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
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.