There are few children who will voluntarily start studying immediately after being lazy. Harry Harrow, a professor at the University of Wisconsin, discovered intrinsic motivation in the sight of monkeys spontaneously and happily solving puzzles. When you give a monkey a reward for being absorbed in solving a puzzle, the monkey’s rate of solving the puzzle goes down. When a child gets good grades, if you give them a reward such as a game console, their grades will go down. This is a phenomenon in which grades go down if you do not continue to give them rewards. It is better to leave a person’s intrinsic motivation to their own voluntary goodwill. If you apply pressure such as external motivation such as a game console to reduce intrinsic motivation, it will be a waste. Another finding was that the closer you get to your goal, the stronger your motivation becomes, and your behavior becomes more proactive. This characteristic of motivation being strengthened the closer you get to your goal is called “goal gradient.” By setting many goals along the way, the spatial and temporal distance to the goals along the way becomes shorter. If you set spatial and temporal goals that can be achieved one after another, you will be able to achieve them without losing motivation.
So, what can we do to make use of this intrinsic motivation? “Extrinsic motivation is when someone says, ‘I’ll give you more pocket money,’ or ‘I’ll buy you some games,’ if you get good grades. Intrinsic motivation is always willing to study or do housework, regardless of reward. In the field of psychology, a model has been presented that moves from extrinsic motivation to intrinsic motivation. To diagram it simply, it goes like this: extrinsic regulation → introjected regulation → identification regulation → integrative regulation → intrinsic regulation → intrinsic motivation.
Extrinsic regulation is centered on external stimuli such as ‘I’ll study because the teacher is nagging me.’ Introjected regulation is centered on external stimuli such as ‘I’ll study because the teacher is nagging me.’ It is not an external stimulus such as “I study because this is what I want,” but something that comes from within the individual. Identification regulation is the stage that you study because it is important to you and you feel joy in studying. Integrative regulation can be said to be the stage that you feel that studying is valuable and find joy in it. Intrinsic regulation is the final stage of intrinsic motivation. It is the stage that you always engage with something with joy. Of course, regardless of rewards, this is the stage that the feelings that studying itself is enjoyable and that learning is enjoyable take precedence. At this stage, it seems that you are able to do what you want and you are able to concentrate on what you want to do.
