Question Home

Position:Home>Philosophy> Intrinsic motivation: what are prevailing psychological theories?


Question: Intrinsic motivation: what are prevailing psychological theories!?
Some background information from wiki:

Students are likely to be intrinsically motivated if they:

* attribute their educational results to internal factors that they can control (e!.g!. the amount of effort they put in),

* believe they can be effective agents in reaching desired goals (i!.e!. the results are not determined by luck),

* are interested in mastering a topic, rather than just rote-learning to achieve good grades!.

The reason I bring this up is because I thought of a very interesting concept!. Extrinsic, incentive-based motivation is fueld "emotionally" (by a territory oriented 'circuit' if you will)!.

Well, I just thought of an interesting concept!. Doing things because there really is no "weight" to them!. They don't matter!. It's the inverse of Extrinsic based reasoning!.

It motivates me!.

While one of the reasons people like the videogames they do is the fact that - as they perceive - they are or can be effective agents in "doing" things *in the game* and because they have a desire to either master it / explore it / (discover or mess around with it) basically emerse themselves in it!.

This is just as with anything else in life!. HOWEVER, there's another crucial possible factor behind motivation to play the game!. The JUDGEMENT/weight/CONSEQUENCE factor!.

The LACK of this factor and people will play enjoyably EVEN without the presence of the other factors and even causes them to SEEK those things!.

At the same time it's productive for some significance to be placed on what their doing, relative to other things or relative to NOT doing them!.

Just some ideas!.

Some possibly helpful backround from the 8 circuit brain model:

http://theuniverseas!.com/archive

Only read the articles on the 8-circuit brain model perhaps and the 3 "love" article!.

The concluding article:

http://theuniverseas!.com/higher-circuitsWww@QuestionHome@Com


Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:
I think you've made some intersting points about people and what may be motivational to them !. Isn't it funny that humans are the only animals that seem to NEED a reason for something !? Whether it's a life or death matter or simply choosing a certain pencil among a group of pencils - there must ALWAYS be SOME kind of REASON we find !. Perhaps our evolutionary tilt towards brain over brawn has just turned us delusional !?Www@QuestionHome@Com