Why do we do things?

Edward Deci

Learning and self-determination theory. What is presented in the following is not a full attempt to describe Deci and Ryan's theory as written by them. It is rather an interpretation of their theory as regards learning. Although Deci and Ryan say very little specifically about learning, this site holds that their theory is all about learning. Their theory is about motivation and nothing can be learned without motivation. Also their concepts of autonomy, competence and relatedness, are inexorably entwined in the understanding of the concept of learning. This page will also provide some information on other theories but only as they provide a more integrated understanding of learning. In particular elements of Festinger's theory of cognitive dissonance will be included, of which, Deci and Ryan's theory of motivation says almost nothing. Cognitive dissonance will be included because it seems apparent that cognitive dissonance does support the Deci and Ryan theory. It does this by simply providing an alternative explanation for why some things work the way they do. Cognitive dissonance is introduced not to oppose the Deci Ryan theory but rather to strengthen it. 

Self-determination theory. Edward Deci and Richard Ryan have proposed a theory of motivation that endeavors to explain all types of motivation under a single theory. Their new theory is called Self-determination theory or SDT. The theory developed out of a series of experiments conducted on groups of people. This research showed that external rewards or threats of punishment curiously seemed to cause a lowering of the pleasure to be found in doing certain things, and consequently, a lowering of the desire to do those things, without the presence of some external reward or threat. Their theory suggests that there are two types of motivating forces in humans, those that come from sources that are external to the human being motivated, and those that come from inside the human. The motivation that comes from within is intrinsic motivation and that which comes from external sources is extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation is held to be the pleasure that is intrinsic in certain actions. The pleasure is in the action itself. Most of the information presented here is taken from and interpreted from Deci and Ryan's book "Intrinsic Motivation and Self-Determination in Human Behavior".

An aversion to being controlled. In its simplest form this theory predicts that intrinsic motivation will decline if extrinsic motivators are applied i.e. threats and rewards. But this not the end of things. SDT proposes that this is because humans have an aversion to being controlled and in fact have a deep seated need to choose and determine their own actions. It asserts that humans have a need for self-determination that is central to all their motivation.

This aversion to being controlled, STD shows, has led to two possible types of behavior when controls (rewards or threats of punishment) are applied. These behaviors are resistance or compliance. Resistance is most easy to observe in those who are punished. Children will defy parents and commit infractions of rules laid down by parents despite being constantly punished for it. Resistance can also be seen when people comply. Children often comply with rules to the letter of what was asked of them, but do not comply in the spirit for which the rule was intended. This typical of those who have little power like slaves, and of course children. This resistance probably occurs whenever there is any inducement or there is any evidence or appearance of control. In other words regardless of whether the inducement is threat or reward, even when complying, people do so most of the time with underlying resistance to perceived control.

Reward as a deterrent. SDT theory makes some surprising and anti-intuitive predictions. It predicts that giving people inducements (either threat or reward) to perform an action, far from making the action more likely, actually makes the action less likely of being performed, if there previously existed motivation to perform it. Inducements tend to be seen as an attempts to control, and for our purposes, there are two effects of control. One is that when the controls (the inducements) are stopped or taken away the motivation they provided goes away also. The other is that the natural inclination to perform an action without inducement tends to become less as control is applied or appears to be applied. This reduction of intrinsic motivation remains even after control is lifted. In this way, the application of inducements is seen to demotivate as it is withdrawn. Surprisingly, these effects are the same whether the inducement is a punishment or a reward. These effects have been born out time and again over a twenty year period (much to the despair of behaviorists) and are now fairly well accepted in scientific circles. The logic of this idea was hard to explain without actually performing an experiment in front of someone. Deci and Ryan did not have a concise way to explain this until a friend provided them with a bit of American Jewish folk-law. The story he provided is presented below in cartoon form.       

Learning to play music, a story of a girl. Another prediction the theory makes, is that, if a person is provided with choice in doing what they are doing they are much more likely to become interested in it, thus finding and experiencing any inherent pleasure available in that activity. The following is a story in "Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation a Hierarchical Model" by Vallerand & Ratelle in the "Handbook of Intrinsic Motivation".

"Take the case of a sixteen-year-old named Amanda. In general she is the kind of person who engages in activities because she likes them. She therefore interacts with friends, plays sports, and goes to school because of the pleasure inherent in those activities. As a result, these activities are a great source of enjoyment and satisfaction for her. This however not is the case when it comes to playing the piano. Amanda plays the piano because she feels obliged to, certainly not because she likes it. In fact, she really plays the piano for her parents (especially her father, a former piano virtuoso). In addition she feels pressured by her piano instructor who never appears to be satisfied by her performance. Ever since she started her piano lessons, Amanda has had Ms. Verkawski, a very controlling woman as an instructor. The teacher never provides her pupils with opportunities to experience choice, and she give poor competence feedback. She always pushes Amanda to play musical pieces that are out of her realm of skills. Playing the piano is thus associated with the feeling of being controlled and lacking autonomy and competence. As a consequence, her performances were never very good and the satisfaction derived from playing music has been virtually absent.

However things have started to change recently. For the last two months Ms. Verkawski has been afflicted with pneumonia and Amanda has been taking her piano lessons with a new instructor, Mr. McConnell. Amanda's new teacher is more autonomy-supportive, giving her more freedom to express herself and letting her explore new avenues. In contrast to Ms. Verkawski, Mr. McConnell lets Amanda choose among a wide array of musical pieces, including more contemporary genres. For years, this was what Amanda had been wanting. More and more, Amanda goes to her piano lessons out of choice and sometimes experiences pleasure. Consequently, her performance has improved dramatically and she has started to enjoy herself more at her lessons.

A few weeks ago on a Sunday, Mr. McConnell asked Amanda if she would like to perform in a student recital and asked her to choose a musical piece to present. She opted for Harry Connick Jr.'s "It Had to Be You", one of her favorite jazz numbers. Amanda experienced feelings of autonomy because her teacher provided her with the opportunity to choose whether to participate and to choose a piece to play. During the weeks prior to the recital, Amanda devoted considerable time and energy to practicing and perfecting her number. She was nevertheless very stressed at the idea of performing in public. On the recital day before it was her turn, Mr. McConnell told Amanda that she did not have to play if she did not want to. It relieved her from a lot of stress. She choose to play anyway and it went well. During her musical number, she felt deeply concentrated on the rhythms and subtleties of the arrangements in this piece. Even though she did not put enough emphasis on the decrescendo at the end, Amanda was happy and satisfied with her performance. After the recital, Amanda felt inclined to practice more and she became more fully engaged in piano playing. In fact, at home after the recital Amanda went strait to the piano to play some more."

The three most important needs. SDT theory proposes that there are three important needs and that they are a need for competence a need for relatedness and a need for self-determination. These three needs have been used by Deci and Ryan to explain much of the curious intricacy of human behavior and motivation. Psychologists and social scientists have been trying to explain this intricacy from the beginning of those sciences. They explain why we do things. They explain why we learn.

The story of Amanda provides a good introductory example of how some aspects of motivation work according to Self-determination Theory. Essentially SDT specifies that there are two types of motivation factors intrinsic and extrinsic. It further specifies, that of the two types of motivation, intrinsic motivation is far superior in every way. It is superior not because it is much surer of producing any action without resistance, although it does that, not because it gives the motivated person joy and delight, although it does that, but because it enables the needs of competence, relatedness and self-determination to be met and satisfied.

Amanda's motivation. Let us look at what was motivating Amanda:

1. Her orientation was generally one of intrinsic motivation. Generally her life was one of intrinsic motivation. She did most things in her life because she found pleasure in doing them. You might even say that her orientation in life was essentially one of being intrinsically motivated. This probably means that her parents for the most part had been autonomy supportive. They had also, probably sent her to a school that provided a great deal of choice and was itself autonomy supportive. It seems strange therefore, that her music teacher ended up being anything but supportive, but such things can happen.

2. In music she was mostly extrinsically motivated. She was playing music, not for the joy of playing music, but in order to have her father's approval. Perhaps her father had a blind spot and could not conceive of a person playing music and not enjoying it. He was a virtuoso after all. She was also probably motivated by guilt, by the desire to do the right thing and in an effort to repay her parents for all the autonomy she was allowed outside this one thing.

3. Competence. Because she was not intrinsically motivated, she had difficulty in applying her self to the many tasks and skills that had to be mastered in order to feel competent. Her teacher not only provided no positive feedback about her competence, but forced her to continually strive to accomplish tasks beyond her skill level. This insured that she was never even able to perceive herself as competent.

4. Autonomy. Although she had plenty of autonomy in the rest of her life, in the area of learning music she was being completely controlled by her teacher. Her musical life was painful and gradually becoming more painful. In this area she could not choose anything, not what to play, not how to play it. Although she could choose to play, when and where she was not with her music teacher, she choose not to. 

Undoing Amanda's extrinsic motivation. What does SDT propose to enable Amanda to become better motivated?

1. Autonomy Support. STD proposes that the most essential thing in any learning is support for the persons autonomy. This in turn means providing as much choice in what, how, when and where, as is reasonably possible in any situation. Improvement in this alone, according to SDT, will greatly improve the chances of intrinsic pleasure being experienced, if there is any in the action to experience. This is essentially what happened to Amanda. Her new teacher provided her with choice and so she began to experience the intrinsic pleasure of playing music. She was given choice as to what she would play, and at the recital she was given the choice of not playing if she so wished. 
2. Positive competence feedback. SDT proposes, that in order to obtain intrinsic pleasure we have to feel we are competent in performing the action. To some extent we can judge if we have performed competently or not. But at some new levels of refining skills, it is difficult for the novice to know how well he or she has performed. Everyone she asks will have an opinion, but one of the fundamental jobs of a teacher is to provide some positive competence feedback to the learner along with the criticism. Such praise should not be conditional of anything other than increased competence or it will feel controlling. Although little is said about the new teacher providing Amanda with praise about her increasing proficiency it was implied by the suggestion that he thought she had become skilled enough to perform before an audience.  
3. A secure relational base. We all desire the affiliation with others, the love of others, the approval of others and the esteem of others. If we do not have those needs satisfied they also will make it difficult for us to experience intrinsic pleasure. A secure relational base appears to provide a needed backdrop—a distal support—for intrinsic motivation, a sense of security, that makes the expression of this innate growth tendency more likely and more robust. However, it should be noted, that to experience the satisfaction of those needs depends, to a large extent, on whether autonomy support and positive competence feedback are provided by those others. Amanda did have much better relations with her second teacher but this was because he provided autonomy support. 

