Immersive Experiences Working Paper

Part 2 Motivations

This is Part 2 of a working paper that sets out to develop conceptual knowledge relevant to the idea of immersive experience. It is based on the experiences and immersive experience stories written by participants in the ‘power of immersive experience conference ‘held at the University of Surrey in January 2008. This part of the paper focuses on why people get engaged in immersive experiences and what keeps them engaged.

The list of contributors and stories can be found at:

Readers are invited to develop further perspectives, interpretations and propositions.

What do we mean by motivation?

Motivation[1] is a word used to refer to the reason or reasons for engaging in a particular behavior - These reasons may include basic needs such as food or a desired object, goal, state of being, or ideal. Motivation refers to the initiation, direction, intensity and persistence of human behavior (Green1995).

Motivation is intrinsic(internal) if it comes from within (personal interests, desires, and need), when people engage in an activity without obvious external incentives or pressures. Some authors distinguish between two forms of intrinsic motivation: one based on enjoyment, the other on obligation – what an individual thinks ought to be done. It is thought that people are more likely to be intrinsically motivated if they:

  • Attribute their influences and accomplishments to internal factors that they can control – the effects I have are proportional to the amount of effort I put in
  • Believe they can be effective agents in reaching desired goals –the things I do cause things to happen
  • Are aiming to master something.

Extrinsic (external) factors such as rewards, praise and promotions,and factors which compel or coerce people to engage with a situation in a certain way,also influence motivation.In educational environments assessment is the biggest external motivational force while in work environments, money, performance review or inspiring others may provide powerful extrinsic motivational forces.

What motivates people to engage in an experience in an immersive way?

Understanding what compels people to voluntarily enter an experience that is likely to be immersive or to turn an experience into one that is immersive by engaging in it in an immersive way is important if we are to create conditions for immersive experience in higher education. It might be anticipated that committing to a level of engagement that participants recognise as being immersive will require powerful motivational forces particularly if the experience is sustained over a period of time. The stories participants chose to tell of their immersive experiences were overwhelmingly self-motivated and positive in the sense of fulfilling personal needs, desiresand aspirations (Appendix 1). In a few stories the reasons for participation in an immersive way was not clear.

Some of the more overt sources of motivation are listed below.

  • Need / desire for personal development / profound change /
  • Taking on a significant new challenge requiring adaptation/re-invention – motivations to understand/survive/master.
  • Necessity /need to invent (typically connected to taking on a new/significant challenge)
  • Desire to exploit an opportunity (typically connected to taking on a new challenge)
  • Desire to learn a language/culture (specific and frequently cited new challenge)
  • The need for stimulation (generic reason for a new challenge)
  • Necessity /need to invent (typically connected to taking on a new/significant challenge)
  • Need desire to conduct research (specific context for new challenge)
  • Passion/excitement/happiness
  • Experiencing effects
  • Doing something for others
  • Being inspired by others
  • Modelling immersive behaviour in order to engage others in an immersive way
  • Coping with situations that were imposed / outside of the control of the individual

Strong and sustained self-motivational forces are likely to involve a combination of forces like for example the need desire for change/personal development, might be connected to taking on a new challenge, seeing and exploiting a new opportunity then experiencing the effects on self and others.

We must also appreciate that an overt motivational force may camouflage other motivations which although unspoken might be as powerful. So needs and desire for change/personal development might also be connected deep down to unarticulated desires for a happier, more fulfilling or spiritual life.

Motivations are also likely to change through a complex experience. An immersive experience may begin with an obligation or sense of duty, it might encounter anxiety and fear as a sourceof negative emotional energy but might progress through senses of satisfaction and enjoyment as difficult situations are mastered and new insights are gained.

Only a few immersive experiences appear to have been ‘driven’ by circumstances beyond the control of the individual, although the environment and participants’ engagement with it is a key feature of most immersive experiences.

In summary, the overwhelmingsources of energy and commitment to engaging in an immersive way with a complex situation seem to be intrinsic in nature seemingly triggered by needs for new experiences and challenges through whichpeople develop themselves. Higher education is not very good at recognising individually designed, self-motivated experience in its pre-planned, formalised approaches to education and this might be a barrier to further development of immersive experiences.

Sense making tools

The ‘Hierarchy of Needs’ model of motivations (Maslow 1943) developed a framework for analysing the motivational forces behind human behaviour and growth. His model contains five levels of need.

1. Biological and Physiological basic needs - air, food, drink, shelter, warmth, sex, sleep, etc.

2. Safety needs - protection from elements, security, order, law, limits, stability, etc.

3. Belongingness and Love needs - work group, family, affection, relationships, etc.

4. Esteem needs - self-esteem, achievement, mastery, independence, status, dominance, prestige, managerial responsibility, etc.

