The intrinsic motivation of a person is determined. What is the difference between extrinsic and intrinsic motivation? Frederick Herzberg's two-factor theory

“Our biggest drawback is
that we give up too quickly.
The surest path to success is
try one more time all the time "
Thomas Edison

In an effort to increase their personal or team effectiveness, literally everyone is looking for ways to induce themselves or their subordinates and colleagues to take action that will lead to the desired result. This process and the achievement of the set goal in psychology is referred to as motivation.

Motivation is born in the hearts and minds of people

An emotional state, or is it really an impact on the behavior of each individual person - it is still an opportunity to direct him, as they say, in the right direction, significantly increasing the efficiency of activities. Practically motivation prompts a person to do at a given moment in time, what is needed for the sake of achieving a certain good, being the meaning of the actions performed.

No matter how vague and theoretically it may sound, it should be understood that there is some motive behind our every action. It can be exclusively internal or external. Accordingly, the types of motivation are also distinguished.

The essence of external and internal motivation

Obviously, this concept means external factors that are symbols of the achievement of a particular good. External methods of motivation include money, material values, career growth, other promotions.

But for most people, the determining factor is intrinsic motivation, or, since, unlike the above factors, it is not so changeable. After all, it is clear that having received one position, we begin to dream of another - a higher one, having received a higher salary, each person thinks about how to get an even higher salary.

Internal motivation is of a deeper nature, which is not always obvious, which is why many managers cannot find an effective approach to their staff.

So, the essence of internal motivation is as follows:

• Realization of dreams, achievement of goals, self-realization.
• The desire to be healthy, to provide children with a healthy and happy future.
• Creative realization, the need to be needed.
• The need to communicate, love and be loved.
• Interest in new knowledge.

Such needs, which undoubtedly overlap with motives, are not satisfied this second, and sometimes they are difficult to achieve for many reasons. But this does not mean that you need to give up the idea to implement them. It is the desire to satisfy them, to achieve the set goals that is the strongest motivation. But it should be understood that internal and external factors such are closely intertwined.

So, if you imagine that intrinsic motivation is the engine that makes you move towards the goal, then external factors are the fuel that generally allows this motor to work, constantly feeding it and making it clear that his person is moving in the right direction. That is, all external methods of motivation are nothing more than support for a person's mood to act. In fact, he is driven only by an inner desire to achieve something.

Motivation methods and effective tools

Given the variety of factors that affect the motivation of each individual person, it should be understood that its methods are different. In general, they are all divided into positive and negative: in each case, respectively, they realize the person's desire to receive benefit / satisfaction or not to receive pain. Of course, this is too general, but the essence of the motivation is as follows. Positive methods are rewarding, and negative ones are an opportunity to avoid punishment and pain.

So, most often used are such tools and methods of motivation as:

• setting a specific goal
• encouragement if achieved
• human participation in team action
• determination and recognition of the importance of a person in a common cause
• and much more

This allows each employee in the team to feel needed and important. Of course, the essence of a person's motivation in relation to himself is slightly different from the one that managers are trying to implement in relation to their subordinates, but this is a topic for the next article.

The article raises in detail the question of motivation and the reasons for human behavior. What is motivation, what types of motivations exist and what are the reasons for people's behavior.

Explaining human behavior is one of the main and most interesting tasks of psychology. And even if you are completely far from science, you probably at least from time to time have to think about the reasons forcing people to act this way and not otherwise. Each of us has observed many times that in the same situation, different people behave completely differently. On the other hand, the same person can show very different reactions and perform actions that we would also like to understand and explain.

In some cases, the explanation lies on the surface, in others it is very difficult to establish the cause of the behavior. However, the obvious explanations are often far from the truth.

The psychology of motivation deals precisely with the study of various factors that serve as the causes of certain forms of behavior. Of course, this is not a separate area of ​​psychology: when explaining human behavior, researchers proceed not only from the characteristics of the situation, but also from personality traits, take into account his emotional reactions, properties self-esteem... Let's take a look at some of the lines of research on motivation.