Two ways of reacting to control. The aversion to being controlled, it was shown, led to two possible types of behavior when controls were applied. Regardless of whether the controls being used were rewards or threats of punishment it appears that things can go either way and often both ways at once.

Resistance. One way is resistance, where the person being pressured would end up doing exactly the opposite of what was being asked. This is the minister's daughter who ends up being wild, rebellious and an atheist. It is also the basis of reverse psychology, where the person is asked to perform an activity, so he will perform the opposite activity. It is the trouble maker in school, the naughty children, the striking workers, the protesters and the criminals. While a lot of this clearly understood to be socially aberrant behavior, we hardly ever think of the other reaction to rewards or threats as being aberrant.

Compliance. The other possibility is of course compliance. What is wrong, you may ask, with doing what you are told? The answer is that it's not, if we perform the action because believe it is the right and proper thing to do. But how often is that true for people? There were a number of experiments performed that show that most ordinary people will do whatever an authority figure tells them to do regardless of their beliefs in right and wrong. There was an experiment performed, where one group was given the task of giving the other group electric shocks, if they gave a wrong answer. The people giving the shocks continued to do so, even though the recipients were screaming and pleading with them not to. The recipients were play acting, but the people pushing the buttons had no way of knowing that. Most of the people continued to push the button into the screaming and pleading stage, because the experimenter simply told them to continue, when they questioned the advisability of continuing. Something is surely wrong if people continue doing things they think are wrong just because someone in authority tells them to. In his book "Why We Do What We Do" Edward Deci tells this story:

"I remember years ago when the television networks began the practice of following a Presidential address with the dissenting views of opposing senators or congressmen. A friend of mine remarked, 'I don't think it's right for them to do that.' 'What do you mean?' I replied. 'Dissenting opinions deserve to be heard.' 'But he's the President,' my friend protested."

Unauthentic. This kind of commitment to authority is unauthentic and dangerous and typifies the compliant attitude. This the sinister nameless authority that Charles Reich spoke about.  

Learning through competence relatedness and self-determination. According to SDT we have a need to feel in charge of our selves or to be self-determined, a need to feel we have the ability to overcome the challenges of our environment or to be competent, and a need to be included as part of various wholes, groups or to be related.

1. Self-determination. Self-determination is about our personal autonomy. We need to feel in charge of our actions where the locus of causation appears to be inside ourselves. We need to feel we have a choice. To support us in this way others need to step inside our shoes. In his book "Why We Do What We Do" Deci says:

"Providing choice in the broad sense of that term, is a central feature of supporting a person's autonomy. It is thus important that people in positions of authority begin to consider how to provide more choice. Even in crowded classrooms, fast paced offices, or harried doctors' offices there are ways, and the more creative one is, the more possibilities one will find. Why not give students choice about what field trips to take and what topics to write their papers about, for example? Why not let the work group participate in the decision of how to allocate responsibilities? And why not let the patients take part in planning their treatment regimen? It is not always easy to provide choice, but it has become increasingly clear that there will be positive advantages if you do.

The main thing about meaningful choice is that it engenders willingness. It encourages people to fully endorse what they are doing; it pulls them into the activity and allows them to feel a greater sense of volition; it decreases their alienation. When you provide people choice, it leaves them feeling as if you are responsive to them as individuals. And providing choice may very well lead to better, or more workable, solutions than the ones you would have imposed."

2. Competence. Competence is about not only coping with our environment, but bending it to our will. We need to feel confident in our ability to do and improve in our doing. This what Edward Deci says about competence in his book "Why We Do What We Do":

   "The feeling of competence results when a person takes on and, in his or her own view, meets optimal challenges. Optimal challenges is a key concept here. being able to do something that is trivially easy does not lead to perceived competence, for the feeling of being effective occurs spontaneously only when one has worked toward accomplishment. Like the children... [with their] spontaneous, inner desire to test themselves and the environment, all of us are striving for mastery, for affirmation of our own competence. One does not have to be the best or first, or to get an 'A' to feel competent; one need only take on a meaningful personal challenge and give it one's best."

   "...recognizing the importance of competence, many adults give children challenges and then pressure them to master the challenges. Especially, if a child shows talent, the challenges can be great and the pressure intense. But there are two problems in this approach, even if the adults are well-meaning. First if the challenge is not optimal - if it is not realistically within the child's grasp - it will not be motivating. And second, the challenge must be accompanied by autonomy support rather than control to yield the best results. In fact when adults are autonomy supportive they will surely provide optimal challenges, because being autonomy supportive involves taking the other's perspective. When people do that they will understand what is optimal for the others. Providing others with challenges that allow them to end up feeling both competent and autonomous, will promote in them greater vitality, motivation and well-being."

3. Relatedness. Relatedness is about our function as part of something else our country our ethnic group or of society. We need to be related to others so we can be part of society etc. Deci and Ryan put it like this:

   "Although autonomy and competence have been found to be the most powerful influences on intrinsic motivation, theory and research suggest that relatedness also plays a role, albeit a more distal one, in the maintenance of intrinsic motivation... During infancy, intrinsic motivation is observable as exploratory behavior, and attachment theorists suggested that exploration is more robust when infants are securely attached to a parent. Studies of mothers and their young children show that maternal autonomy support as well as the security of attachment presumed to be fostered by it are both associated with exploratory behaviors.

   Indeed, across the life span, SDT hypothesizes that intrinsic motivation will be more likely to flourish in contexts characterized by a sense of secure relatedness. For example, Ryan and others showed greater intrinsic motivation in students who experienced their teachers as warm and caring. People often engage in intrinsically motivated behaviors (e.g., playing solitaire, hiking) in isolation, suggesting that relational supports may not be necessary as proximal factors in maintaining intrinsic motivation. Instead, a secure relational base appears to provide a needed backdrop—a distal support—for intrinsic motivation, a sense of security that makes the expression of this innate growth tendency more likely and more robust."

Why do we do things? Why do we learn?

1. Fear of consequences if we do not. Some things we do, such as learning, we do because we are afraid of what will happen if we do not do those things. This avoidance behavior.

   If we do things entirely because we are afraid of punishment or because we wish to avoid unpleasantness this falls under the heading of pure extrinsic motivation. It is hardly ever the case that we do things for that reason alone. The action may bring us closer to satisfying some of our biological needs, it may involve some intrinsic reward, or there may be some external reward involved. If the fear is strong however it will overcome the other needs and present itself as fairly pure extrinsic motivation.

2. Anticipation of a reward. Some things, such as learning, we do because we anticipate a reward will be forthcoming from the environment if we do those things. This the so called conditioned behavior.

   If we do things entirely because we anticipate reward or because we anticipate increased external pleasantness this falls under the heading of pure extrinsic motivation. It is hardly ever the case that we do things for that reason alone. The action may bring us closer to satisfying some of our biological needs, it may involve some intrinsic reward, or there may be some external punishment involved. If the reward is strong and salient however, it will overcome the other needs and present itself as fairly pure extrinsic motivation.

3. Fear of feeling bad if we do not. Some things, such as learning, we do because we are afraid of how we will feel if we do not do those things. This avoidance behavior.

   If we do things because we are afraid of how we will feel if we do not, this all about our sense of self or our self concept. If we do things that are in conflict with what we understand our self to be, we feel bad and we can anticipate that feeling. Some people call this inconsistency dissonance, so the anticipation of it would be called anticipated dissonance. Others have called it a need for self affirmation and still others a need for self consistency. 

4. Because it is the right thing to do according to our inner self concept. Some things, such as learning, we do because it is the right thing, for us, to do them. This a type of motivation for which we have no real name. It is also a very relativistic experience because what is right for me may not be right for you. The criminal who does something society ascribes as wrong, may not feel it wrong himself. The looser who performs badly does not consider that is inconsistent with his idea of his self. What is right for the criminal and the looser is to be a criminal and a looser.

   If we do things because its the right thing to do this also about the need to have a consistent concept of self. But it is not about being afraid of feeling bad if we do something, that is not consistent with our concept of self. It is hard to see exactly what it is. Perhaps there is some pleasure in doing things that are consistent with our concept of self, even if the actions are not in themselves intrinsically pleasurable. There was once even a city state and a philosophy that exemplified this idea. The city state was called Sparta and the philosophy was called stoicism.

5. To satisfy our biological needs. Some things, such as learning, we do because it is essential to placate the biological needs we were born with, which we anticipate will be automatically rewarding in themselves. This intrinsically motivated behavior.

   If we do things because we want to satisfy biological needs we do it in order to obtain a sensual experience. This can be and often is inexorably entwined with extrinsic reward. If we want to eat we usually have to bargain with others about it. Perhaps it requires some barter exchange or money. All can be used as extrinsic reward. Perhaps we give others the extrinsic reward of money so they will give us food or perhaps they give us the extrinsic reward of food so we will give them money. It can be either, or neither. It all comes down to a matter of perception. Food tastes best when we feel we have earned it or given what was due for it. The same is true of safety, love or esteem. Only when we have earned them do they feel truly satisfying. Thus we do things in order to feel autonomous, we do things in order to feel competent, and we do things in order to feel related to others.

6. Belief that it will be rewarding in itself. Some things, such as learning, we do because we anticipate that we will experience joy in doing them. This also intrinsically motivated behavior which not only includes satisfying biological needs but also as set of aesthetic needs which are also biological but often require considerable activity before they can be experienced.

