Understanding Individual

Motivation

Michael Angelo Mendez, MPsych

 Objectives
At the end of my talk, you are expected to:

1. Identify the early theories of motivation.

2. Define the 21st century new approach to
motivation.
3. Differentiate intrinsic motivation from extrinsic
motivation.
4. Appreciate autonomy, mastery and purpose.
 What is motivation?

It is a psychological process that arouse and

direct goal-directed behavior.

It encourages individuals to work enthusiastically,

often performing more work than what is
required.
Early Theories of Motivation
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Theory
Theory X and Theory Y
Herzberg’s Two-Factor Theory
McClelland’s Theory of Needs
Rethinking Motivation
 The Candle Problem

The Candle Problem created in 1945 by a Psychologist

named Karl Duncker.
Solution:
The key is to overcome
functional fixedness.

Functional fixedness is
a cognitive bias that
limits a person to using
an object only in the
way it is traditionally
used.
The Power of Incentives
• A scientist named Sam Glucksberg gathered
participants, timed them how quickly they can
solve a problem.
• To one group, there was no reward.
• To the other group, he offered rewards (5 and
20 dollars). This group took 3 ½ minutes
longer. This makes no sense right?
 Our assumption:

If you want people to perform better, you reward

them, right?

Give them bonuses, commissions, incentivize them.

 The Problem
• But that is not what is happening in the real
world.

• If you got an incentive designed to sharpen

thinking and accelerate creativity, and it does
just the opposite. It dulls thinking and it blocks
creativity.
• For nearly 40 years, this finding has been
proven over and over again in research.

• Our set of assumptions in working and how we

motivate people are built in extrinsic
motivations. But this often doesn’t work for
21st century tasks.
 Another experiment
• Glucksberg presented the problem in a slightly
different way.

• The task was the same: attach the candle to the

wall so that the wax doesn’t drip onto the
table.

• One group was timed for norms, while the other

was incentivized.
• The incentivized group did it faster. When the
tacks are out of the box, it is very easy.
 Key Point
• If-then rewards work really well for those sorts
of tasks where there is simple set of rules and
clear direction to go to.

• Rewards actually narrow our focus and

concentrate the mind. Rewards work well in
tasks where there is much narrowed focus.
 Experiment
• Dan Ariely, one of the great American
economists conducted a study with his
colleagues.

• They gave MIT students some tasks (games) and

offered to give them rewards: small, medium
and large.
• The findings: As long as the task involved only
mechanical skill, bonuses worked as they
would be expected – the higher the pay, the
better the performance.

• But once the task called for “rudimentary

cognitive skill”, a larger reward “led to
poorer performance”.
• They replicated the study in cultures where the
standard of living is lower and where monetary
rewards were more meaningful.

• In eight of the nine tasks we examined across the

three experiments, higher incentives led to worse
performance.”

• (D. Ariely, U. Gneezy, G. Lowenstein, N. Mazar; Federal Reserve Bank of

Boskton, Working Paper Np. 05-11, July 2005.)
• Dr. Bernd Irlenbusch, London School of
Economics states that “We find that financial
incentives can result in a negative impact on
overall performance.”
 Defining the problem more
• Too many organizations are making their
policies based on assumptions that are
outdated.

• If we want more high performance in

definitional tasks in 21st century, we need new
approach.
The New Approach:
Intrinsic Motivation
• Scientists have given us this new approach built
more around intrinsic motivation.

INTRINSIC MOTIVATION - The desire to do things

because they matter, to do things because we
like it, to do things because it is interesting or
because we become part of something
important.
 Important Factors under IM
• Autonomy – the urge to direct our own lives.
• Mastery – the desire to get better and better
to something that matters.
• Purpose – the yearning to do what we do in
the service of something larger than ourselves.
 Examples of Applied Intrinsic
Motivation
• Atlassians – They have Fedex days.
• 20 percent time – applied in Google Company.
• ROWE – results only work environment. People
don’t have schedules.
 General findings of this new
approach:
• Productivity goes up.
• Worker engagement goes up.
• Job satisfaction goes up.
• Turnover goes down.
 Conclusion
• Wikipedia versus Encarta.

To apply it in school, what motivates you to work

your best? Is it always focused on extrinsic rewards
or intrinsic motivation?

As managers, organizers, moderators, how can you

motivate your subordinates to do their best?
 End
Thank you! 

Source: The Puzzle of Motivation. TED Talk by

Dan Pink.