5. Self-Actualization needs - realising personal potential, self-fulfilment, seeking personal growth and peak experiences.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs has been extended by other people to include ('Cognitive', 'Aesthetic', and 'Transcendence' – helping others achieve self-actualization) ‘levels’. Others have argued that these sources of motivation are all concerned with self-development and self-fulfilment that is rooted in self-actualization 'personal growth', which is distinctly different to the 1-4 level 'deficiency' motivators. Maslow’s hierarchical and sequential model has been criticised because in real life people tend to access and utilise different levels of motivation simultaneously rather than sequentially. Clayton Alderfercombined Maslow’s five categories into three categories in his ERG theory:

Clayton Alderfer’s Existence-Relatedness-Growth ERG theory

Growth / An intrinsic desire for personal development. These include the Maslow’s intrinsic esteem category and the characteristics included under self-actualization.
Relatedness / The desire we have for maintaining important interpersonal relationships. These social and status desires require interaction with others.They align with Maslow’s social need and the external component.
Existence / Provides our basic material existence requirements. They include Maslow’s physiological and safety needs.

In contrast to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory, the ERG theory demonstrates that (1) more than one need may be operative at the same time ie needs are not satisfied sequentially and (2) if the gratification of a higher-level need is stifled, the desire to satisfy a lower-level need increases.

This simpler and more flexible interpretive framework seems to work quite well for characterising the motivational forces that are associated with immersive experiences (represented in participants’ stories).Overwhelmingly, the motivations for engaging in immersive experiences seem to be associated with Growth – the personal development, intrinsic self-esteem /self-actualising dimensions of the framework.

Implications for higher education

From this rational way of thinking about motivation, it would appear that engaging in an experience in an immersive way is a means of satisfying human needs for self-actualisation. And encouraging self-actualisation is perhaps the deep moral purpose for why we are interested in facilitating a deeper engagement with the idea of immersion in higher education.

The teachers’ role is an interesting one because it contains within it dimensions of self-actualisation (the teacher’s need for personal development in order to be the person they want to become) and the transcendent dimension of self-actualisation (the desire of a teacher to help others achieve their self-actualisation goals).

Characteristics of self-actualising people4

In view of the apparent importanceof self-actualisation as a motivational force for engaging in and sustaining immersive experiences, it is worth reflecting on the characteristics of self-actualising people as described in the writings of Maslow and others.

1. Clearer perception of reality. Self-actualising people perceive reality more effectively than others and are more comfortable with it. They have an accurate perception of what exists rather than a distortion of perception by one's needs, and possess an ability to be objective about their own strengths, possibilities and limitations. They judge experiences, people and things correctly and efficiently, and have an unusual ability to detect the spurious, the fake, and the dishonest. They are not afraid of the unknown and can tolerate the doubt, uncertainty, and tentativeness accompanying the perception of the new and unfamiliar.

2. Acceptance of self, others, and nature. Self-actualizing persons are not ashamed or guilty about their human nature, with its shortcoming, imperfections, frailties, and weaknesses. They can accept their own human shortcomings, without condemnation. Nor are they critical of these aspects of other people. They respect and esteem themselves and others. Moreover, they are honest, open, genuine, without pose or facade. They are not, however, self-satisfied but are concerned about discrepancies between what is and what might be or should be in themselves, others, and society.

3. Spontaneity. Self-actualising people are relatively spontaneous in their behaviour, and far more spontaneous than that in their inner life, thoughts and impulses. Self-actualising persons are not hampered by convention, but they do not flout it. They are not conformists, but neither are they anti-conformist for the sake of being so. They might act conventionally, but they seldom allow convention to keep them from doing anything they consider important or basic. They are not externally motivated or even goal-directed; rather their motivation is the internal one of growth and development, the actualization of themselves and their potentialities.

4. Problem-centering. Self-actualising people have a problem-solving orientation towards life instead of an orientation centered on self. They are interested in solving problems; this often includes the problems of others. Solving these problems is often a key focus in their lives. They commonly have a mission in life, some problem outside themselves that enlists much of their energies. In general this mission is unselfish and is involved with the philosophical and the ethical.

5. Detachment and the need for solitude. Self-actualising people enjoy solitude and privacy. It is often possible for them to remain above the battle, unruffled and undisturbed by that which upsets others. They may even appear to be asocial. It is perhaps, related to an abiding sense of security and self-sufficiency.

6. Autonomy, independent of culture and environment. Self-actualising persons are not dependent for their main satisfactions on other people or culture or means-to-ends, or in general, on extrinsic satisfactions. Rather they are dependent for their own development and continued growth upon their own potentialities and latent resources. The meaning of their life is self-decision, self-governing and being an active, responsible, self-disciplined deciding person rather than a pawn or a person helplessly ruled by others.

7. Continued freshness of appreciation. Self-actualising people have a wonderful capacity to appreciate again and again the basic pleasures of life. They experience awe, pleasure, and wonder in their everyday world, such as nature, children, music and sexual experience. They approach these basic experiences with awe, pleasure, wonder and even ecstasy.

