Motivation and Social Change: Inspiring a Better World
The following blog post is about motivation and social change.
Motivation: The Science of Why We Do What We Do
People do what they do for a variety of interesting reasons. Motivation is the force that pushes us to do something because it's important or engaging. In the academic arena, there are many different theories regarding motivation that cover everything from feeling good to fear of not getting into heaven. Professor Joesph Decety and his colleagues at Yale University recently published an article in the Psychological Bulletin which posited a radical new understanding on what drives behaviour in humans. The researchers suggested that emotions are not the only drivers of human behaviour. In this blog post I will be summarising their work and reviewing the implications for motivations of others.
The Effect of Social Change on Motivation
A key idea in the motivation literature is that people can't maintain engagement, interest, or effort over time. In Decety's view, it's not so much that we get tired or bored but rather we get demotivated. That is to say, we become less interested in a particular activity despite the fact that our physical and cognitive resources are currently high: 'When our efforts succeed in meeting goals that are important for achieving our values, we feel good - we feel positive emotions such as pleasure or joy...; when we accomplish something significant, we experience a rush of positive emotions that makes us feel intrinsically motivated to continue toward our goals" – Professor Decety
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Motivated to Feel Good
Decety and colleagues argue that this positive emotion is the primary motivating force behind what people do. People engage in an action not because they feel obligated to or because they fear punishment but rather because it brings them joy and pleasure. Humans want to feel good, and accomplishing something that is important to them will bring about feelings of pleasure and joy. The researchers suggest that humans are even more motivated by these positive emotional states than negative emotions such as anger, pain, or disgust. This is because more positive emotions are more likely to lead to long term engagement and persistence in a given task.
It's People, Not the Worry About Future Punishment, Who Are Motivated To Do Good
The researchers argue that there are two distinct motives that people have: instrumental and intrinsic motives . Intrinsic motives refer to the enjoyment of the achievement of a particular goal while instrumental motives involve the desire to attain a specific outcome. Think about it this way: When we set out to walk 2 miles to work, we are motivated by our desire for exercise or our willingness to do something good for ourselves. On the other hand, when we go to work, we are driven by the desire to get a paycheck. I can't tell you how many times I've been on a job site and thought to myself: "I'm not getting paid enough for this!" The fact is that money is an outcome of working hard and doing a good job. Indeed, in most cases people are not doing things because it will benefit them later but rather because they feel that it will bring about positive feelings now.
Decety suggests that this positive emotion makes people want to reach their goals and fulfill their values. For example, imagine that you have resolved to lose weight so you visit the gym and start exercising regularly. What's happening is that you are rewarding yourself with a dopamine rush (a positive emotion) when you do good things in the future so that you make a habit of doing them. This is even more powerful when people observe other people doing good things, since this serves as reinforcement of our own behaviour.
People Do Not Always Have the Ability To Feel Good About What They Are Doing
Many people believe that the same pleasures that bring about positive emotions in the moment can also increase our motivation for achievement later on. Decety and colleagues suggest that this isn't true: "Individuals may not always have choice about whether they experience positive emotions, when those involve pain, pleasure, or both...; in contrast, when people have a choice about the longer-term goals that they pursue and the activities that they engage in to achieve those goals, they can use positive emotions as a compass to identify their values and goals."
Taking Action Against Social Injustice
Decety concludes by suggesting that this work can have significant implications for people who fight against social injustice. He argues that it's not enough to explain why people do what they do - we must also develop techniques for motivating them to change: "Individuals will be more effective at motivating action on social causes if they acknowledge the motivational force of intrinsic motivation. It is critical to acknowledge that, for some people, the desire to fulfill their values and pursue intrinsic motivation can replace the need for extrinsic motivation. Spreading messages of moral obligation and threatening people with punishment may actually work against change: When rewards come to be seen as a necessary condition to meet duties, the intrinsic motivations of many people will wane; due in part to constraining effects on their level of motivation."
There you have it. He articulated what was in my heart all along. The idea that we are motivated by feeling good about what we do and how we are doing it is a key one in social change. Once you understand how this works, it gives you a whole new understanding of the forces that keep people from acting in a socially responsible manner.
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Source: Etienne Decety, PhD, University of Chicago; Emiliana Simon-Thomas , PhD, Fred Kavli Cognitive Neuroscience of Emotion Program, University of California at Berkeley; Jamee K. Tatlow, PhD Candidate , University of Chicago; Peggy Mason , PhD Candidate, University of Chicago; William J. Burkett MD, MPH ; John P. Robinson, PhD Candidate , University of Chicago; Megan A. Forbes, PhD Candidate, University of Chicago; Christopher K. Hays, PhD Candidate , University of California at Berkeley; Beadie Aiken , PhD Graduate Student , University of Chicago and Brain stimulation by transcranial magnetic stimulation: effects on emotional processing and cognitive control, Society for Neuroscience; October 7-12, 2015; Orlando FL Abstract: The neuroscience underlying the influence of emotion on behavior has been explored in the context of reward and motivation. We used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine the effects of subthreshold emotional pictures on subsequent reward-related behavior in a task that required participants to actively choose which picture to view ("decision making"). We also examined whether a brief period of stimulation to suppress activity in the right inferior frontal gyrus and ventromedial prefrontal cortex, regions that have been associated with emotional processing and behavior, could influence subsequent approach-related decision making. In a between-subjects design, we found that participants who viewed emotional pictures (vs. neutral pictures) on their own decided to view more emotional pictures when subthreshold rewarding stimuli were presented as part of a "decision making" task; participants who viewed neutral pictures did not decide to view more or less emotional pictures on their own.
Conclusion: Paradoxically, briefly viewing emotional pictures was associated with decision making that was more positive and rewarding, whereas briefly viewing neutral pictures was not. This amplified response to emotional cues might contribute to overstimulation of the reward system.
Source: Etienne Decety, PhD, University of Chicago; Emiliana Simon-Thomas , PhD, Fred Kavli Cognitive Neuroscience of Emotion Program, University of California at Berkeley; Jamee K. Tatlow, PhD Candidate , University of Chicago; Peggy Mason , PhD Candidate, University of Chicago; William J. Burkett MD, MPH ; John P. Robinson, PhD Candidate , University of Chicago; Megan A. Forbes, PhD Candidate, University of Chicago; Christopher K.