Thorndike theorized that behaviors followed by satisfying consequences tend to be repeated and those that produce unpleasant consequences are less likely to be repeated.
Stack Overflow (and similarly-designed sites) stumbled upon this accidentally, or at least it would appear that way. Individually, the system of reinforcement appears to be continuous; you see a good answer, you upvote, you see a bad answer, you downvote.
One danger of extrinsic motivation
The conclusion we can reach from these findings is that rewards–that is, extrinsic motivation–work well for tasks with a simple set of rules and a clear destination to move toward. Rewards, by their very nature, narrow our focus and concentrate the mind.
In behavioral terms Premack's principle states that any high-frequency activity can be used as a reinforcer for any lower-frequency activity. This common statement made by most mothers easily show us how Premack's principle is used "You have to finish your vegetables (low frequency) before you can eat any ice cream (high frequency)"
Ideas from Saga Briggs' 25 Ways to Cultivate Intrinsic Motivation
- A Higher Purpose: Users who feel that they are working towards the greater good, or something larger than themselves, may have an easier time staying motivated.
- Make every contributor feel capable: Help users believe that they are capable of the task at hand. Speak to the user's sense of self-worth.
- Make the attainment of goals probable: Everyone is motivated to complete easy, reward-based tasks. It’s the more difficult ones, often accompanied by delayed gratification, that make us want to give up before we begin. On a day to day basis, aim for goals that are achievable but require just enough work to keep new users engaged. It’s a fine line between interest and disengagement, but it’s this tension that keeps us all motivated.
Richard Ryan & Edward Deci's Categories (Boxes) of Motivation
- Amotivation - Not Motivated
- Extrinsic Motivation
- External regulation - external
- Introjection regulation - "an individual behaves in order to avoid guilt and boost their self-esteem by following the motto 'I do this because I should.'. Introjected regulation is a based on socially defined norms. When an individual conforms to the norms, their feeling of self-worth is increased. An example is holding a door open for another person. By holding open the door, the individual takes part in the social demand of being polite, while not necessarily accepting the idea internally. "
- Identified regulation - "The 'I do this because it is important' form of extrinsic motivation is driven by an individual seeing value and importance in the task. An example used by Gagné & Deci (2005) is that of a nurse. A nurse will engage in unappealing tasks, such as bathing a patient, and still feel relatively autonomous. Why does she still feel autonomous? The nurse values a patient's well-being and understands that in order to maintain the patient's health, she will have to do unpleasant tasks."
- Integration regulation - "The ideal form of extrinsic motivation with the most autonomy is integrated regulation. This is the 'I do this because it reflects who I am' form of motivation. "The motivation is characterized not by the person being interested in the activity but rather by the activity being instrumentally important for personal goals" (Gagné & Deci, 2005). If for instance, a person identified them-self as environmentally conscious, a task like recycling may be based on integrated regulation."
- Intrinsic Motivation - Internal Motivation
A Modified Version of a Conclusion from Alfie Kohn
A carefully structured cooperative environment that offers manageable but challenging tasks, that allows users to make key decisions about how they perform those tasks, and that emphasizes the value (and skills) of helping each other to learn constitutes an alternative to extrinsic motivators that is both more effective over the long haul and more consistent with community values.
From About.com's Psychology page:
Malone and Lepper define activities as intrinsically motivating if "people engage in it for its own sake, rather than in order to receive some external reward or avoid some external punishment. We use the words fun, interesting, captivating, enjoyable, and intrinsically motivating all more or less interchangeably to describe such activities."
The factors that they identify as increasing intrinsic motivation are:
Challenge: People are more motivated when they pursue goals that have personal meaning, that relate to their self-esteem, when performance feedback is available, and when attaining the goal is possible but not necessarily certain.
Curiosity: Internal motivation is increased when something in the physical environment grabs the individual's attention (sensory curiosity) and when something about the activity stimulates the person to want to learn more (cognitive curiosity).
Control: People want control over themselves and their environments and want to determine what they pursue.
Cooperation and Competition: Intrinsic motivation can be increased in situations where people gain satisfaction from helping others and also in cases where they are able to compare their own performance favorably to that of others.
Recognition: People enjoy having their accomplishment recognized by others, which can increase internal motivation.
Dr. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: Flow, the secret to happiness
Dr Csikszentmihalyi describes this space between Arousal & Control which he has called Flow. It's when you are doing work that is in that perfect cross-section of individual skills and personal challenge. Seems to fit nicely into much of the work around identifying opportunities for intrinsic motivation (that's what the wording).
The elements of a task we get enjoyment out of often include elements of:
- focused, concentrated time
- knowing what needs to be done and how well we are doing
- knowing that the tasks are doable
- whatever produces flow becomes its own reward
- being a part of something larger
How can we help users:
1) Find a challenge that is appropriate to their level of skill.
