Misunderstood: Motivators
Students sometimes struggle to grasp the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivators. Intrinsic motivation typically comes from things like enjoyment, pride and feeling a sense of achievement whereas extrinsic motivation typically comes from getting an external reward (money, promotion, career, grades, praise) or when we avoid consequences.
Some of my students list their parents as motivators (wanting to make them proud and happy) and say that this is intrinsic motivation for them as it makes them feel a sense of pride to make their parents happy. While I understand where they are coming from in thinking this way, it would more-so be considered praise which is a type of extrinsic motivation. I sometimes struggle to help show them the difference.
An analogy to help my students better understand this difference is for them to think to themselves “is this motivator like chasing a carrot?” (ie. am I doing this for something external to myself). For example, if a motivator for wanting to read a book is because they are genuinely interested in what the book is about then the answer to that question would be no, and the motivator would be intrinsic. If a motivator for wanting to achieve good grades is that they want to make their parents happy then the answer would be yes as their parent’s happiness is external to themselves so it would be an extrinsic motivator.
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