The study of motivation is a search for answers to the questions: for what purpose does someone perform this or that action? Why does an individual act in a particular situation in a certain way? Are there any patterns that explain the behavior of people in certain conditions?

What is motivation?

In a broad sense, the definition of motivation is as follows:

Motivation is the impulses that cause the activity of the body and determine its direction.

When it comes to people we know well, we usually do not find it difficult to explain the reasons for their actions - we know (or assume that we know) why they perform certain actions. And even more so, we rarely ask ourselves about the reasons for our own behavior. Still, there are at least three reasons that make us think about motivation from time to time.

Firstly , sometimes we are faced with a situation where someone, under certain conditions, does not act the way it is accepted, or not like most other people. So the first reason can be formulated as the presence of individual differences in behavior. These differences can be traced in many, very diverse situations and, in general, are fairly stable. Therefore, psychologists have long concluded that people differ from each other in their predispositions to how exactly to act in different situations... These individual predispositions, which each of us have, are called motives.

Secondly , we often consider people's behavior not from the point of view of their personal motives, but from the point of view of the peculiarities of the situation. It often seems that the reasons for this or that act lie not in the person's personality, but in the conditions in which he finds himself. Remember how often you say about someone that "circumstances forced him" to act this way and not otherwise, or, on the contrary, that someone "took advantage of the situation" - the second version of the explanation, although it assumes the activity of the actor, still indicates on external conditions: it is they that push a person to certain actions.

In such cases, we are interested in stimuli that induce action. We are constantly exposed to their influence in everyday life, but the influence of external conditions is especially pronounced in emergency situations, when some threatening circumstances appear. In addition to explaining human behavior, the study of the mechanism of action of various stimuli interests us from a practical point of view: after all, every now and then we have a desire or need to somehow influence the behavior of another person, to induce him to certain actions.

Thirdly , it is not only the fact of the action itself that matters possible reasons, but also how exactly this action will be performed. Under certain circumstances, desires, as soon as they arise, are embodied in intentions and, at the earliest opportunity, are realized in action. Some people are distinguished by "decisiveness", that is, they know how to organize themselves well, quickly move from desire to implementation of intention. Others cannot quickly and confidently choose a goal, concentrate their attention and efforts on achieving it, they doubt and hesitate.

This leads us to believe that human behavior is not limited to a simple stimulus-response or motive-action scheme. Between the urge to do something and the action itself, there is still some preparatory stage: after the desire is formulated, it needs to be assessed, its importance, necessity and possibility of its implementation should be weighed. You need to plan exactly how you will act in order to achieve what you want. All this turns the motive into an intention, that is, an act of will.

Thus, one of the key points in the motivational process is the presence of a volitional component.

You may argue that you do not always formulate intentions, carefully weighing and considering your goals and plan of action. And this objection is perfectly true: of course, in most everyday situations, we act automatically, in a familiar way. And in fact: it is impossible even to imagine the life of a person consciously and consistently pondering each of his actions. For a myriad of situations, we have long ago developed behaviors that are most effective in specific conditions, and we do not need to spend time and energy planning and preparation - we just act.

According to the figurative description of H. Heckhausen, these are situations in which "the barrier of intention is raised, and the path to action is free." The same author reminds that “in addition to volitional and habitual actions, there are also impulsive or affective actions. In this case, the internal tension of the motivational impulse makes its way to action even when the barrier is closed. "

So, let's summarize. From the point of view of the psychology of motivation, human behavior is structured as follows: with a combination of internal needs, individual characteristics and external conditions (stimuli) a motive is formed. Further, in the course of volitional processes, this motive is "processed", as a result of which an intention is formed - a plan for the implementation of an action, "charged" with the energy of desire. Finally, the intent is realized in action:

Motivation => intention<=>action

In addition, in many cases, the stage of forming an intention is very succinct and imperceptible (automated actions, actions out of habit) or absent (impulsive actions). This point deserves special attention, so now we will talk a little about conscious and unconscious motivation.