2) Develop those skills in order to be able to meet the challenge. (Too easy and your mind will wander, too hard and you'll be overwhelmed).
3) Set clear goals to be very clear on when you’re succeeding.
4) Focus completely on the task at hand.
5) Give yourself enough time to succeed.
Examining Motivational Strategies - What Makes Your Users Care?
Techniques (starting with elements that have extrinsic & intrinsic options):
- Positive Reinforcement - Helps shape the desired behavior. Can be done quickly, efficiently and without much cost or planning. Can provide useful feedback for self-improvement. Perhaps should involve some random elements.
- Assessing Efforts - Can promote higher quality. Begins working fairly quickly. Helps promote the concept of “good behavior.” A good review can be very rewarding.
- Competition - Can raise the level of interest in the activity. Can bring the “team” aspect into an effort. Comparison is motivational to those who aspire to the top. Brings a “game” feeling to work.
- Self- Improvement - Promotes intrinsic motivation. Helps users clarify their own goals and desires. More long-lasting sense of satisfaction. Why don't we ask users what they are interested in learning?
- Increased Responsibility - Can create the cause-and-effect between responsibility and freedom. StackOverflow does this quite well.
We all aspire to having:
- Love and Belonging - Each of us needs to feel that we are loved and that we are a wanted part of a group.
- Power - Each of us needs to feel that we have some control over our destiny.
- Competence - We need to feel that we are capable and have something valuable to contribute.
- Freedom - Each of us needs to feel that we are autonomous and have freedom of choice.
- Fun - Each of us needs to be able to have fun and experience wonder and joy.
Intrinsic extrinsic motivation and goal-setting
- When there is no intrinsic motivation to be undermined (uninteresting tasks), rewards can make an otherwise uninteresting task seem suddenly worth pursuing. Reeve (2009)
- People with goals outperform people without goals. Where are we setting goals in Drupal?
- Goals clarify performance expectations, counteract apathy & boredom, make feedback important and with attainment an generate a feeling of pride, satisfaction or competence that the task itself cannot generate.
- Feedback is the single most important predictor of achievement; feedback alone is not sufficient - effective instruction is also needed; feedback is powerful but it can be helpful or harmful - Hattie & Timperley (2007)
Dan Pink: The puzzle of motivation
Goals narrow our focus - they work when there is a simple set of rules & clear destination to go to
Intrinsic motivation Autonomy (urge to direct our own lives), Mastery (desire to get better and better) & Purpose (drive to do something larger than ourselves)
Autonomy - who is engaged in Drupal because of this? Find a module you're interested in and make it better. This vs the client needs module A to get better so let's do it.
Mastery - who has gotten to be a better developer because of involvement in the Drupal community? How do we better highlight that programming is a life-long process and that we can all get better by working together on these projects?
Purpose - the collaboration economy, remix culture, let's position ourselves in that broader dialog about what kind of a world we want to live in.
Dan Ariely: What makes us feel good about our work?
are we breaking ideas in front of peoples eyes?
how do we give people a sense of meaning?
some review/acknowledgement can be a big motivator.
is Drupal subject to the IKEA effect?
interesting ideas between efficiency vs meaning
Building Web Reputation Systems
public reputation (can cause competition possibly destructive for altruistic communities)
private reputation (reflected back to user - useful for encouraging people to aim towards mastery)
secret reputation (useful for Drupal.org for identifying types of contributors)
The Three F’s of Gamification - Fun, Friends, & Feedback
@SeriousPony's Motivation Part Two
Continuum of Motivation from Self-determination theory - extrinsic to intrinsic motivation.
Intrinsic motivation is more robust, sustainable, results in better learning and creativity, and is not fragile. Self motivation.
Intrinsic - If you would do something for it's own reward. Not even recognition.
Autonomy in this context can be based on a request from a coach or individual who you have granted the permission to give you direction. Doing something voluntarily isn't always giving the individual autonomy either if there are rewards associated with them.
Understandable payoffs & feedback are almost always good.
For large challenges, building a progressive series of steps to achieving goal will help as often people need to understand that there is visible progress.
Progress indicators are important to show that you are improving. Breaking down barriers and explaining why they aren't doing it. We need to build confidence and have a clear credible path, understandable progressive payoffs. Progress payoff isn't an extrinsic reward like a badge, it is an indication of what you can do now.
Good systems design for intrinsically motivating payoff as soon as possible. What is the earliest time to cool?
Integrating flow state (that state between a new challenge & skill existing level) & high resolution experiences into the UX will help.
Where people lack faith about their ability to complete a task, it is a de-motivator. Don't shy away from telling folks it is difficult in the beginning (if it is).
Jane McGonigal - How Games Can Change The World
Games are unnecessary obstacles we volunteer to tackle.
Eustress - Positive Stress https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eustress
Blissful productivity, Social fabric, Urgent optimisim & Epic meaning