The Aims of This Book Are Simply Stated: They Are to Use a Comprehensive Body of Motivational

Why We Do What We Do: Understanding Self-Motivation,

Edward L Deci with Richard Flaste, 1995

[T]his book decries much of the state of things. The insidiousness of advertising that hooks people’s egos; the way people in dominating positions control and demean the people with whom they interact; the incredible emphasis on instrumental thinking (of seeing everything as a means to an end); the overvaluing of material possessions; and the erosion of community giving. But in this book social criticism is secondary; it is more implicit than explicit. What is primary is a delineation of the processes through which society’s fragmentation affects the lives of its members and a consideration of what can be done about it. (12)

The aims of this book are simply stated: They are to use a comprehensive body of motivational research to examine the relation between autonomy and responsibility and to reflect on the issue of promoting responsibility in an alienating world. The book isfull of hope, for it speaks to what we can do for ourselves, and what we can do for our children, our employees, our patients, our students, and our athletes – indeed, what we can do for our society. The prescriptions is offers are not panaceas, and they are not easy. (11)

One More Time: How Do You Motivate Employees?

"How do I motivate people to learn? to work? to do their chores? or to take their medication? -- are the wrong questions. They are wrong because they imply that motivation is something that gets done to people rather than something that people do. A more fundamental and useful way to think about the issue involves accepting the concept of intrinsic motivation, which refers to the process of doing an activity for its own sake, of doing an activity for the reward that is inherent in the activity itself. (21)

An example -- an "exemplar" -- of "excellence"

The behavior of these dancers helps illustrate the extremely important point that responsibility need not be felt as obligation, but instead can be associated with freedom. (199)

Robert Henri, perhaps the greatest American art teacher of the twentieth century, once captured the essence of being intrinsically motivated when he wrote: “The objective of painting a picture is not to make a picture...The object, which is back of every true work of art, is the attainment of a state of being, a high state of functioning, a more than ordinary moment of existence.” Henri’s point, quite simply, is that being intrinsically motivated has to do with being wholly involved in the activity itself and not with reaching a goal (whether the goal be making money or making a picture). (21)

MAJOR CONFUSIONS

autonomy independence individualism

freedom responsibility authenticity

People have often portrayed the needs for autonomy and relatedness as being implicitly contradictory...Part of the confusion stems from equating autonomy and independence, which are in fact very different concepts. (88)

Like independence, individualism has also been confused with autonomy, and many writers have used the terms interchangeably. Yet the two concepts are profoundly different. (134)

Freedom involves being open to one’s inner nature, and there one finds the tendencies for both relatedness and autonomy. (205)

Unfortunately, the concepts of freedom, authenticity, and responsibility have been so badly misportrayed by social critics over the past few decades that the issues surrounding these concepts have become hopelessly muddled. (206)

Philosopher Robert Young...said that acting autonomously requires rational capacities and strength of will. Of course, individualism requires these as well. But autonomy, according to Young, also requires self-knowledge.This point is an extremely important one, for self-knowledge implies personality integration, and that is what distinguishes autonomy from individualism. Through self-knowledge one becomes more integrated and comes more into connection with one’s true inner being – with one’s intrinsic predilections and integrated values. Individualism, with its rational capacities and strength of will, can be autonomous only when accompanied by self-knowledge. (136)

Plus beyond merely "nature" or "nurture"

The problem with that view of the self as socially defined is that it makes no distinction between a true and false self. It fails to recognize that we each begin with an intrinsic self (nascent though it be), as well as the capacities to continuously elaborate and refine that self. Thus, self can develop in accord with its nature, or it can be programmed by society. But the self that results from these two processes will be very different.

The intrinsic self is not a genetically programmed entity that simply unfolds with time, however. It is instead a set of potentials, interests, and capabilities that interact with the world, each affecting the other. At any given time, self is the developmental outcome of this dialectical relationship. When the process operates effectively, true self is the result; when the process goes awry, the result is a less-true self. As such, the development of self is significantly influenced by the social world, but the self is not constructed by that world. Instead, individuals play an active role in the development of self, and true self develops as the social world supports the individual’s activities. (111-112)

Of course social, political, and economic systems affect the extent to which people are psychologically free...Social contexts greatly influence the extent to which individuals are free, but they do not determine it. Freedom is a characteristic of an individual’s psychological functioning at any given moment...Freedom involves being open to one’s inner nature, and there one finds the tendencies for both relatedness and autonomy. (205)

GOOD NEWS!

The strivings for competence and autonomy together – propelled by curiosity and interest – are thus complementary growth forces that lead people to become increasingly accomplished and to go on learning throughout their lifetimes. The research reported thus far, along with more to come, indicates quite clearly that, on every level, the person who feels competent and autonomous, who directs his or her own life, is immeasurably better off than the person whodoes not. (71)

Some bad news

[T]he seeming fragility of this intrinsic motivation is quite haunting. (21) [O]nce you have begun to use rewards to control people, you cannot easily go back. (51)

It is truly amazing, as pointed up by our findings, that if people are ongoingly treated as if they were either passive mechanisms or barbarians needing to be controlled, they will begin to act more and more than way. (84)

Some more good news!

It is particularly interesting that autonomy support, which is a crucial contextual nutriment for individuals’ maintaining intrinsic motivation and as a result being more creative, processing information more deeply, and enjoying their activities more, also turns out to be essential for promoting internalization and integration of the motivation for uninteresting, though important, activities. (100)

And the key vis-à-vis others is

  

And the answers all boil down to one crucial point: Regardless of how others treat the child, the best thing for you to do is be autonomy supportive. That’s also our bottom line when managers and health-care providers ask us about motivation. (142)

Autonomy support, which is the opposite of control, means being able to take the other person’s perspective and work from there. It means actively encouraging self-initiation, experimentation, and responsibility, and it may very well require setting limits. But autonomy support functions through encouragement, not pressure. (42)

At one level of analysis, autonomy support means to relate to others – our children, students, and employees – as human beings, as active agents who are worthy of support, rather than as objects to be manipulated for our own gratification. That means taking their perspective and seeing the world from their point of view as we relate to them. (100)

Autonomy support is a personal orientation you can take toward other people – particularly other people in a one-down position. This orientation flavors every aspect of your interactions with them. It requires being able to take their perspective – being able to see the world as they see it. It thus allows you to understand why they want what they want and why they do what they do. Simply stated, to be autonomy supportive as, say, a manager means being able to grasp what it is like to be an employee of yours, in your company, community, and industry. (142)

"seek first to understand"