   If we do things because we think they will be rewarding in themselves, we do it for what people usually understand to be very high minded values. We do it to help or entertain others that we are bound to in some way. We can do it for family, for friends, for our county for our race and for mankind. We can do it even in the name of all living things. It includes what is understood to be good, or creative, useful, etc. etc. At its best it is overcoming a challenge, learning, increasing, improving, becoming more than what we were, of actualizing our potential. For self-actualized people there is no conflict between these values and their own concept of self. This level of regulation is also very much about doing things in order to feel competent, autonomous, and related to others. For Deci and Ryan it is the very stuff of life itself. 

Some actions are intrinsically rewarding and some are not. Those actions that are intrinsically rewarding are mostly all the things that satisfy our biological needs. And what are our biological needs? While Deci and Ryan tend to lump these under the umbrella of a 'need to relate to others', I prefer the clarity of Maslow's listing of biological needs.

Physiological needs.  They are feelings of satisfaction obtained from eating, drinking, breathing, being warm when its cold and cool when its hot, having sex etc.

Safety needs. They are the feelings of making ourselves safe and feeling safe and secure.

Love and belonging needs. They are feelings of being loved and as if one belongs or is affiliated with some group.

Esteem needs. They are feelings as if one is held in high esteem and the feelings of having high self-esteem.

Meta or aesthetic needs. Then there are those biological needs that Maslow calls meta needs being needs and aesthetic needs. They are the needs that we can take or leave. We do not suffer a deficiency if we do not satisfy them, but they can be very powerful in achieving a feeling of immense pleasure, if they are satisfied. They are acting in ways to achieve something, to create something to do good things which help others, to accomplish something, to feel competent and skilled in what we are able to do, to learn, and to have actualized some potential in ones self.

Are we always intrinsically satisfied when performing innately pleasurable actions? Although some actions are intrinsically rewarding that is not always the reason why we do them nor are we always the recipient of pleasure from that intrinsic reward. One would think that the reason we perform any one of these actions would be because of these intrinsic satisfiers. Alas this not always the case. The problem is that, even though, each and every action that satisfies any one of these needs is intrinsically rewarding in and of itself, if we are offered extrinsic reward the intrinsic pleasure tends to diminish or disappear entirely. In fact, just because it is possible to experience the exquisite pleasure of intrinsic reward does not ensure that it will be experienced.

What happens is, when others offer external rewards or punishments to motivate us to perform these actions, this acts as a damper on these intrinsic rewards causing them to become muffled or not in fact become active at all. You might, as commonsense would have it, expect that if you offered someone a reward for being creative, or eating his food, or for accomplishing something, or for feeling safe, or for feeling loved or for being held in high esteem, or for doing a good deed, that this would simply add to that someone's pleasure. This not the case. What happens is the intrinsic pleasure that would normally accompany these actions is diminished. We no longer perform the actions because of these intrinsic pleasures, but rather, because we expect external reward for performing them. Likewise if we perform actions that are innately intrinsically rewarding in themselves, when there is also a threat of punishment if we do not perform them, the intrinsic pleasure innate in those actions will gradually diminish till it is extinguished.

Of what practical use is this knowledge? "That's all very well", I hear you saying, but what practical use is it? "How does it help me to get my children to learn?" the parents say. "How does it help me to motivate my pupils?" the teachers say. "How does it help to motivate my employees?" the business executives say. And the answer is this, "You can't. You are in fact asking the wrong question". The answer after 20 years of meticulous experiments on groups of human beings, after innumerable observations of children in schools and employees in the workplace, is simply that no matter how much we might want to motivate others, it cannot be done. There is no way to keep a child or adult doing what we ask, when the extrinsic punishments or rewards are withdrawn. It cannot be done because they are already motivated and if we are not careful our own actions will interfere with that motivation and tip it in the wrong direction.

This idea is not so new in itself. Maria Montessori knew it intuitively, John Holt arrived at it through his experience as a teacher, John Dewey knew it, as did Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers. What was new was that now there was reproducible, irrefutable scientific proof. Deci and Ryan had not only shown what could not be done, but also what can or could be done. Here it is as succinctly put as possible.

The only thing we can do is to provide an opportunity, an environment, in which children, employees and pupils, will be willing to, and want to, motivate themselves.

Why then have these findings not yet been fully accepted and implemented? The answer is the same as it is for any scientific discovery. A new paradigm is formed, which many can test for holes. It takes time and a new generation of people growing up before it can be fully accepted, and this will no doubt be little different.

Note in passing. Although Deci and Ryan's and most others doing these experiments did so using intrinsic motivation from the meta level of Maslow's hierarchy. It is, I believe fairly obvious, it would work just as well with the lower needs. Here are a few questions, to which my personal answer would be no. If someone paid you to eat a delicious meal would it taste as good as if they hadn't? If someone threatened to punish you if you did not drink something that you normally like to drink would it taste as good? If someone paid you to have sex with a beautiful woman would it feel as good as if they had not? If someone paid you to make yourself safe would it feel as good as if they had not? If some one paid you to be friends with someone would it feel as good a friendship as where they had not? If someone threatened to punish you if you did not get the attention and love of a particular girl would it feel as good as if you had not been threatened? What if someone had paid you to cause someone to hold you in high esteem, would that esteem feel as good?

The need for autonomy. Let us look at what Deci and Ryan discovered. They postulated a need for autonomy based on the finding that both extrinsic reward and threat of punishment appeared to cause intrinsic motivation to diminish. Therefore controlling contexts, in terms of the theory would obviously cause personal autonomy to appear to diminish, and thus in turn cause the diminishment of intrinsic motivation. It followed then, that any circumstances that caused feelings of being controlled, would likewise cause a drop in intrinsic motivation, and they did.

The following contexts were all found to cause intrinsic motivation to diminish.

1. Extrinsic Reward Generally decreases intrinsic motivation.

2. Threat of Punishment Generally decreases intrinsic motivation.

3. Surveillance Generally decreases intrinsic motivation.

4. Deadlines Generally decrease intrinsic motivation.

5. Evaluation Generally decreases intrinsic motivation.

6. Imposed Goals Generally decrease intrinsic motivation.

7. Competition Generally decreases intrinsic motivation.

Temporary compliance. It was beginning to appear that the whole arsenal that parents, teachers and business executives used to motivate those in inferior positions, were in fact doing just the opposite. They were causing temporary compliance and the appearance of self motivation, but in reality, where it really counted, in intrinsic motivation, they were actually damaging those under them and making them less capable. In his book "Why We Do What We Do" Deci puts it like this.

"With our children, students and employees we typically hope that the desired behaviors will continue even if we are not there...[to reward them]. We'd like them to keep learning, to keep producing, to keep doing their share of the housework, and the question we face is how to promote such persistent self-direction rather than the irresponsibility or alienation that seems so prevalent in today's world."

About money. Deci and Ryan used money in many of their research experiments because they knew that money was the most important extrinsic reward. They do not deny the importance of money not even as a motivator. The following is from Deci's book "Why We Do What We Do":

"Obviously, money constitutes a powerful force. Certainly there can be no doubt that it motivates. One need only look around (even at oneself) to see how willing people are to engage in a wide range of activities for money. They drag themselves to work at jobs they hate, because they need the money. They get hooked on gambling, sometimes loosing everything they own, because of an irrational belief that they will hit the big one. They take on extra assignments that unduly stress them, perhaps to the point of making them sick, because of extra money. And they engage in a variety of nefarious activities that promise handsome rewards. Sure, money motivates, but that is not the point. The point is that while money is motivating people, it is also undermining their intrinsic motivation and, as we would later discover, having a variety of other negative effects as well."

"Money is the medium of exchange in all modern economic systems, so monetary payments rewards have to be dispensed. But there are better and worse ways of doing that. It is better, for example, not to think about rewards as a way to motivate people. Rewards are part of the work contract, so you would not have workers without rewards. But research suggests that, to the extent that rewards are "used" for any function other than retaining workers, it ought be merely to acknowledge or signify a job well done. Rewards can be used to express appreciation, but the more they are used as motivators - like the bonus plan in the publishing house - the more likely it is they will have negative effects."

The cost of diminishing intrinsic motivation. Deci and Ryan and many others through their research findings gradually built up a picture of what it meant to diminish intrinsic motivation. They found consistently that people with reduced intrinsic motivation had:

1. Less of interest and vitality. Loss of interest in new things to learn, loss of interest in the things they were already interested in, loss of interest in learning, loss of the vital spark of life that makes us more than pawns carrying out the desires of others, these were the most terrible costs of decreased intrinsic motivation.
2. Less creativity. Through the work of Teresa Amabile it was clearly shown that loss of intrinsic motivation led to loss of creativity. Loss of intrinsic motivation meant that the artists used less varied materials, they produced less varied motifs, they produced work that had technically less quality and they showed less originality. They were basically less able to produce real works of art.
3. Less conceptual understanding of material learned. A clear pattern emerged that people who were extrinsically motivated to learn any material that required conceptual understanding. They would tend to use, so called, 'rote learning' in the form of cramming, which proved of little use in answering exam questions, other than to regurgitate answers whole. Conceptual understanding was clearly not taking place. 
4. Less retention of knowledge. While it was found that extrinsically motivated people could very effectively memorize rote material for a test better than those who were intrinsically motivated, their ability to retain this material was far less. It was found that this material was generally dumped by the mind after the test was over. Ryan likened this to a core dump by a computer.
5. Less academic achievement. With the loss in conceptual understanding and the loss of retention of knowledge, it should not be surprising to find that less intrinsic motivation led to less academic excellence.
6. Less ability to solve problems. Even when insuring that the information and understanding of a problem was equal, it was found that that those who were not intrinsically motivated had far less capacity to solve any sort of problem. Perhaps this because of the connection between problem solving and creativity.
7. Less quality of task performance. Taking into account all of the above ability reductions, it should not come as a surprise that any task performance might tend to suffer when intrinsic motivation was reduced, and this certainly is the case.

