaning ‘to move’.Motivation is usually defined as an internal state

that arouses, directs, and maintains behaviour.Psychologists focus on 5 basic questions:What choices do people make about their behaviour? →focusing on your homework or watching TV?2. How long does it take to get started? →start right away or procrastinate?3. What is the intensity or level of involvement in the chosen activity?4. What causes a person to persist or to give up? →read the entire Shakespeare assignment or just a few pages?5. What is the individual thinking and feeling while doing the activity? →enjoying Shakespeare or worrying about an upcoming test?

Behavioral View of Motivation Behaviorists use two concepts: Reward: an object or event supplied as a consequence of a particular

behaviour that we think is attractive. Example: a teacher might believe a good grade is a reward for those

who have done their homework well. Incentive: an object or event that actually motivates a person’s

behavior.Example: students who value good grades view grades as an incentive. Understanding student motivation requires probing

students’ views about what they count as incentives and distinguishing these from what we may think are rewards.

• Theories of motivation have ascribed different emphases to social context. In behaviourist theories of learning, external environmental influences on motivation – such as rewards and punishment – played a prominent role, leading to common depictions of ‘carrot-and-stick’ methods of motivation.

• However, with the cognitive revolution through the 1970s the analytical lens became focused on the inner workings of the human mind that process information and shape behaviour,

• If we are consistently reinforced for certain behaviour, we may develop habits or tendencies to act in certain ways.

• Providing grades for learning or punishment for misbehavior is an attempt to motivate students by extrinsic means.

• Whether this works depends on whether grades are incentives.

From a behavioural perspective, motivation is simply the anticipation of reward.

Driven to acquire positive reinforcement, and driven by previous experiences of reward, we act accordingly to achieve more reinforcement.

Skinner, Pavlov, and Thorndike put motivation at the center of their theories of human behaviour.

Performance in tasks and the motivation to do so may be caused by external forces: parents, teachers, peers, educational requirements, job specifications, etc.

Classical conditioning states that biological responses to associated stimuli energize and direct behavior (Huitt & Hummel, 1997a).  Operant learning states the primary factor is consequences: the application of reinforcers provides incentives to increase behavior; the application of punishers provides disincentives that result in a decrease in behavior (Huitt & Hummel, 1997b).

Reinforcement Theory of Motivation

• This theory was proposed by B.F. Skinner and his associates. It states that individual’s behaviour is a function of its consequences. It is based on Thorndike’s “law of effect”, i.e, individual’s behaviour with positive consequences tends to be repeated, but individual’s behaviour with negative consequences tends not to be repeated.

• Reinforcement theory of motivation overlooks the internal state of individual, i.e., the inner feelings and drives of individuals are ignored by Skinner. This theory focuses totally on what happens to an individual when he takes some action.

• Example: the external environment of the organization must be designed effectively and positively so as to motivate the employee. This theory is a strong tool for analyzing controlling mechanism for individual’s behaviour. However, it does not focus on the causes of individual’s behaviour.

• Positive Reinforcement- This implies giving a positive response when an individual shows positive and required behaviour. For example - Immediately praising an employee for coming early for job.

• Negative Reinforcement- This implies rewarding an employee by removing negative / undesirable consequences. Both positive and negative reinforcement can be used for increasing desirable / required behaviour.

• Punishment- It means applying undesirable consequence for showing undesirable behaviour so as to lower the probability of repeating undesirable behaviour in future. For instance - Suspending an employee for breaking the organizational rules.

• Extinction- It implies absence of reinforcements. In other words, extinction implies lowering the probability of undesired behaviour by removing reward for that kind of behaviour. For instance - if an employee no longer receives praise and admiration for his good work, he may feel that his behaviour is generating no fruitful consequence.

• "We are automatically reinforced, apart from any particular deprivation, when we successfully control the physical world. This may explain our tendency to engage in skilled crafts, in artistic creation, and in such sports as bowling, billiards, and tennis" (Skinner, 1953: 77)

Incentive theory• Incentive theory is exactly what it sounds like it is, it is an incentive or

motive to do something. The most common incentive would be a reward. Rewards can be tangible or intangible, and is presented generally after the occurrence of the action or behavior that one is trying to correct or cause to happen again.