Conscious and unconscious motivation

Have you ever done something "against your will", then surprised at your own behavior? How often do you hear from your acquaintances explanations like "The demon has beguiled!" or "As if some kind of eclipse came over me ..."? It happens that we "accidentally" do some kind of good (for ourselves or others) deeds, but much more often we find it difficult to explain our motives in cases where our behavior turned out to be far from what we wanted. A whole trend in psychology, which had a noticeable impact on the entire world culture of the 20th century, is devoted, in fact, to the study of the causes and mechanisms of such "unconscious", or rather, unconscious behavior. This direction is called psychoanalysis.

The founding father of psychoanalysis had an invaluable quality for a good researcher: the habit of not neglecting the little things. One of his works has a characteristic title: "The Psychopathology of Everyday Life." In it, he analyzes such trifles as forgetting names and words, impressions and intentions: cases when a person "accidentally" made a slip of the tongue, forgot about something, "laid down" and cannot find the right thing in any way, etc. These are known to everyone Freud interprets "accidents" as signs of the work of the unconscious: every inexplicable action has a motive, even if it is hidden from our consciousness. For an outside observer, this motive can also be hidden, and sometimes it is quite obvious: “Forgetting intentions ... gives the right to conclude that there are unrecognized motives.<...>A lover who is late for a date will look in vain for excuses in front of his lady that, unfortunately, he has completely forgotten about it. She will certainly answer him: "A year ago you would not have forgotten. You do not love me anymore."<...>She believes, and not without reason, that from unintentional oblivion one can draw the same conclusion about a certain unwillingness, as well as from deliberate evasion. "

Freud gives many examples of such mundane random acts. In some cases, his explanations are fairly obvious and plausible; for example, he talks with commendable sincerity about what he once noticed: on a day when he had many appointments with patients, he often forgot to visit some of them, and it almost always turned out to be free patients or his colleagues (from whom he also, of course, did not take payment). From time to time, people forget the names of people who are not too pleasant for them, they lose things with which some painful memories are associated - all this is completely unintentional, but in fact it is by no means accidental: it is just that the motives in such cases pass by our consciousness.

True, in most cases, Freud's explanations for such absurdities are far from so simple and obvious: he builds complex associative chains, and as a result, it may turn out that a certain master forgets an insignificant word in a Latin dictum because he is worried about a possible and extremely unwanted pregnancy of his beloved ... Very often, such interpretations seem too far-fetched, and today psychologists for the most part do not share Freud's aspirations for every involuntary movement to see a heap of unconscious motives ...

But the very fact that we have such unconscious motives, which often guide our actions "secretly" from ourselves, is proven and practically universally recognized.

Psychoanalysts explain this phenomenon by the action of psychological defenses.

The defense mechanism is activated in cases where a person's unconscious motives go against the demands of society. Consciousness hides desires and aspirations that are not approved by public morality, violate ethics, accepted cultural norms.

Thanks to the action of psychological defenses, such “inappropriate” motives can simply be forced out into the sphere of the unconscious and held there (this type of defense is called “repression”), or they can be modified in some way, “masked”: this is how the actions that we we do it unintentionally, inexplicably to ourselves.

The main purpose of psychological defenses is to weaken the feeling of guilt that a person would experience if he were aware of his “reprehensible” desires. It is absolutely impossible to completely get rid of such desires: no matter how far civilization has advanced, Homo sapiens nevertheless remains in some way a natural being.

- this is the curbing and suppression of natural instincts: no instinct forces people to be polite towards each other, share something with their neighbors, visit patients without any benefit for themselves, refuse to immediately satisfy hunger or sexual desires, etc. All these restrictions and requirements are created by people themselves and, of course, are necessary for the survival of humanity as a whole. But at the same time they are a source of constant internal conflict between "want" and "not", or, as it was formulated by 3. Freud, between the principle of pleasure and the principle of reality. So, psychological defenses weaken the severity of this conflict, helping us to get around these contradictions.

The significance of psychological defenses is twofold: on the one hand, they clearly help a person to adapt to requirements. external environment and keep his inner world in some balance. On the other hand, they can lead to serious difficulties in social adaptation, since they always distort the perception of reality to one degree or another.