How can we implement an environment that encourages self motivation? Well, first we need to know exactly how and why people really do come to do the things other people want them to. What Deci and Ryan did next was try to see how they could provide circumstances, that would prevent, or at least ameliorate the apparent diminishment of autonomy. They reasoned that if they provided choice within the contexts of experiments, where people were feeling controlled, then that should to some extent prevent the loss of apparent autonomy, and in doing so should make the loss of intrinsic motivation less acute.

The results were even better than expected. The inclusion of even a small amount of choice seemed to prevent intrinsic motivation from diminishing very much.

Other experiments followed, where it was discovered that all the above mentioned controlling contexts could be modified to be or appear to be less controlling, and thus could be far less likely to reduce intrinsic motivation. In each case it was found, that the persons own view of what was happening was all important. The views of others concerning their autonomy, competence or interrelatedness counted for nothing if the person felt that their own actions were being controlled or that their actions were ineffective and incompetent.

1.   Extrinsic Reward. It was found that rewards, if they were perceived to be given as acknowledgments of competence, and not as part of some condition, would not in fact, cause intrinsic motivation to decrease. Also rewards given unexpectedly were not found to be damaging to intrinsic motivation. Praise in particular, was in fact found to be very effective in increasing intrinsic motivation, if it was confined to the quality of work and the improvement that had been accomplished. In other words, if the praise was truly informational feedback, and not seen as an attempt to control, it increased rather than decreased intrinsic motivation.
2. Threat of Punishment. It was found that a small amount of threat could be used to jump start people performing some action, if no interest existed for its performance. This threat could and should however, be stopped if any interest began to appear. There is no loss of intrinsic motivation because none previously existed.
3. Surveillance. It was found that the presence of others would not decrease intrinsic motivation if the people were not observing, but rather working on their own independent tasks and seemed involved in what they are doing. Again it depends on whether there appears to be an attempt to control or not.
4. Deadlines. It was found that deadlines, if self imposed, or part of a communal crisis, could be used to produce quicker work without any reduction in intrinsic motivation. But any indication that the deadlines were imposed to manipulate would cause intrinsic motivation to fall.
5. Evaluation. It was found that both praise and criticism, could be performed in a way that did not cause intrinsic motivation to diminish. Criticism in the form of negative feedback, if the person was not overly sensitive to criticism, could be entirely informational and combined with an indication of improvement to increase intrinsic motivation. Again it is all a matter of whether there is perceived control or not.
6. Imposed Goals. It was found that imposed goals could, if provided with sufficient choice, be accepted as being within the bounds of volitional autonomous activity, and thus not cause much in the way of loss in intrinsic motivation. It would thus not be seen as controlling. Self imposed goals likewise do not cause a decrease in intrinsic motivation if one is not forcing one's self but rather acting from an integrated self.
7. Competition. It was found that competition was not likely to cause a decrease in intrinsic motivation if the accomplishment the person was seeking was one of improving and thus performing excellently, as opposed to winning or beating the other person. When competition was with one's self, and concerned itself only with one's own improvement, it could in fact be found to increase intrinsic motivation.  

Socialization, learning society's regulations and social norms.

Activities that are not intrinsically interesting. Deci and Ryan began to wonder how activities that were not intrinsically interesting in themselves could be learned at all. Clearly they were learned, so they theorized some system must be in place. The answer to how non intrinsically interesting regulations were assimilated was to be found, they believed, in the needs for relatedness, competence and self-determination themselves.

Limits and appropriateness. Other activities were also a problem. It often was not so much that the activities were in themselves unpleasant, it was more a matter of not doing things that were in fact intrinsically pleasurable. It was often a matter of forgoing or putting off till a more appropriate occasion activities that in fact were intrinsically pleasurable. It was necessary to set limits and contexts for appropriateness. Deci and Ryan hypothesized that there should be ways of presenting the regulations needed for socialization, in such a way as to not cause either unquestioning compliance on the one hand, or resistance on the other.

Socialization, demands as invitations. It occurred to them that demands for behavior did not have to be presented as demands, but rather could be presented as invitations. The regulations presented in this way, they reasoned, could have a chance of being perceived as not being controlling and thus acceptable to the self concept, sufficiently so as to start a process of internalization. The factors included in this manner of presentation were acknowledgment of possible dislike, the rationale or reasons why actions were to be performed, avoidance of controlling language and manner, provision of options within the regulations, and the obtaining of prior agreement. 

Relating the theory to extrinsic motivation. For Deci and Ryan extrinsic motivation is very volatile and requires very careful handling. They noticed that socialization seemed to work best when the least possible extrinsic motivators were used. It is not enough for people to do the things required by society. It is necessary that people want to do those things. Deci put it like this:

"The real job involves facilitating their doing the activities of their own volition, at their own initiative, so they will go on doing the activities freely in the future when we are no longer there to prompt them."

Are humans passive or proactive creatures? Whether we under stand humans as coming into the world as little barbarians who have to be tamed into being human, as passive blank slates that have to be molded into being human, or as proactive inquisitive creatures who come into the world seeking how to be human, is very germane to how they need to be socialized. For Deci, Ryan and this site the answer to this very clear. Everything we have observed about humans, and about infants in particular, tells us that humans are proactive beings, seeking how to be more human, from our first moments.

The only problem with this idea, and the reason others tend to dismiss it, is the huge numbers of humans, who end up being badly socialized, unfit for human society, the sociopaths. The answer is the genetically supplied mechanism that that allows humans to become socialized, relies on infants and ultimately adults being supplied with certain psychological conditions, in order to grow into full humanity. Just as we need adults to feed us, protect us from harm and communicate with us when we are young so we can grow into being fully human, we also need to feel self-determined, competent and related to other humans, in order for us to become properly socialized. In his book "Why We Do What We Do" Deci says:

"How can this be, if as I suggested, people are naturally motivated to internalize aspects of their social world that are useful for their social functioning? In other words, why do so many people fail to become willing to do activities that are good for them? To understand this seeming paradox, we must go back to the dialectic - the interaction between the active organism and the social context that can either support or thwart what the organism would be inclined to do naturally.

If you put a rooted avocado pit in a pot of earth it will probably grow into a tree, because it is in the nature of avocados to do that. It happens naturally. But not all pits become trees; some shrivel and decompose. They fail to thrive because the climate is inadequate or the necessary nutrients are lacking. They need sun; they need water; and they need the right temperatures. Those elements do not make the trees grow, but they are nutriments that the developing avocados need, that are necessary in order for the avocados to do what they do naturally.

In the same way, developing human beings need psychological nutriments to do what they do naturally. To internalize and integrate aspects of society that are important for their own success in life within society, they must experience satisfaction of their basic psychological needs - for autonomy, competence and relatedness - within the social context that provides structures to be internalized."

Socialization through internalization. The solution Deci and Ryan arrived at was, that people were initially motivated to internalize regulations through the need for relatedness, which enabled them to be part of groups such as the family and society. The non controlling method of presentation of regulations, was essentially providing information to facilitate a process of motivation, that was already in place. The only effective way to facilitate this motivation for socialization, was to provide a context within which people could and would choose to internalize these regulations. Once internalized the regulations became part of the person, which would enable that person to motivate himself to perform these activities that were perhaps not in themselves intrinsically pleasurable.

Deci and Ryan reasoned that in order to be accepted as part of the various groups we belong to, we are motivated to find out how to behave in ways that are acceptable to those groups. This they hypothesized, would not involve simply mimicry, although that could play a part, but would involve them accepting a roll in the community and contributing to that community. Initially children had to find ways of becoming acceptable to and contributing to the family. Gradually they moved out and had to become acceptable to and contributing to larger and larger communities. Sometimes the values and expectations of one community such as the family might conflict with those of a group of peers. If, however, families had passed on regulations in the most effective manner this kind of conflict would not occur. Deci explains it as follows in "Why We Do What We Do".

"All children face the challenge of responding to society's beckoning without being overwhelmed or suffocated by it. They must find a way to become related to the social world while also achieving a sense of integrity within themselves. To a great extent, whether these young people are successful in their attempts to be authentic and responsible depends on the quality of their socializing environment. It depends on whether the socializing environment provides the nutriments they need. It depends on whether the socializing environment allows them to them to satisfy their psychological needs while internalizing the values and regulations in question."  

But what was the most effective manner of passing on these regulations? While it is very difficult to escape situations where extrinsic threat and reward are expected, it was clear from the research that threat and reward should be used in the least amount possible for a given situation in order to achieve the best results.

The less extrinsic motivation the better. Curiously and anti-intuitively Deci and Ryan discovered through experiments that mere request was more effective than making demands, threat of punishment or giving rewards. Less was somehow better. This operated through a number of cue or signals that were related to their three basic needs for self-determination, competence and relatedness.

5 states of motivation. Deci and Ryan's theory actually proposes that there are different states of being motivated and depending on the quality of need satisfaction and the quality of presentation of regulations. They postulated five distinguishable states of being motivated and a sixth state of being not motivated which they called amotivation. These five motivational states are:

1. Intrinsic regulation. We perform actions because those actions are innately rewarding.

2. Integrated regulation. We perform actions because we feel those actions are part of our concept of our self.

3. Identification regulation. We perform actions because we identify with those actions. We have accepted those actions as being part of our self concept but they are still in conflict with certain aspects of our integrated self.

4. Introjected regulation. We perform actions because we have accepted those actions as being consistent with that part of our self concept which tells us what is right. They are accepted in principle, but are still completely at odds with many elements of our existing self concept. It is as if they are swallowed whole, without any modification for assimilation and without the self concept modifying itself to accommodate them.

5. Compliance with external regulation. We do things in order to obtain extrinsic rewards or in order to avoid punishment.

The introduction of new regulations where intrinsic motivation already exists.

