Pre-Reading Activity (Background You Need)

Pre-Reading Activity (Background You Need):

If you would like to hear Daniel Pink talking about the ideas of his book in a business oriented context so you can have a general idea of what he’s talking about before you start reading, you can watch this 8 minute interview that’s available on Youtube. “Daniel Pink: What Really Motivates Workers” posted by moneywatch’s channel. ( ) He gives a really good overview of the major concepts of the book as a whole and could be a great pre-reading video before you get into the details of the reading. He’s talking about it in the business context, but hopefully you can see how it applies in other broader contexts, including education.

Notes: ideas you want to remember from the video:
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You are reading the introduction in which Pink explains what we know and have learned in the 20th century about what motivates people to do a task well. What he is looking at is what motivates us to work hard or to be successful when work is involved. He starts out talking about motivations that are basic, biological: I’m thirsty so I’m motivated to get up and get a drink. He also talks in the intro about another kind of motivation to do something: reward or punishment. He calls this system of doing something not because we need it for survival but just for the reward or not to be punished as “Motivation 2..” He discusses Motivation 2.0 a lot in chapter 1, which we are not reading. So when he refers to Motivation 2.0 in later chapters that we are reading, he’s talking about the idea of rewards for the behavior one wants, and punishments for what we don’t want, or “carrots and sticks”.

Pre-Reading Overview:

(For Monday 9/26): The first ten pages from the intro and the section from Chapter 2 talks about why “carrots and sticks”, or the rewards and punishment method, not only isn’t always a good motivator in the short term, but can be harmful for motivation in the long run.
(For Wednesday 9/28): Chapter 4 is about the idea of “Autonomy” or the concept of independence or self-governing or self-managing in a task.
(For Friday 9/30): Chapter 5 is about the idea of “Mastery” or becoming very good at your task.
(For Monday 10/3): Chapter 6 is about “Purpose” introduces the idea that having a strong sense of purpose, or a good and enriching reason, for doing what we do, and how it affects our tasks.

Pre-Reading Activity (Vocabulary):

These are terms that come up in the reading that may be unfamiliar or words that you have only a new familiarity of. Review definitions here before reading, but also keep this vocab cheat sheet handy so that when these words come up you can quickly reference them if you need to. If you come across other vocab words you don’t know, record them on the blank list at the end of this sheet and look them up later.

intrinsic: Definition ______

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extrinsic: Definition ______

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alchemy: Definition ______

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counterintuitive: Definition ______

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Introduction, pages 1-10:

Explain in your own words what the two main drives scientists thought governed all human behavior when they did their experiment with the monkeys and puzzles in 1949 (pages 1-3).

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Explain in your own words what the third drive was that researchers thought they had discovered and what motivates it (page 3).

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Pink quotes Deci’s words after his experiments with the Soma puzzle in 1969: “When money is used as an external reward for some activity, the subjects lost intrinsic interest for the activity” (8). Explain what this means and how you think this changes what we understand about business and the workplace or even the classroom.

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Main Ideas:

Note here the/a main idea of each section of the article listed here by subtitle by either quoting a main idea “golden sentence” or, even better if possible, by summarizing it in your own words:

Chapter Opening, p. 32-34

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“Less of What We Want: Intrinsic Motivation”, p. 34-38

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“Less of What We Want: High Performance”, p. 38-40

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“Less of What We Want: Creativity”, p. 40-45

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“Less of What We Want: Good Behavior”, p. 45-47

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Additional Vocabulary:

Note here any words that you didn’t know (and highlight them in the article so you can find them again) and couldn’t quite figure out from the context, and when you have finished reading the article look up and jot down the definitions here so that you can go back to the context and re-read that section with the definition in hand. (But don’t stop your reading the first time around to look up words!)