The most "healthy" variant of psychological defense is considered sublimation - the redirection of unconscious impulses into socially acceptable behavior. Freud considered any creativity and, in general, productive activity to be sublimation. For example, unconscious and, of course, unacceptable for social norms, sadistic tendencies can be sublimated by becoming a surgeon or the author of exciting detective novels, that is, by channeling the charge of your psychic energy into useful, socially approved activities.

Today, ideas about unconscious motivation are by no means limited to the ideas of Freud's psychoanalysis.

Psychologists distinguish different styles of motivation, for example, aimed at achieving success / avoiding failure. The features of each of these styles can, in certain situations, explain the unconscious actions performed by people under the influence of their characteristic motives.

Another type of motivation style is impulsive / controlled action. Impulsive style is the tendency to act "according to the situation", with minimal consideration of the options and consequences of their behavior. On the contrary, the controlled, or reflexive-volitional, style is distinguished by careful thinking, preliminary analysis of all options and possible results of actions.

Internal and external motivation

The motives of our activity can be formed not only on the basis of our internal needs, but also under the influence of external stimuli - rewards coming (or expected) from the outside. You read for your own pleasure, because you are interested, or just like the process of reading itself, or you need to fill some gap in knowledge - all this is internal motivation. And your first-grader son reads because you told him to, or because he wants to get an A in the lesson (or not get a B, if his motive for avoiding failure prevails over the motive for achieving success). His motivation is external.

And although you are busy with the same thing, you do it in completely different ways: you cannot be taken away from the book, and the child reads only as long as an external stimulus acts. It is worth letting go of the reins - and only you saw him: he is already with might and main carried away by the occupation to which his inner motivation pushed him - for example, watching cartoons or building a spaceship from "Lego" ...

People who are extremely passionate about their work are immersed in the experience of the flow. This is how psychologists called a special state, which is characterized by complete concentration of attention, when a person feels that he is in complete control of the situation, acts at the limit of his capabilities, does not respond to external stimuli and is completely devoted to his activities. This state is well known to all creative people, true professionals - be it an opera singer, sculptor or surgeon.

Researchers argue that everyone can achieve the experience of flow.

This requires that he faced a very difficult task, which requires the full exertion of all forces, but is not, in principle, impossible. (Too simple a task generates boredom and distraction, too difficult - anxiety and uncertainty.) In addition, solving this task must imply new experience, growth and development.

Only activity driven by intrinsic motivation can lead to the experience of flow. In modern Western society, external motives much more often come to the fore - the achievement of obvious success for others (status, fame, reputation), material reward, good grades, etc. But external motivation, the desire to receive external reward never lead to experiences of the flow - you are engaged in a business that does not enthrall you completely and completely, it is not the process that is important to you, but only the result.

Often, of course, there are cases when external and internal motivation are combined: an enthusiastic student may really like the very process of learning, gaining new knowledge, but also attention from the outside potential employers matters to him.

Psychologists have experimentally investigated how extrinsic motivation affects intrinsic motivation, and have obtained very interesting results: it turned out that the appearance of extrinsic motivation, as a rule, weakens the intrinsic!

For example, an experiment was carried out: the subjects who liked to solve puzzles (that is, had intrinsic motivation in this case) were divided into two groups. The first was simply offered to solve the puzzles, and the participants of the second were told that for each the right decision they will receive one dollar each.

After that, the subjects were left alone, giving them the opportunity to independently choose an activity and plan their time. As a result, it was found that people who were promised rewards spent much less time solving problems than those who worked for free. Intrinsic motivation decreased significantly when extrinsic motivation appeared.

Perhaps these data will be of interest to those of our readers who have a habit of paying their children for a good study. The practice is very common, and many parents claim that this is the most effective method make the child study well. So, keep in mind: this destroys intrinsic motivation, reduces the child's cognitive activity. In fact, this method is not the most effective, but simply the least labor-intensive for parents: a lever for controlling the child, replacing deep participation in his interests and development.

Psychologists have found that the only type of external motivation that has a beneficial effect on behavior and does not violate internal motivation is verbal praise, which increases internal interest in the activity.