How the states work. I don't think Deci and Ryan intended that these states were separate, but were rather like points on a gradient or a graph. Basically motivation is a continuum which depends on two aspects the amount of pleasure intrinsic in any action and those external forces of threat or promise of reward. Let us look first at those actions that are intrinsically rewarding in and of themselves.

1. Ideal motivation, intrinsic motivation. The ideal motivation is pure intrinsic motivation. In this situation there is free choice, and we choose to do something because we anticipate that it will be pleasurable to do so. In this ideal situation there are also no external threats preventing you from doing that something, and there are no external rewards offered for doing that something. However, as stated, this an ideal situation that rarely, probably never happens. The fact is that everything we do no matter how pleasant has baggage. Every action involves some unpleasantness at least at first.

   Eating a delicious meal is obviously intrinsically rewarding, yet there are undoubtedly actions that lead up to the action and follow from the action, that are initially unpleasant. For instance, before a meal can be consumed it must be prepared or cooked. This not obviously something that is intrinsically rewarding, but it can become intrinsically rewarding, as it has the potential to become creative. The meal cannot be cooked unless someone has gone out and bought the items needed for the meal. Shopping is something that is also not obviously intrinsically rewarding, but it too, has the potential to become so, if performed creatively. Finally at some point in this modern world money has to be spent on items, so the items needed may be bought. Giving away money is not naturally a pleasant action, but it can become so, if we spend the money creatively to create something.

   Social contagion. In terms of Deci and Ryan's theory, how we come to try new activities is through social contagion. Social contagion predicts that people attribute certain motives to other people through certain cues in the other people's behavior. These observations, they believe, reveal those other people's true motives. If people perceive other people's actions as being intrinsically motivated, then social contagion predicts that the original people will want to try those actions, to see for themselves. Of course the innate intrinsic pleasure of the activity is then able to take hold and keep them performing those actions. Although some parts of the activity may have been initially perceived as being boring or unpleasant, those parts can become pleasant through association or if there is hidden innate pleasure in performing them that can be enabled. When a person acts as if they are getting intrinsic pleasure from performing an action they give off cues to this effect. This in turn induces an aspiration by those observing them to anticipate the same kind of intrinsic pleasure. This in turn motivates them to imitate the actions of that person. This is called social contagion because there are always more people picking up on cues than being observed. For instance, suppose two or more people observe a person performing an action, and because the action seems to be intrinsically motivated, it induces those two or more people to be motivated to imitate the original action. If those two or more people are then observed giving off cues of being intrinsically motivated by four or more people, they in turn become intrinsically motivated. So it follows that intrinsically motivated people can grow in numbers just like an epidemic.

2. Where both intrinsic and extrinsic motivators are in consonance. For intrinsic and extrinsic motivators to be acting in the same direction means, not only is there intrinsic pleasure innate in the action, but there is and external reward offered for performing the action as well, or a threat in force if the action is not performed. This situation of having intrinsic and extrinsic motivators applied at the one time is unfortunately the most common situation in the modern world, a less than an ideal state of affairs. Where it occurs that both intrinsic and extrinsic motivators are acting in the same direction, self-determination theory suggests that people tend observe their own actions and because extrinsic motivators are more noticeable or salient, they therefore attribute their own actions more to those motivators than intrinsic motives. This in turn makes people less able to experience intrinsic pleasure, because they therefore tend to attribute such pleasure to the extrinsic motivators if they are pleasurable, or it tends to dull the pleasure if the extrinsic motivators are painful.

   This, of course, is somewhat tempered by the initial strength of our intrinsic motivation in the situation. If a person's motivation is already high, their intrinsic motivation will be reduced, but it will still be higher than that of someone who was not very intrinsically motivated in that situation. It will also tend to more readily spring back into action if the extrinsic motivators are removed.

   Our concept of self also plays a part in this, in that people will want to continue actions that are consistent with their concept of self. This may lead them to discount their perception of extrinsic rewards and punishments as possible motivators if intrinsic motivation is high, and escalate their perception of intrinsic pleasure, if their intrinsic motivation is already low.   

3. Where both intrinsic and extrinsic motivators are conflicting. This state of affairs is unfortunately also quite common in the modern world. Where both intrinsic and extrinsic motivators are acting in opposite directions, self-determination theory suggests that people may be in three very different sorts of situations.

   Antisocial influence. One is the sort of situation where people may be already intrinsically motivated to do something that is socially acceptable, but some other person for their own reason does not want them to continue with the activity. The other person offers them a bribe or threat to try and prevent them continuing with the activity. In this situation people may be almost forced to perform actions that are unacceptable to their concept of self, and unacceptable to society. This causes them to become very conflicted. Their need to integrate their concept of self with their actions will lead them to likewise change their beliefs about either the extrinsic motivators being applied or about the innate pleasure of the activity. 

   In order to enable this integration of the self people have four options:

   If they choose to change what they believe about the extrinsic motivators

   1/ They may either alter their perception of the offered reward, discounting the value they place on that reward, or they may alter their perception of the threat, minimizing their understanding of the severity of that threat. In this case, intrinsic motivation may actually improve as the internalized behavior becomes more integrated and antisocial behavior is avoided.

   2/ Or they may alter their perception of the offered reward, exaggerate the value they place on that reward. Similarly they may alter their perception of the threat, maximizing their understanding of the severity of that threat. In this case, intrinsic motivation will actually diminish as the internalized behavior becomes more integrated and antisocial activity is implemented.

   If they choose to change what they believe about the intrinsic motivators

   3/ If they choose to alter their perception of the intrinsic pleasure in the innately pleasurable activity, they may do so by discounting the enjoyment they receive from that intrinsic pleasure. In this case intrinsic motivation is diminished as the internalized behavior becomes more integrated and antisocial activity is implemented.

   4/ Or they choose to alter their perception of the intrinsic pleasure of the innately pleasurable activity, by exaggerating the enjoyment they receive from that intrinsic pleasure. In this case intrinsic motivation is increased as the internalized behavior becomes more integrated and antisocial activity is avoided.

   In most societies there is a fairly good consensus as to what is acceptable for society. When people are forced or lured outside these confines of acceptable regulations, you find society breaking up into dissident groups, who each have their own regulations for those who are in the group. This in turn can lead to inter-social conflict such as race riots strikes and other forms of social fracture.   

   Social influence. In the second sort of situation people may be regaled by agents of the social groups to which we belong such as authority figures like parents, teachers, employers etc. to change existing behaviors that are intrinsically pleasurable. They present social regulations to forgo or delay indulging in activities, which although they are intrinsically pleasurable, are either unacceptable to family or society or are inappropriate for family or society at that time or in that place. Much of what happens in response to this kind of presentation of extrinsic motivators depends on how this presentation is perceived.

   If the presentation is perceived to be too strong i.e. presented as a demand replete with contingent punishments or rewards, the effect will either be to cause the person to resist (do the opposite), or will effect un-chosen and involuntary compliance. Both of these will result in no internalization of the regulation.

   1. Introjection. As the perceived strength of the presentation is lowered, that is to say, as it becomes more an invitation than a demand, and rewards and threats are not so much implied, the recipient may be able to internalize the regulation. Regulations can be internalized, even if regulations are presented with contingent punishments or rewards, but in this case they will be swallowed whole, so that they are immediately in serious conflict with the concept of self. Thus they become introjects that while they are accepted inside the person, remain outside the self concept, and can only effect the self concept by pressuring it. That is to say they become the equivalent of extrinsic motivation, but a pressure that comes from inside the self instead of from outside sources. These aliens within the self trying to control it, are much like Freud's idea of a super ego but far from being a good thing, are a representation of fragmentation of the wholeness of the person.

   2. Identification. If the perceived strength of the presentation is lowered still further, that is to say, it is perceived entirely as an invitation and not as a demand and there are no apparent contingent punishments or rewards in evidence (that there is in fact autonomy support), the recipient should be able to internalize the regulation in the form of an identification. An identification with a regulation is its acceptance in principle. But there may be elements within it, that are still in conflict with the concept of self, because of earlier conflicting regulations that have been already integrated. The identification is more inside the concept of self than out, but it is causing fragmentation of the self concept it self.

   3. Integration. Sometimes it is possible that the regulations being presented to a person are in fact compatible with that person's concept of self. In this case the person should be able to assimilate the new regulation, assuming its presentation to be autonomy supportive. That is to say the regulation is internalized and completely integrated with the person's self concept. In this way the regulation becomes part of what the person believes him self to be, and will always try to act on. While this state is not necessarily intrinsic motivation, it has reached the point of being fully volitional.

   Self generated internalization. In the third sort of situation, people, because of their need for relatedness, may be actively scanning the environment for clues, in order to discover the kinds of regulating behaviors that are required to make them acceptable to various groups such as family and society. When they discover such regulations they may then tend to internalize those regulations making them part of themselves. In this case the external rewards or punishments are not of great significance, because the person is acting autonomously to improve their social competence. However, most of the clues or cues about acceptable behavior that we find in the external world, come from the actions of other people much of which is presented to us intentionally. Thus the possibility of our ever being totally autonomous in assimilating regulations is doubtful. Regulations come to us for the most part in the form of influence by others. It is just a matter of whether that influence is felt by us to be controlling or allowing autonomous choice. Deci and Ryan put it like this:

   "For integration to occur there must be an opportunity for the individual to freely process and endorse transmitted values and regulations (and to modify or transform them when necessary). Excessive external pressures, controls, and evaluations appear to forestall rather than facilitate this active, constructive process of giving personal meaning and valence to acquired regulations."

When intrinsic motivation exists: Moving from a state where regulations or motivations conflict to states of less conflict. As the states of interjection and identification especially, are by definition unstable, there is usually movement within those states in an effort to reach a more stable state. 

1. Moving from a conflicted state to one of compliance with external regulation. If the lure of extrinsic reward or the threat of punishment are strong enough, regardless of whether they oppose an intrinsically motivated action or whether the seek to ensure the intrinsically motivated action, the final result may be the loss of intrinsic motivation to perform the action. This is because of the introduction of extrinsic motivators into the mix. If the motivators are perceived to be controlling, they will automatically cause a decrease in intrinsic motivation. Thus if the extrinsic motivators are strong enough, they may be able to reduce intrinsic motivation to zero leaving only the extrinsic motivators resulting in immediate compliance. 