8. The mystic experience, the oceanic feeling. Self-actualising people commonly have mystic or `peak' experiences or times of intense emotions in which they transcend self. During a peak experience, they experience feelings of ecstasy, awe, and wonder with feelings of limitless horizons opening up, feelings of unlimited power and at the same time feelings of being more helpless than ever before. The experience ends with the conviction that something extremely important and valuable has happened so that the person is to some extent transformed and strengthened by the experience that has a carry-over into everyday life.

9. Oneness with humanity. Self-actualising people have deep feelings of identification, sympathy and affection for other people, and a deep feeling of empathy and compassion for human beings in general. This feeling is, in a sense, unconditional in that it exists along with the recognition of the existence in others of negative qualities that may provoke occasional anger, impatience, and disgust.

10. Deep interpersonal relations. Self-actualising people have deeper and more profound inter-personal relationships than most adults, but not necessarily deeper than children. They are capable of more closeness, greater love, more perfect identification, more erasing of ego boundaries than other people would consider possible. One consequence is that self-actualised people have especially deep ties with rather few individuals and their circle of friends is small. They tend to be kind or at least patient to almost everyone, yet they do speak realistically and harshly of those whom they feel deserve it — especially the hypocritical, pretentious, pompous, or the self-inflated individual.

11. Democratic character structure. Self-actualising people are democratic in the deepest possible sense. They are friendly towards everyone regardless of class, education, political beliefs, race, or colour. They believe it is possible to learn something from everyone. They are humble in the sense of being aware of how little they know in comparison with what could be known and what is known by others. They are ready and willing to learn from anyone. They respect everyone as a potential contributor to their knowledge, merely because everyone is a human being.

12. Ethical means towards moral ends. Self-actualizing persons are highly ethical. They clearly distinguish between means and ends and subordinate means to ends. Their notions of right and wrong and of good and evil are often not conventional ones.

13. Philosophical, unhostile sense of humor. Self-actualising people have a keen, unhostile sense of humour. They don't laugh at jokes that hurt other people or are aimed at others' inferiority. They can make fun of others in general — or of themselves — especially when they are foolish or try to be big when they are small. They are inclined towards thoughtful humour that elicits a smile, is intrinsic to the situation, and spontaneous.

14. Creativeness. Self-actualising people are highly imaginative and creative. The creativity involved here is not special-talent creativeness. It is a creativeness potentially inherent in everyone but usually suffocated by acculturation. It is a fresh, naive, direct way of looking at things, rather similar to the naive and universal creativeness of unspoiled children.

References

Alderfer, C. P. The Methodology of Organizational Diagnosis, Professional Psychology, 1980, 11, 459-468

Geen, R. G. (1995), Human motivation: A social psychological approach. Belmont, CA: Cole

Maslov, A H (1943) Theory of Human Motivation, Psychological Review 50 (1943):370-96.

Important sources of information used in notes

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2

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4

Appendix 1 Examples of intrinsic motivations found in immersive experience stories

Nb Many statements do not contain an explicit statement of motivation. In these case motivations have been inferred from the context.

Passion/excitement/happiness

‘my one (non-wife) passion of my life’ [cycling]……… I love cycling: I literally cannot think of other things when I do it. ..happiness ‘I found myself emerging from this experience, into the light of my front door, with a grin on my face and a nod to my wife’s question about whether I’d had “a good time”.

Need / desire for personal development / profound change /

The learning (immersive) experience I was about to embark was about my own personal development in understanding principles and processes of coaching & mentoring and from that base developing the knowledge, understanding, skills and confidence to become a reflective practitioner both as a coach and a manager.

My own personal development in understanding principles and processes of coaching & mentoring…[Desire to seek] some more ‘grounded’, practically and experientially-derived guidelines on which to base that support. …. and to widen the scope and opportunities for work-based learning for our students.

Search for spirituality / more meaningful life

‘how to bring some touch of spirituality into [our] lives

Desire to learn a language/culture

I wanted to reinvent myself and thus opened my ears to embracethe new language about me; I was very happy to shed the old and take on the new because this now seemed so sumptuous, sensual, hedonistic and beautiful.

I’d only made one brief visit to the USSR during the six years I’d been studying the language and literature and so my knowledge of the language was still quite theoretical. I was keen to convert my ‘book knowledge’ into a ‘living skill’ – I knew I could only do this by immersing myself completely in a Russian-speaking environment for several months,

I left the UK for Italy. I was 18, not a very confident or happy person, I went alone, I knew no one there, could not speak a word of Italian and only had enough money to afford a one way ticket. Being unable to communicate meant I had to learn Italian very fast.

I took a permanent job in Germany with a German company.I did not speak German so every day was a challenge.

Fear / anxiety

‘My livelihood, career and self-esteem depended on it’

The need for stimulation

  • ‘I need the stimulation/challenge, to learn new ‘stuff’, to link disparate ideas, and to create a greater understanding of people and the world .’

Taking on a significant new challenge requiring adaptation/re-invention – motivations to understand/survive/master