Written by Dobrawa Zuber
“The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it… I can resist everything but temptation”
- Oscar Wilde
In recent weeks, more and more of us are having to isolate at home. Some will be tackling their laundry list of ‘to-do jobs’, while others will be required to work from home- an environment rife with distractions. Self-determination theory has been established in the field of psychology for a number of decades now, and through it we have discovered many fascinating insights into how our own motivation can affect the likelihood of achieving our goals. Perhaps self-determination theory can help us all maximise our productivity and reduce our procrastination during these interesting times.
Motivation can be categorised by internal or external sources:
· Autonomous motivation (self-determined) is engaging in behaviour because it is perceived to be consistent with intrinsic goals and emanates from the self. Autonomous motivation is thought to reflect a sense of choice, personal endorsement, and satisfaction, which make the behaviour more likely to persist. As such, autonomous forms of motivation are generally more effective in predicting health outcomes.
· Controlled motivation (externally driven) is engaging in behaviour for externally referenced reasons, such as to gain approval from others or to avoid guilt. Oppositely to autonomous motivation, individuals engaging in behaviour for controlled reasons feel a sense of obligation and pressure when engaging in the behaviour, so are only likely to persist with the behaviour as long as the external drive exists.
· Autonomous motivation (self-determined) is engaging in behaviour because it is perceived to be consistent with intrinsic goals and emanates from the self. Autonomous motivation is thought to reflect a sense of choice, personal endorsement, and satisfaction, which make the behaviour more likely to persist. As such, autonomous forms of motivation are generally more effective in predicting health outcomes.
· Controlled motivation (externally driven) is engaging in behaviour for externally referenced reasons, such as to gain approval from others or to avoid guilt. Oppositely to autonomous motivation, individuals engaging in behaviour for controlled reasons feel a sense of obligation and pressure when engaging in the behaviour, so are only likely to persist with the behaviour as long as the external drive exists.
So, what factors matter when it comes to whether you have self-determined or externally driven motivation in the completion of goals? Holding, Hope, Verner-Filion, and Koestner (2019) may have the answer. These psychologists hypothesised that trait self-control (a scientific term for how often and how effectively you resist strong urges or temptations) might be a factor affecting how you regulate motivation for personal goals over time. Investigating the link between trait self-control and academic performance, they suggested that high trait self-control would be associated with higher autonomous goal motivation and lower controlled motivation after one academic year. In everyday language, what would this mean? It would mean that those who have greater ability to persist in arduous tasks, in the face of temptation, when pursuing a goal, are more likely to take ownership of that goal, or see it as self-determined.
334 undergraduate students, aged 17-29, completed a handful of online surveys testing their personality, and they completed these at multiple points throughout the academic year. Their answers were coded into meaningful estimates of motivation quality and self-control. The researchers also recorded the students’ ‘top 3 personal goals’ at the beginning of the academic year. The results supported their hypothesis; high self-control was associated with high autonomous motivation and low controlled motivation.
334 undergraduate students, aged 17-29, completed a handful of online surveys testing their personality, and they completed these at multiple points throughout the academic year. Their answers were coded into meaningful estimates of motivation quality and self-control. The researchers also recorded the students’ ‘top 3 personal goals’ at the beginning of the academic year. The results supported their hypothesis; high self-control was associated with high autonomous motivation and low controlled motivation.
Okay, so people who are likely to resist temptation when pursuing a goal are also likely to see the goal as self-determined, and that is important because seeing goals as self-determined improves the chances of success, amongst a bunch of other things. However, one key limitation of this study is that they do not examine how a participants’ type of motivation- autonomous or controlled- actually impacted their explicit behaviours in achieving those goals (i.e. the personally chosen goals or academic performance). Chances are, subsequent research will address this relationship and current research indicates our motivations may be domain specific, meaning someone could be highly motivated towards their work but may feel less motivated about going to the gym.
So, what does all this mean for you? As many of us come to terms with having to work from home, we can reflect on which goals we’re motivated to achieve because we want to and which we are doing because we feel compelled. There is no quick fix for improving self-control, but we can evaluate why these goals are important to us. In doing so, you might just find that you do your work because it is fulfilling, and not just because it is expected of you.
References:
Holding, A., Hope, N., Verner-Filion, J., Koestner, R. (2019). In good time: A longitudinal investigation of trait self-control in determining changes in motivation quality. Personality and Individual Differences, 139, 132-137.