   Another way automatic compliance with external demands can come about, is by the rejection of choice. With choice comes responsibility. With responsibility comes unwanted outcomes that were foreseeable and inner conflict because of what we have done. Thus we may start to convince ourselves not to choose at all, to do what we are told, and let the responsibility fall on the shoulders of others.

   People who once did things out of love or justice or esteem can end up doing those same things for money, for comfort or out of fear. Likewise people who fail to do the best they can, who fail to do what is good and right, can find that there is no longer any pleasure in doing those things any more. External demands become instantly translated into compliance, and the only pleasure is in external rewards.

2. Moving from a conflicted state to an interjected state. If a newly presented regulation appears to be socially advantageous, the need for relatedness will tend to be activated to internalize that regulation. Where both intrinsic and extrinsic motivators are applied, a regulation that comes from the intrinsic motivation, will in most cases, be already part of the person's concept of self. In this case, the new regulation will be internalized by action of the need for relatedness. It will tend to initially enter the person completely separated from the concept of self, and in conflict with the concept of self.

   If the extrinsic motivators applied are not so strong or salient that they will cause intrinsic motivation and self concept to be overcome completely. They will be internalized as regulations that are in constant conflict. They may be sort of swallowed whole, without any effort being made to modify the regulations themselves, the person's current concept of self, or the perception of the intrinsic and extrinsic motivators. This causes inner conflict on two levels. First, it causes inner conflict between the regulations and the intrinsic pleasure that would result if the regulations were not obeyed. Second, there is also the possibility of conflict between the person's current concept of self and the new regulations. This a very unstable and painful situation.

   In an interjected state the new regulation tends to pressure the person to act in a way as if he were extrinsically motivated, despite the absence of extrinsic motivation. But the more he does so the less real intrinsic motivation he is able to feel. The fact is, that intrinsic motivation tends to diminish where extrinsic motivators are perceived to be present. When extrinsic motivators are introduced into the mix the result will be less intrinsic motivation unless a serious effort is made to make it appear that the person still has choice. This unfortunately also happens when the pressure comes from inside the person. What ends up happening, is that there is say an intrinsic reward urging a person to do something, but there is also an extrinsic reward or punishment preventing the person from doing it. The person trying to tip the balance in favor of the extrinsic reward pressures himself not to perform the action. But this has the unfortunate side effect of reducing the intrinsic pleasure even more. If this situation continues long enough the regulation will become completely extrinsic.

   On the other hand, the need for autonomy will then tend to act to decrease this conflict by trying to move the regulation toward being more integrated with the self concept. In this way, the person becomes apparently more autonomous in that the activity, the action or inaction, becomes more what the person would choose himself. To put it another way, the regulation which was originally internalized as an introjection, which is unstable, was through the action of the need for self-determination, moved toward being more identified. Two factors determine which way the new regulation will move. The first factor is the amount of time the regulation remains in a state of conflict. The more time it remains there, the more likely it will stabilize in a state of continual conflict or move toward being completely extrinsic. The other factor is the amount of autonomy support that is provided, both with the regulation and generally. This autonomy support will be crucial in facilitating the new regulation in moving to a more identified state. The less apparent control, and the more apparent choice, the more the regulation will be identified with.  

3. Moving from an conflicted state to an identification state. If a newly presented regulation appears to be socially advantageous, and a considerable amount of autonomy support is provided, or rather there appears to be no sign of control, the need for relatedness will tend to be activated to internalize that regulation. Where the already internalized intrinsic regulation and the new regulation are conflicting, as previously stated, the intrinsic regulation will in most cases be already part of the person's concept of self and the new regulation will enter the person outside the concept of self. But when regulations are internalized totally through the action of the need for relatedness or with sufficient autonomy support the person will be able to identify with the new regulation, and bring it inside the concept of self causing the self concept to be fragmented by having elements within itself in conflict, such as the regulation derived from intrinsic pleasure and the new regulation.

   When a new regulation is internalized in this way, there will be sufficient choice available to the person, that the regulation can be already modified sufficiently. In this way, it will already be much closer to the contents of self concept, when it enters into that self concept. There will still be an inner conflict on two levels but the important one will be the conflict within the self concept. The need for autonomy will tend to act to resolve these differences.

   In an identified state the new regulation does not pressure the person to act as if the new regulation is already part of the concept of self. It does not need to, as it is already identified with it and is effectively already a part of it. Consequently, there is far less likelihood of the person moving the new regulation toward being more extrinsic and it is much more likely that it will now tend to become completely integrated into the concept of self. Except in the rare possibility of psychological problems (like multiple personalities) this resolution is almost inevitable.

   In this case the need for autonomy may cause the new regulation to become integrated in four different ways. Firstly, the new regulation can be modified further, so that it is compatible with the older elements in the self concept. This rather like Piaget's idea absorbing new knowledge, where the new regulation is assimilated by being itself changed. Secondly, the new regulations may be integrated where the old regulations within the self concept are modified, changed, or eliminated in so the new regulation may be integrated. This idea is very much like Piaget's idea of accommodation, where old knowledge is changed to allow new knowledge to be absorbed. Thirdly new regulations can be integrated where the amount of intrinsic pleasure one receives from not following the new regulation is perceptually changed so that there is little or no conflict on that level. Fourthly, there is also the possibility that there may be some intrinsic pleasure in following the new regulation and that the perception of the intensity of that pleasure may be manipulated to facilitate integration.    

4. Moving from a conflicted state to an integrated state. If a newly presented regulation appears to be socially advantageous, and a considerable amount of autonomy support is provided, or rather there appears to be no sign of control, the need for relatedness will tend to be activated to internalize that regulation. If, in addition, the amount of intrinsic pleasure to be derived from following an already integrated and opposing regulation is very slight, it may be possible for the new regulation to be internalized and integrated immediately. This would also require that the new regulation presented no other conflict with the self concept. Thus the new regulation would become part of a new completely stable and integrated self concept, rather than a fragmented one. When a new regulation is internalized in this way it is assimilated with little change and is accommodated only in so far as there is need to reduce our perception of the intrinsic value of not doing it to zero.

   In an integrated state the new regulation is already a part of the concept of self. Consequently there is no likelihood of it drifting back to a less integrated state. There is however, a possibility that if the new activity that follows from the activation of the new regulation, is in itself intrinsically pleasurable that the regulation will eventually become an unnecessary, and the motivation become entirely intrinsic. The more the activity in question is performed, the more intrinsic pleasure the person will receive from that action. Ultimately, the person will start performing the action because of the intrinsic pleasure, and the regulation as a social necessity will gradually become an action or inaction of enjoyment.

5. Moving from a conflicted state to an intrinsically motivated state. It is probably never possible to move directly from being motivated intrinsically to avoid something like sport to a state of being intrinsically motivated to play sport. If, however, the newly presented regulation of playing sport appears to be socially advantageous, and a considerable amount of autonomy support is provided in the presentation, the need for relatedness will tend to be activated to internalize that regulation. Normally the introduction of the new regulation initially produces a conflict between the older intrinsic motivation and the newer extrinsic motivation. It is possible though, if a person does not perceive any attempt to control in the presentation of a new regulation to instantly absorb the new regulation and completely integrate that new regulation into one's concept of self as explained above by reducing the value of not playing sport to zero.

   Once a new regulation is completely integrated with the self concept it is almost inevitable that the activity required will become intrinsically motivated, if intrinsic pleasure is innate in that action. In the case of playing sport (which is innately pleasurable) that pleasure will ensure that the playing of sport will quickly become completely intrinsically motivated. Every time a person plays sport the innate pleasure of playing sport is building into intrinsic motivation and the need to be motivated by one's sense of self can become less important.  

EXTERNAL DEMANDS FOR ACTIONS THAT ARE INTRINSICALLY REWARDING CAN BECOME ANY OF FIVE STATES OF REGULATION, EXTERNAL, INTROJECTED, IDENTIFIED, INTEGRATED OR INTRINSIC.

The introduction of new regulations where no intrinsic motivation exists.

The important but unpleasant things we all do. Although a great many activities can and do involve intrinsic pleasure there are some activities that just plain do not. They are the actions that, if they are not done, will in some cases eventually lead to unpleasantness, but it is not specific that one particular person has to do them. These are the actions where we would say the person is selfish and lazy if he does not do them, because if he does not do them, somebody else has to do them. These are every day things we all have to learn to do as part of being socialized. They are the things that we do as part of cooperating with and caring about other people. They include such things as taking out the garbage, cleaning our rooms and washing the dishes. There are also a group of actions that must be learned so we can be considerate of others. These actions include such things as refraining from talking or making loud noises when someone else is concentrating or doing delicate work or wishes to sleep or relax. It means not doing things that are hurtful or unpleasant for others. It also means learning to do a few things that are culturally specific, like standing up so an older person can sit down, opening the door for women, or acknowledging someone of a higher station in life with a sir or a bow etc.

How do we learn these unpleasant behaviors? How do they become an automatic part of our self, that does not even require prompting, when there is no intrinsic pleasure involved? Behaviorists would say that the pleasure of extrinsic reward is associated with a behavior and reinforces that behavior. Social scientists in general are now fairly certain that this not what happens. It is certainly true that people will continue to perform an unpleasant or boring action if a reward is promised or if a punishment is impending if they fail to perform. The problem is that if the punishment or reward is removed the activity ceases. Behaviorists tried to get around this problem by using intermittent reward or intermittent punishment, but although behaviors lasted longer after intermittent punishment or reward, they still eventually disappeared. This cannot be the way we learn these behaviors that stay with us for life.