Interesting, in our opinion, is the division of motivation into external and internal, researched and developed by Edward L. Deese and Richard M. Ruyan.

Intrinsic motivation is a type of motivation in which the initiating and regulating factors flow from within the personal "I" and are completely within the behavior itself.

“Intrinsically motivated activities have no rewards other than activity itself. People are involved in this activity for its own sake, and not to achieve any external rewards. Such activity is an end in itself, and not a means to achieve some other goal. "

Intrinsic motivation, according to Edward Desi (1980; 1995), is the desire to perform an activity for its own sake, for the sake of the reward that is contained in the activity itself. The reward is "the moment of experiencing something greater than ordinary existence." The source of this motivation is the need for autonomy and self-determination.

The task of the manager is to understand which driving forces inherent in a person can lead to an effective result and which forces can be useful. It is necessary to understand that it is vitally important for such a person to be self-determining, independent, acting in accordance with his "from within" motivation, and not controlled from the outside.

To explain this type of motivation, many theories have been created: the theory of competence and efficiency motivation, the theory of optimality of activation and stimulation, the theory of personal causality, etc.

and Chapter 1. Models and mechanisms of motivation to work_

Extrinsic motivation is a motivation in which the factors influencing the behavior of a person are outside the “I” of the person or outside of behavior. It is enough for the initiating and regulating factors to become external, as the whole motivation takes on the character of external.

Theories of extrinsic motivation are most clearly reflected in the works of behaviorists, who, in turn, originate in the studies of E.L. Thorndike. Thorndike's Law states that attractive and unattractive consequences of behavior affect the frequency of initiation of behaviors that lead to these consequences. Behavior that leads to positive consequences is fixed and tends to repeat itself, while behavior that leads to negative consequences tends to stop.

The essence of the applied application of this model in practice lies in the manager's systematic reinforcement of the employee's desired behavior. It is important to note that systems of this type are designed to reinforce initially uninteresting and unattractive behaviors that a person will not voluntarily do. In this case, the person becomes a puppet of reinforcements.

It can be said unequivocally that extrinsic motivation is aimed primarily at people who take passive life position with a fairly low social involvement.

External (extrinsic) motivation is the regulation of the employee's activities, including, first of all, mechanisms of remuneration and bonuses. Experiments have shown that when subjects begin to get paid to work on interesting puzzles, they lose the desire for their times.

1.2. Internal and external motivation n # Questions + 1 Do you like situations in which you personally have to find solutions to emerging problems? 2 Do you prefer medium difficulty assignments that involve moderate, weighted risk? 3 Do you need feedback? 4 Do you spend time thinking about how to improve your work, how to complete an important task, how to be successful in certain situations? 5 Do you give preference to such work or such situations that provide an opportunity for social interactions, contacts with other people? 41

guessing. “Money speaks” if the pay matches the quality and volume of work. Rewards can be used as a way to show recognition, approval and respect for the effort, but the more they are used as motivators, such as a bonus scheme, the more likely it is to backfire.

In addition to money, regulators of people's behavior can be:

Tight deadlines

Imposed goals

People perceive these phenomena as contradicting their autonomy, and therefore enthusiasm and interest in controlled activities are reduced. If employees feel that they are under the pressure or control of competition, then competition is perceived as limiting their autonomy.

Distinguish between internal and external motivation. With internal motivation, a person has a reward for his actions, as they say, “in himself”: a sense of his own competence, confidence in his strengths and intentions, satisfaction from his work, self-realization. Intrinsic motivation is reinforced by positive feedback in the form of praise, approval, etc. Extrinsic motivation depends on a person's relationship with the environment (this can be a desire to receive a reward, avoid punishment, etc.). It is regulated by external psychological and material conditions of activity. If a person works for money, then money is an internal motivator, but if it is mainly because of interest in work, then money acts as an external motivator.

The following features of external and internal motivation can be distinguished:

external motivation in general contributes to an increase in the volume of work performed, and internal - quality;

if external motivation (both positive and negative) does not reach the “threshold” value or is removed altogether, internal motivation increases;

when replacing internal motivation with external, the first, as a rule, decreases;

the growth of self-confidence, their strengths contributes to the strengthening of internal motivation.

