To understand motivation, we first need to review our overall understanding of the term and what it means. For many, motivation is believed to be a state, where one feels “motivated”. However, within psychology and as you will soon see, motivation should really be treated as a cognitive process.
Motivation as a cognitive process
The main reason for this is that no thing, person, or situation can be motivational in its own right – instead, it is merely perceived to be so. Whether or not something is motivational is dependent on the interpretation and response to the thing, person, or situation. Let’s look at some common examples within sport.
Say you are told you might be offered a school sport scholarship - the scholarship being the “motivational subject” to pay attention to. Some might perceive this potential offer as motivational because the scholarship, for them, represents that they are performing well, worthy of additional credit and are in some way better than others who haven’t received it. Let’s also say that the athlete has been told in order to be awarded the scholarship they need to work especially hard until the end of the year. Given the above interpretation of the award, it is clear to see how this “motivational strategy” would be effective and create a spur of excitement and hard work from the athlete.
However, let’s look at the same situation from a different angle. Athlete B instead thinks this scholarship offer means added pressure to keep up their performances and that more effort will be required of them to represent the school and bring home the results the school expects - a demand the athlete is not ready to take on. Here, you can see how all of a sudden, the sport scholarship has become a damaging weight on the athlete rather than an uplifting boost.
Staggeringly, a study which aimed to understand the motivational value of scholarships discovered that those awarded scholarships at college level were ‘motivated’, but this was external motivation, meaning they were driven by forces outside of their own desire to succeed. Not only were the athletes motivated in a low-quality way during their time at college, but decades later, when the scholarship was seemingly no longer relevant, the athletes were relatively uninterested in playing their sport due to lower enjoyment levels. This finding shows us how the quality of motivational techniques, i.e. whether they are internally or externally driven, is important for longer-term sport enjoyment consequences.
Our real life learning here, is to re-consider whether our commonly used motivational strategies are promoting the right kinds of motivation, namely, those driven by the athletes own satisfaction and enjoyment.
The great thing about motivation being a cognitive process is that we can influence the likelihood of how someone will respond to a ‘motivational tool’ (e.g., the scholarship). LanThrough upbringing and linguistic communication, we can promote individuals to perceive motivational tools in a positive and intrinsically motivational way.
Taking another look at the scholarship example, consider if alongside the offer, the athlete was told something like:
“We have been really impressed by your dedication to the sport through your training and when representing the school in competitions. We would like to offer you a scholarship to recognise this hard work and your past achievements with the intention for it to be a reminder of your goals and where you aspire to go. This scholarship comes with no responsibility or expectation, but an appreciation of what you have already achieved and how you have gone about it. Thank you.”
Here, we are using our words to package the scholarship in a way which will more likely promote intrinsic motivation within the athlete and thus lead to greater sustained success. By influencing the perception of a ‘motivational tool’, we are encouraging it to be perceived as intended.
Key features in the above statement are rooted by Achievement Goal Theory and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy style thinking. Both of which are successful ways to encourage the desirable response in athletes and performers alike. For example, praise is given to the WAY the athlete has behaved (e.g., their hard work and dedication) rather than what they have achieved (e.g., winning competitions). This approach promotes aspects which are within their control in the future – you can control how you behave, but not the result of a game.
YOU CAN CONTROL HOW YOU BEHAVE BUT NOT THE RESULT OF A GAME
Similarly, in alignment with Achievement Goal Theory, phrasing it like this is making a differentiation between what the athlete is naturally like (e.g., their uncontrollable personality) and their behaviour (e.g., controllable actions). Such task-oriented praise (actions) is evaluated as being a higher quality motivator, compared to ego-oriented praise (personality). The second motivational trigger within this relates to the philosophy of Acceptance & Commitment Therapy, where behaving in a value-aligned way increases intrinsic motivation.
Here, you might find the athlete helpfully thinking: “You know what, I am dedicated, I have been working really hard at this, and those things are important to me. I want to make sure I keep doing them.”
Further key features of the statement include:
This second point can feel counter intuitive as for some, handing out a scholarship means the opposite, you do want them to be responsible for working hard and getting results.
But as we have seen in the first example scenario, this expectation and responsibility is often a negative influence. By removing this pressure, you are allowing the athlete to move forward with empowerment, rather than be restricted with expectations.
For those of you yet to hand out similar awards, please keep this packaging strategy in mind, and trust me when I encourage you to promote performing with freedom.
Motivation is a cognitive process
Motivation response is dependent on interpretation of tool
Luckily, interpretations can be influenced
Example strategy for influencing interpretation – Pre-packaging
Workings behind pre-packaging
Achievement Goal Theory
Acceptance & Commitment Therapy
Take home message