Humans are proactive beings. Deci and Ryan's theory proposes that children are already motivated to absorb these regulations that ensure human operation in societies involve a minimum of conflict, as part of the functioning of their the needs for self-determination, competence and relatedness. In this case, the need for relatedness would be doing the initial work. Deci and Ryan suggest that the child really only needs to be brought to the point of performing the action by offering a minimum of reward or the inducement of a minimum of punishment, if the required action is not forthcoming by means of social contagion.

Social contagion. Social contagion can operate through observing others in a social context, where they are seemingly being intrinsically motivated, although they actually are not. When observing others performing, the typically unpleasant but socially necessary actions, where no extrinsic motives are discernible, it is possible to perceive the action as being intrinsically motivated. If those actions are then performed, they can provide some slight satisfaction in all three of Deci and Ryan's needs. The need for relatedness is activated to make the person want to internalize a new way of regulating their behavior, thus providing satisfaction for the need for relatedness. Once the person has performed the action, they will have become socially more competent, satisfying the need for competence. Finally the need for autonomy or self-determination activates to ensure that the regulation begins a journey toward becoming a structurally integrated part of the concept of the person's self. More importantly, the final resolution of inner conflict that comes from integrating the new regulation into the self concept and the performing of actions that come from an unconflicted self concept, may be considered to provide some measure of satisfaction also. Thus it is possible and preferable that the internalization of unpleasant, but socially need regulations can proceed through social contagion just the same as intrinsically pleasurable actions can. 

Social nutriments. Deci and Ryan also suggest that this socialization usually comes about through some small amount of extrinsic inducement. They suggest however, that regardless of whether the person is being motivated through social contagion or through external pressure of a minimum of extrinsic motivation, it will require the contextual saliency of certain social indicators. These social indicators allow those being motivated to attribute a lack of extrinsic motives to the person who is applying the extrinsic motivators. They propose that certain environmental nutriments are needed to be available to the person who is attempting to internalize the new regulation. These nutriments have to do with partial satisfaction of the three principle needs. Obviously the younger these regulations can be internalized the better. Thus it is important that we have a clear idea how children internalize these regulations. Deci and Ryan's research indicates that a child needs to be involved in the process as much as possible so that he or she takes responsibility for what happens.

Some of these nutriments are:

1. Clear informational limits as to what is required.

2. Clear understanding of why a new regulation is required by the society, parent or group that is requiring the regulation. This ensures a sense of anticipated acceptance, belonging and relatedness.

3. Clear understanding of how the internalization of the regulation will enable social competence providing anticipation of that competence.

4. Clear choice within the limits. Choice is the most important of the nutriments. This process is facilitated by giving a child as much choice in the matter of a new regulation as possible. This can be given not just in the variations of the form of the action and its time or place, but also choice in what is suitable as a reward if the child performs, or what punishment will be applied if he does not. This can take the form of an informal contract between the parent and the child, as soon as the child is able to understand the concept. Thus the child becomes as responsible for the outcome as is the parent.

When intrinsic motivation does not exist: Moving from a state where regulations or motivations conflict to states of less conflict. As the states of introjection and identification are by definition unstable there is usually movement within those states in an effort to reach a more stable state. 

1. Moving from an inactive state to one of compliance with external regulation. Even though we may perceive certain activities as providing no intrinsic pleasure, and thus seeing no reason to indulge in those activities, society may regard those activities as essential. There can be no doubt that the introduction of rewards or threat to induce engagement in those activities will work. The question is of course, "Will people continue to engage in those activities if the rewards or threats are withdrawn?" The answer is of course that they will not. The question then we must ask is, "Is there another way of socializing people?" The answer is that socialization is not something we have to do for others, but is rather something each child does for himself. 

   Why would a child do something he does not enjoy unless threatened or bribed? The fact is children do this all the time. They do these things because these are required for entrance into various groups within society. In order to belong, they are prepared to do things that are otherwise distasteful. Children are in fact monitoring the environment around them all the time looking for social indicators about how they should act. Given the right kind of environment, such as, most people modeling a certain way of acting in a situation, most children will act the same way. The will be quiet in church or in a movie theater. Indeed, Maria Montessori believed that the reason children often acted like little barbarians, was because often they did not realize they were upsetting others, and even if they did, they didn't know how to perform in a way that did not upset others. Maria was able to help children to become so respectful of adults and other children, that they became models for correct behavior.  

   All that is required to enable children to become socialized is to provide an environment of choice and positive feedback about improvement and accomplishment and models of behavior for the children to imitate, to produce internalization in the children. Even though there may be no intrinsic pleasure in an action or inaction, children may internalize new regulations.

   If this internalization does not occur, this obviously does not mean the new regulation is not complied with. It may in fact, be readily complied with, as suggested above, while reward is given or punishment threatened.

   It is of course not likely, that if such regulations are internalized, that they would do so by immediately integrating into the person's concept of self. Especially if the new regulations (the things they are required to do) are too unpleasant, or too much to do, or interfere with other activities that do provide intrinsic pleasure, then the regulations most likely will only be accepted in principle, and taken into the mind in the form of an introjection.  

2. Moving from an inactive state to an introjected state. If a newly presented regulation appears to be socially advantageous, the need for relatedness will tend to be activated to internalize that regulation, despite there being no intrinsic motivation. Where only extrinsic motivators or no motivators are applied other that the intrinsic desire to be socially connected, a regulation may be internalized separate from ones concept of self as an introjection. This is also the case if other intrinsic or extrinsic motivators are in opposition to this new regulation. This introjection thus will initially, tend to be in conflict with the concept of self.

   If the extrinsic motivators applied are not so strong or salient that they cause the self concept to be overcome completely, new regulations can be internalized as motivations that are internal but in conflict with the self concept. These regulations may be sort of swallowed whole without any effort being made to modify either the regulations themselves or the person's current concept of self or the perception of the extrinsic motivators. This causes inner conflict between the new internalized regulations and the person's understanding of what it is to be himself. This a very unstable and painful state of disharmony.

   In an introjected state, the new regulation tends to also pressure the person to act as if he were still being extrinsically motivated, even after the extrinsic motivators have been withdrawn. But the more the person pressures himself in this way, the less real intrinsic motivation he is able to feel. The fact is, that intrinsic motivation tends to diminish when extrinsic motivators are perceived to be present. When extrinsic motivators are introduced into the mix, the result will be less intrinsic motivation, unless a serious effort is made to make it appear that the person still has choice. This unfortunately also happens when the pressure comes from inside the person. The person trying to tip the balance in favor of the new regulation pressures himself to perform the action, but this has the unfortunate side effect of reducing the intrinsic pleasure even more. If this situation continues long enough the regulation will likely revert to being completely extrinsic.

   On the other hand the need for autonomy will then tend to act to decrease this conflict by trying to move the regulation toward being more integrated with the self concept. In this way, the person becomes apparently more autonomous in that the activity, he becomes more what the person would choose himself. To put it another way the regulation which was originally internalized as an introjection, which is unstable, can be through the action of the need for self-determination, moved toward being more identified. Two factors determine which way the new regulation will move. The first factor is the amount of time the regulation remains in a state of conflict. The more time remains there the more likely it will stabilize in a state of continual conflict or move toward being completely extrinsic. The other factor is the amount of autonomy support that is provided both with the regulation and generally. This autonomy support will be crucial in facilitating the new regulation in moving to a more identified state. The less apparent control, and the more apparent choice, the more the regulation will be identified with.  

3. Moving from an conflicted state to an identification state. If a newly presented regulation appears to be socially advantageous, and a considerable amount of autonomy support is provided, or rather there appears to be little sign of control, the need for relatedness will tend to be activated to internalize that regulation, despite there being no intrinsic motivation. But when a regulation is internalized totally through the action of the need for relatedness and with sufficient autonomy support, the person will be able to identify strongly with the new regulation despite there being no real intrinsic pleasure in the activity. This will enable them to internalize the regulation sufficiently to bring it inside their concept of self, causing the self concept to be fragmented by having elements within itself in conflict. Old the regulations or old intrinsic motivation may be in conflict with the new regulation.

   When a new regulation is internalized in this way, there will be sufficient choice available to the person that, the regulation can be already modified significantly. Thus the new regulation will already be much closer to the contents of self concept when it is internalized. However, there will still be a conflict between one part of the self concept and another part, dividing the self concept itself. The need for autonomy will then tend to act to resolve these differences.

   In an identified state, the new regulation does not pressure the person to act, as the new regulation is already part of the concept of self. It does not need to, as it is already identified with it and is effectively already a part of it. Consequently, there is far less likelihood of the person moving the new regulation toward being more extrinsic, and it is much more likely that it will now tend to become completely integrated into the concept of self. Except in the rare possibility of psychological problems, such as multiple personality, this resolution is almost inevitable.

   In this case, the need for autonomy may cause the new regulation to become integrated in three different ways. Firstly the new regulation can be modified further so that it is compatible with the older elements in the self concept. This rather like Piaget's idea of absorbing new knowledge where the new regulation is assimilated by being itself changed.

   The second way the new regulation may be integrated is where the old regulations within the self concept are modified, changed, or eliminated, so the new regulation may be integrated. This idea is very much like Piaget's idea of accommodation where old knowledge is changed to allow new knowledge to be absorbed.

   Thirdly there is the possibility that people may attribute, whatever aroused feelings they may be experiencing, to being an experience of pleasure. In other words it may be possible to experience pleasure by simply changing our perception of what we are experiencing from being unpleasant to pleasant. While this may be a very difficult kind of transmutation to accomplish on our own, it may in fact be quite easy in the presence of role models. There is plenty of research evidence to show that people who on observing another person and attributing their performance to the pleasure they are obtaining intrinsically, who then begin to find intrinsic pleasure in such activity where they did not before. It has been shown for instance that if a teacher is perceived as enjoying an activity, even if he is not, this will tend to produce students that enjoy the activity. When those students then teach they in turn will produce students that enjoy the activity, and so on. This more social contagion.

