Since the 1960s, it has been widely accepted, and proven, that intrinsic motivation is "better" than extrinsic motivation. How is it "better"? Well, over the past 40 years a litany of studies have been done showing that intrinsically motivated people are more creative, more innovative, more imaginative, and more likely to start new businesses than extrinsically motivated people. In addition, intrinsically motivated people show more confidence, interest, and excitement about tasks.
They have enhanced performance and persistence as well. Not only that, intrinsically motivated people have better physical health and well-being, greater self-acceptance and self-esteem and better conceptual learning. Furthermore, extrinsically motivated people are proven to be less creative and innovative.
When people are born, it is believed that they are born mainly intrinsically motivated. This is not proven, however - it is accepted as fact, but unproven. Studies done on toddlers seem to confirm this belief. The odd thing is that most adults - over 95% - are mainly extrinsically motivated. So, what happens between toddler-hood and adulthood to move a person from being mainly intrinsically motivated to mainly extrinsically motivated? What is undermining their intrinsic motivation?
I'll post another blog about that soon......
In the meantime, let's talk about intrinsic motivation as it relates to U.S. competitiveness. In the past several years, U.S. companies have been actively outsourcing U.S. jobs to less expensive global countries (India, Brazil, China, etc.). At first, it didn't seem to be too much of a threat since it was mainly routine, process-oriented jobs that were being outsourced (manufacturing, etc.). But then it started to scare some of us, as the non-mundane jobs were being oursourced (financial processes, operational processes, HR functions, etc.).
Still though....the jobs being outsourced are ones that can be broken down into a set of steps and repeated over and over. In order to retain jobs and create new industries, the U.S. must have employees who are creative, imaginative and innovative. Jobs and industries that rely on creative thinking, imagination and innovation cannot be duplicated elsewhere - they are as unique as the person who holds the position. How do we get people who are creative, innovative and imaginative - by building a society of intrinsically motivated people. Does the U.S. currently have enough intrinsically motivated people to build this type of society and then industries and businesses around it........not even close. There are reasons for that and I'll blog about that soon. It's enough to say now though, that we have a long road ahead of us and it will require some serious changes in thinking around how we educate and how we motivate children and young adults.