• Incentive theory is promoted by behavioral psychologists, such as B.F. Skinner. Incentive theory is especially supported by Skinner in his philosophy of Radical behaviorism: a person's actions always have social ramifications.

• If actions are positively received, people are more likely to act in this manner, or if negatively received, people are less likely to act in this manner.

• In incentive theory, stimuli "attract" a person towards them, and push them towards the stimulus. In terms of behaviorism, incentive theory involves positive reinforcement: the reinforcing stimulus has been conditioned to make the person happier.

Definitions of Incentive Theory• "According to this view, people are pulled toward behaviors that

offer positive incentives and pushed away from behaviors associated with negative incentives. In other words, differences in behavior from one person to another or from one situation to another can be traced to the incentives available and the value a person places on those incentives at the time."(Bernstein, 2011)

• "Building on the base established by drive theories, incentive theories emerged in the 1940s and 1950s. Incentive theories proposed that behavior is motivated by the "pull" of external goals, such as rewards, money, or recognition. It's easy to think of many situations in which a particular goal, such as a promotion at work, can serve as an external incentive that helps activate particular behaviors."(Hockenbury & Hockenbury, 2003)

Important Observations About Incentive Theory

• Incentives can be used to get people to engage in certain behaviors, but they can also be used to get people to stop performing certain actions.

• Incentives only become powerful if the individual places importance on the reward.

• Rewards have to be obtainable in order to be motivating. For example, a student will not be motivated to earn a top grade on an exam if the assignment is so difficult that it is not realistically achievable.

Extrinsic Motivation(Carrot and Stick)• Extrinsic motivation occurs when we are motivated to

perform a behavior or engage in an activity to earn a reward or avoid punishment.

• Examples of behaviors that are the result of extrinsic motivation include:

• Studying because you want to get a good grade• Cleaning your room to avoid being scolded by your parents• Participating in a sport to win awards• Competing in a contest to win a scholarship→ In each of these examples, the behavior is motivated by a

desire to gain a reward or avoid an adverse outcome.

• Extrinsic motivation can be beneficial in some situations:

• External rewards can induce interest and participation in something in which the individual had no initial interest.

• Extrinsic rewards can be used to motivate people to acquire new skills or knowledge. Once these early skills have been learned, people may then become more intrinsically motivated to pursue the activity.

• External rewards can also be a source of feedback, allowing people to know when their performance has achieved a standard deserving of reinforcement.

• Extrinsic motivators should be avoided in situations where:• The individual already finds the activity intrinsically

rewarding• Offering a reward might make a "play" activity seem more

like "work’’.• Some studies have demonstrated that offering excessive

external rewards for an already internally rewarding behavior can lead to a reduction in intrinsic motivation, a phenomenon known as the overjustification effect. In one study, for example, children who were rewarded for playing with a toy they had already expressed interest in playing with became less interested in the item after being externally rewarded.

• Researchers have arrived at three primary conclusions with regards to extrinsic rewards and their influence on intrinsic motivation:

• Unexpected external rewards typically do not decrease intrinsic motivation. For example, if you get a good grade on a test because you enjoy learning about the subject and the teacher decides to reward you with a gift card to your favorite pizzeria, your underlying motivation for learning about the subject will not be affected.

• Praise can help increase internal motivation. Researchers have found that offering positive praise and feedback when people do something better in comparison to others can improve intrinsic motivation.

• Intrinsic motivation will decrease, however, when external rewards are given for completing a particular task or only doing minimal work. For example, if parents praise their child too much every time he completes a simple task, he will become less intrinsically motivated to perform that task in the future.

References

Brown, H. D. (2007). Principles of language learning and teaching (5th ed.). New York: Pearson Education, Inc.Cook, V., & Singleton, D. (2014). Key topics in second language acquisition. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.Dörnyei, Z. & Ushioda. E. (2011). Teaching and Researching Motivation. (2nd ed.). Edinburgh Gate: Pearson Education Limited.Woolfolk, A. E., Winne, P. H., & Perry, N. E. (2003). Educational psychology . (2nd ed.). Toronto: Pearson Education Inc. Internet References

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