Consider the most popular concept of motivation, authored by Abraham Maslow.

A. Maslow defined motivation as internal behavior that prompts an individual to take any action, and generated the basic ideas that, in his opinion, determine human behavior.

1. The needs of people are endless: as soon as a person satisfies some needs, he has others.

2. Satisfied needs lose their motivating power.

3. Unmet needs motivate a person to action.

4. The needs of a person are lined up in a certain hierarchy in terms of their importance.

Maslow discovered the law according to which the satisfaction of the needs of one level makes another, higher level of needs urgent. After the satisfaction of the underlying needs, a higher need is actualized in a person (Karl Marx called this the law of lofty needs). Therefore, there can be no end to displeasure, complaints. If the needs of a lower level are not satisfied, in most cases a person cannot fully satisfy the needs of higher levels. It is like climbing stairs. Therefore, traditionally, Maslow's hierarchy of needs is represented as a pyramid consisting of 5 levels (steps). At the same time, the levels are not discrete, the needs are interpenetrating, and therefore it is often difficult to separate one from the other.

43. Attention- This is a process of conscious or unconscious (semi-conscious) selection of one information coming through the senses, and ignoring the other.

Attention functions:

activates the necessary and inhibits the psychological and physiological processes that are unnecessary at the moment,

promotes an organized and purposeful selection of information entering the body in accordance with its actual needs,

provides selective and long-term concentration of mental activity on the same object or type of activity.

determines the accuracy and detail of perception,

determines the strength and selectivity of memory,

determines the focus and productivity of mental activity.

is a kind of amplifier for perceptual processes that allows you to distinguish the details of images.

acts for human memory as a factor capable of retaining the necessary information in short-term and operative memory, as required condition transfer of memorized material to long-term memory storage.

for thinking acts as an indispensable factor in the correct understanding and solution of the problem.

in the system of interpersonal relations contributes to better understanding, adaptation of people to each other, prevention and timely resolution of interpersonal conflicts.

an attentive person is spoken of as a pleasant companion, tactful and delicate communication partner.

an attentive person learns better and more successfully, achieves more in life than an insufficiently attentive person.

The main types of attention:

natural and socially conditioned attention,

direct and mediated attention,

involuntary and voluntary attention,

sensual and intellectual attention.

Natural attention- given to a person from his very birth in the form of an innate ability to selectively respond to certain external or internal stimuli that carry elements of informational novelty (orienting reflex).

Socially conditioned attention- develops in vivo as a result of training and education, is associated with volitional regulation of behavior, with selective conscious response to objects.

Direct attention- is not controlled by anything, except for the object to which it is directed and which corresponds to the actual interests and needs of a person.

Mediated attention- it is regulated by means of special means, for example, gestures, words, signposts, objects.

Involuntary attention- is not associated with the participation of will, does not require efforts in order to hold and focus attention on something for a certain time.

Arbitrary Attention- necessarily includes volitional regulation, requires efforts in order to maintain and focus attention on something for a certain time, usually associated with the struggle of motives or impulses, the presence of strong, oppositely directed and competing with each other interests,

Sensual Attention - associated with emotions and selective work of the senses, in the center of consciousness there is any sensory impression.

Intellectual attention- mainly associated with the concentration and direction of thought, the object of interest is thought.

44. Involuntary attention is a lower form of attention that arises as a result of the impact of a stimulus on any of the analyzers. It is formed according to the law of the orienting reflex and is common for humans and animals.

The emergence of involuntary attention can be caused by a feature of the influencing stimulus, as well as due to the correspondence of these stimuli to past experience or the mental state of a person.

Sometimes involuntary attention can be useful, both in work and in everyday life, it gives us the opportunity to timely identify the appearance of an irritant and take the necessary measures, and facilitates inclusion in habitual activity.

But at the same time, involuntary attention can have a negative impact on the success of the performed activity, distracting us from the main thing in the problem being solved, reducing the productivity of work in general. For example, unusual noises, shouts, and flashes of light during work distract our attention and make it difficult to concentrate.