7 Types of Motivation Part 1

I'm back from a long break. I apologize it was so long and it was longer than I meant for it to be. Injury and illness get the way of life sometimes. Over the next two posts we'll discuss seven types of  motivation. Where there are so many of them I'm breaking it into two different posts in order to cover each type of motivation adequately.

Motives are needs or emotions that cause a person to act. Mastery motivation is when a child is crawling all over the house exploring their environment. Achievement motivation is used to explain the motivation of children to achieve the mastery of challenging tasks. For example, if a child wants to learn how to rock climb and are motivated to put the effort into learning how, this is a child showing achievement motivation. These are the first of seven types of motivation. The seven types of  motivation are: Mastery motivation, achievement motivation, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, locus of control, learned helplessness and self-efficacy. In this post we'll discuss the first four.

Mastery motivation is the natural drive that leads children to explore and master their environment. It has a relationship between age and the ability to do a task. For example, when a child is ready to walk the motivation to master the task of walking will kick in. It will start with the above example of a child learning to crawl and move to explore the their environment. Until a child's motivation to learn to walk kicks in they'll crawl. Mastery motivation is seen mainly in infants and toddlers as they explore their environment and learn to master the skills they need to move around in their environment. It has a relationship between age and the ability to do a task because the age range can be broad when a child masters a task. For example, a child can learn to crawl anywhere between six and nine months and learn to do a shape sorter anywhere between fifteen and eighteen months.

Achievement motivation is the need for success or attainment of excellence. Some think achivement motivation is learned. People are driven to succeed for various reasons and the reasons can be external or internal. Some people are driven to only learn how to juggle, others are driven to learn and then become part of a circus act. The reasons why one person only wants to learn the task and another person wants to be a professional are different and only those people can tell you what drives them to succeed at the level they do.

Intrinsic motivation is participating in an activity for inherent satisfaction or enjoyment. For example, a child plays a board game with their parents because they enjoy playing games with their parents and the time that is spent with them. It's behavior that is driven by internal rewards and the motivation to participate comes from the person and the satisfaction they receive from doing the activity. For example, many people volunteer  because of the internal satisfaction they receive from volunteering.
Home and school environments can promote or block intrinsic motivation by supporting or crushing a child's physiological need for competence and autonomy. Parents how respond to their child's needs by modifying rules and incentives according to their child's behavior will enhance their child's intrinsic motivation. Children are rewarded with material items ( food, money, toys) or punished with threats, and competition tend to diminish intrinsic motivation because parents are seen as controllers of behavior. For example, when a parent goes and buys a child something the parent knows the child wants because the child made a choice they wanted them to make, like eating their vegetables, a parent has used a reward to enhance a child's intrinsic motivation. An example, of a parent punishing  with threat is telling a child if they don't play baseball instead of basketball they'll throw their basketball away. When a parent rewards with completion is when a parent purposefully shows a child that they're better than they are at a task. Choice and opportunity for self-direction appear to enhance intrinsic motivation because it enables a sense of autonomy in children.

Extrinsic motivation is participating in an activity to attain an outcome such as to receive a reward or avoid punishment. This motivation arises outside a person and is performed to receive a reward. For example, when a person participates in a study because they'll be compensated time and travel or a child does well on a test because if they get a good grade they get an ice cream cone.

These are the first three types  of motivation. The other four will be discussed next week. Have a good weekend!