4. Moving from a conflicted state to an integrated state. If a newly presented regulation appears to be socially advantageous, and a considerable amount of autonomy support is provided, or rather there appears to be no sign of control, the need for relatedness will tend to be activated to internalize that regulation, despite there being no intrinsic motivation. If in addition the amount of intrinsic pleasure to be derived from following an already integrated and opposing regulation is very slight, it may be possible for the new regulation to be internalized and integrated immediately. This would also require that the new regulation presented no other conflict with the self concept. Thus the new regulation would become part of a new completely stable and integrated self concept rather than a fragmented one. When a new regulation is internalized in this way, it is assimilated with little change and is accommodated only in so far as there is need to manipulate our own perception of the intrinsic value of not doing it to zero.

   Once a new regulation is completely integrated with the self concept, it may be possible that the activity required will become intrinsically motivated, if we are able to perceive others experiencing intrinsic pleasure from that activity. When dealing with activities that are almost defined as being in themselves unpleasant it is difficult to know how far this can be carried and how far it should be carried. While it does seem bizarre to think of people experiencing pain as pleasure, we know masochists do just that, as do people who whip themselves in religious ceremonies. Consider also the stoics of ancient Sparta who took pleasure in the hard, simple Spartan life. A better example of what is meant here, however, is the person who overcomes great adversity and pain to accomplish something truly amazing. This somehow seems to be a useful sort of possible intrinsic pleasure despite the fact that the action is not intrinsically pleasurable in and of itself.

EXTERNAL DEMANDS FOR ACTIONS THAT ARE NOT INTRINSICALLY REWARDING CAN BE PROCESSED INTO ANY OF FOUR STATES OF REGULATION, EXTERNAL, INTROJECTED, IDENTIFIED OR INTEGRATED. 

An alternative explanation using the theory of cognitive dissonance.

Socialization. This all about socialization. This about how parents and other socializing factors enable children to be able to do things perform actions that are acceptable to and encouraged by society. It is about how they can facilitate change, that allows people to end up doing and even seemingly enjoy doing things that we would normally consider to be unpleasant. These agents or parents firstly provide their own actions as examples of the social norms. Parents etc. however are faced with a problem. On the one hand they want their children to comply with their demands for more social behavior. But on the other hand they want their children to freely choose to perform in this more socialized manner. This is normal. We must all learn to be toilet trained, when we should not speak or make a noise, and generally how to be considerate of others.

The answer to this dilemma curiously is predicted by Deci and Ryan's theory to involve only the minimum of extrinsic inducement and that it should not involve surveillance or any loss of regard. Ideally is should involve a sort of contract between the parent and the child the breaking of which automatically incurs the agreed upon punishment or withdrawal of reward. Deci and Ryan's theory predicts that children are in fact motivated to find these social norms.

Cognitive dissonance. There is however, another theory that explains this same use of a minimum threat or reward for the absorption of the new regulations into the self. This is Festinger's "Theory of Cognitive Dissonance". The theory predicts that if we perform an action that has unwanted consequences that were foreseeable, the unpleasant feeling of cognitive dissonance will be aroused, because we have done something unacceptable to our self concept. The theory also predicts, that we must try to reduce this feeling of dissonance by changing what we believe about those actions. This because we cannot change the actions.

It seems counter intuitive to suppose only a minimum of extrinsic reward or threat of punishment should be most effective. One would think the greater the reward or the larger the threat of punishment the less likely these unwanted behaviors on the part of children would be and this true. But remember what we want is for the children to choose freely not to perform these actions in certain places and at certain times. There have been many experiments in cognitive dissonance research to also show that a small punishment or a small reward will always be more effective in causing children to modify their self concept. It works as follows:

If a parent demands that a child clean up his room, the parent may also allow the child to decide when and how to go about it, and he can also come to an agreement with the child as to what punishment for not doing, or reward for doing, might be sufficient for the action to be undertaken. Suppose the child performs the action despite the fact that the punishment for not doing it was very mild, or he did it despite the fact the reward for doing it was poor. In this situation, a state of cognitive dissonance is aroused which the child must somehow reduce. He has performed the action and cannot change that fact. He can only change his understanding and perception of the action. The simplest way for him to deal with this to decide that he had wanted to perform the action all along. He may decide that he wanted to please his parents or that it was the right thing to do. He might even decide that it was enjoyable. Most people would decide it was the right thing to do, but whatever is decided, the result is the same. It results in the child perceiving the action as now being less something he does not want to do, and more something he does want to do. He wanted to clean up his room he likes to clean up his room.

The next time the parent wants the child to clean the room the reward or punishment to induce it may then be lowered still further. Cognitive dissonance has moved the action of cleaning the room from a place of being an unpleasant to being one the person wants to do and even perhaps enjoys.

Modification of the self concept. Let us take a closer look at how modification of the self concept takes place: Children may have been told not to take sweets out of a jar in plain sight. One child is told that he will be punished severely if he does and the other is told he will only be punished moderately if he takes a sweet.

Let us suppose neither child take a sweet. What happens? Well the first child didn't take the sweet but he still wants to take it. The only thing holding him back is the large threat. The other child realizes that the punishment he was threatened with wasn't very much at all. Why then did he not take the sweet? Here an unwanted but foreseeable consequence has occurred. The child didn't get the sweet and yet there was hardly any reason why he shouldn't. Cognitive dissonance has been aroused. The easiest way for the child to reduce this dissonance is to modify what he believes about the sweets or about how much he wants to do what his parents tell him. So maybe his desire for the sweets is reduced or his desire to do what his parents tell him has increased. Either way he now finds that he has changed his mind about taking the sweet and no longer wants to. At this point the parent might reduce the punishment still further or even eliminate it all together.

Okay so what happens if both boys take the sweet? Cognitive dissonance theory provides, that in this second case, the boy who was severely punished will have cognitive dissonance aroused in his mind. He took the sweet and was severely punished an unwanted but foreseeable consequence has occurred. The severe punishment was terrible. How can he reduce the cognitive dissonance? Well, he could increase his estimation of the worth of the sweet, or he can decrease his perception of the severity of the punishment. Either way, he ends up wanting the sweet more than ever, and is more likely to take it again than he was previously. What about the boy who is only punished moderately? Well dissonance is not aroused in him. He may decide the sweet was worth the punishment. He is pretty much in the state he was in before. His parent may now increase the punishment a little to try to get him to stop. But it should not be increased much. Remember after he has been punished once he may not ever want to take a sweet again. Maybe it wasn't worth it. The answer then is to keep punishment low. The same is true of rewarding keep it to the minimum.

One more motivational state.

Six motivational states. There are six motivational states. Five have already been covered in detail and they are intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation and the three in between states of introjection, identification and integration. There is however a sixth motivational state and that is the state of not being motivated. The term to describe this state is amotivation, so that people can be described as being amotivated. You may wonder why it is necessary to use this word instead of using unmotivated or non-motivation. The fact is, these other words describe a whole range of different activities that are not the same as what is meant by amotivation. If a child resists or does the opposite of what is required we could say he is unmotivated but this not amotivation. If a child is lazy and tries to get as much as possible by doing as little as possible we could say he is unmotivated, but this is not being amotivated either. Amotivation simply refers to not being motivated because one does not believe motivation makes a difference. The early term for this was 'learned helplessness'.

Amotivation. Amotivation was conceived as a response to the early experiments by Martin Seligman and colleagues. In those experiments it was discovered that if humans, or any creatures for that matter, are placed in an environment where there is no way of acting to escape a bad or painful situation, then the creatures or humans learn not to act. The resisting or lazy person is still motivated, no matter that it is motivation in an nonfunctional manner. With learned helplessness there is no longer any motivation because any attempt to do anything is seen as unlikely to succeed. The person begins to perceive himself as powerless to affect or change the world around him, and in particular to change himself. In severe cases we call this depression. The thing is, however, that a person can be amotivated in some particular area such as academic studies or social effectiveness without being depressed. Deci and Ryan put it like this:

"Autonomous and controlled activities involve different types of regulatory processes, yet both are instances of intentional (i.e., motivated) behavior. In contrast, amotivation is a state in which people lack the intention to behave, and thus lack motivation as that term is defined in the cognitive-motivational tradition. According to SDT, people are likely to be amotivated when they lack either a sense of efficacy or a sense of control with respect to a desired outcome—that is, when they are not able to regulate themselves with respect to a behavior. Amotivation is shown at the far left end of the continuum in Figure 1. All forms of extrinsic regulation, even the most controlled, involve intentionality and motivation, so amotivation stands in contrast to intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, for it represents the lack of both types of motivation and thus a complete lack of self-determination with respect to the target behavior."

A continuum of motivation. We can see from the above  illustration that amotivation is the form of least intention, least motivation and least self-determination.

Summary and Integration.

Self-determination theory is concerned primarily with explaining the psychological processes that promote optimal functioning and health of human beings. It is about what we learn, where we learn, when we learn, how we learn and why we learn, for which the answer is to become optimal functioning and healthy human being. It assumes human beings to be active, growth-oriented organisms who are naturally inclined toward the development of an organized coherence in their psychological makeup and between themselves and the social world. However, these natural developmental tendencies toward autonomy (i.e., internal integration) and homonomy (i.e., social integration), like other natural tendencies such as intrinsic motivation, are assumed to require nutriments or supports from the social environment to function effectively.

More specifically, the natural human mental self-organization and an organized relation to a larger social structure are understood to require satisfaction of the three innate or fundamental psychological needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness. Thwarted satisfaction of these needs results invariably in negative functional consequences for mental health and often for ongoing persistence and performance. How do we satisfy those needs? Well autonomy is satisfied primarily by the perception of choice or options and our determination to take advantage of those choices and options. Competence is satisfied primarily by informational positive feedback about what we have accomplished and in response to what we have been able to accomplish. Relatedness is satisfied through informational positive feedback we receive in response to the application of the social skills we have learned. Accordingly, needs are the linking pin between the gifts and demands of the social world on one hand, and either people’s natural tendencies toward growth and well-being or their tendencies toward self-protection with the accompanying psychological costs on the other hand.