AxelHeyst wrote: ↑Fri Jan 21, 2022 6:05 pm
if you find work /activity that meets certain criteria for not being totally against your values or inclinations, and you pursue excellence in it, and focus, and eliminate distractions, you will likely begin to find the activity intrinsically rewarding.
Perfect! Thank you AxelHeyst, that is surely an experiment I will attempt on myself
Friday night thought experiment based on what AxelHeyst wrote!
The pursuit of excellence/mastery and the intrinsically rewarding quality of an activity seem to be tightly bound, from what I gathered of many life testimonials. Still, the nature of their relationship is not clearly defined in my mind. I will try to put the finger on the bug in a thought experiment (but with handicap, since it's Friday night, and also this might appear as basic considerations to social science people).
Preamble : I will consider the activity/work meets the
certain criteria for not being totally against your values or inclinations.
Firstly, I would like to summon the famous experiment they made on kids that drew. A group of kids were supposedly self-motivated to engage into that activity. Then, they split the group and a fraction of the kids started to receive external rewards for doing the activity. That made them stop doing it by themselves if they could not obtain more external rewards. The external reward system added an external source of motivation. Those kids' internal motivation was not sufficient anymore to engage into the activity without the promise of the external source of motivation.
Two thoughts on that :
- One is a deduction : External motivation must be a more concentrated source of motivation compared to the internal one, and the human must possess an adaptative motivation threshold in order to engage into something. That deduction will come back later, but I will also note by experience that humans can play with that motivation threshold (and it is actually fun!).
- Another is an interrogation : Is finding an activity intrinsically rewarding equivalent as being self-motivated for doing it? I would argue that yes, it is; if one expects nothing from engaging into an activity, but the hope of arousing some kind of positive feedback, they will have incentive for doing it (and repeat if there really was positive feedback). Reversely, if they don't have any other motivation than doing the activity itself, it means they find the activity intrinsically rewarding.
The last point is important for explaining why the pursuit of excellence is likely to (not) be intrinsically rewarding-self motivating. I will do so by using the motivation viewpoint.
My understanding of excellence was originally influenced by a paper (that I read a couple years ago, sadly I cannot remember the source nor the structure of the study, I think it was an aggregation of many experiences) whose conclusion was that it depended on a few main factors : first experiences, opportunities, luck, habits, training, practice, ... (there are forgotten factors here, fallen to the volatility of memory). Basically, there are factors that are external (providence-style) and other that can be put under the hard-work banner.
Those hard-work factors are the interesting ones, because they underline the frequent, concentration-intensive, structured and deliberate invocation of the activity in the mind. Thus, I would dare say the focus & elimination of distractions requirements stated above are redundant. At the same time, put aside, they accentuate a crucial characteristic to the pursuit of excellence : hard-work banner factors must be applied in an effective manner (and crossing fingers for the rest of the factors cannot hurt).
I think I can safely affirm without exterior source that pursuing excellence by itself is a self-rewarding objective with multiple rewards (new learnings, progress, growing interest), highly dependent on what one is looking for (milestones). However, the rewards are hard to predict (external excellence factor can slow/speed up the learning process, or diminish/augment its likability), scarce and pricy (in energy, time, focus, work). There must be a parallel to make with learning curves. Where the curve is cruising, rewards are pouring!
And so we arrive to the bulk of the thought process. Since the pursuit of excellence is self-motivating (but irregular and not always effective), I can identify many whys to the end of the affirmation above 'you will
likely begin to find the activity intrinsically rewarding' (by opposition to
certainly) :
- Work is by nature externally motivated. According to deduction in (1), it will likely make it more difficult for a person to do it for the sake of internal reward.
- Pursuit of excellence lacks of easy rewards. Unless good habits are built, entering pursuit mode will cost a lot of non-compensated brainpower.
- Put against television shows, if one cannot delay rewards... pursuit mode will seem dull.
- Even if the pursuit of excellence is self-motivating, one might encounter providence-like factors, for a certain activity, that prevent them to actually like it by denying a vast majority of rewards.
- ...
I wrote earlier that by experience, humans can play with their motivation threshold. Those are topic-related articles/podcast. I especially liked the podcast, as it explains how to use the physiological binding of focus in order to reach faster a state of flow. It is like a cheat code into securing you from some scarce self-motivation downfalls by encouraging rewards be delivered faster. The willpower collection of papers' summaries states something really interesting about demand over will. If people are already using some of their willpower in an area of their life, it will reduce the willpower available elsewhere. By example, a person trying to diet might find it more difficult to push through a hard studying session.
https://www.apa.org/topics/personality/willpower
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwQhKFMxmDY
Conclusion : The pursuit of excellence in work is tightly bound to its intrinsically rewarding quality, but there are many barriers preventing a smooth and agreeable ride at work, at least on a task-level base. Lowering average stimulation level and focusing on internal rewards might be useful to increase the satisfaction resulting from an activity.
--- End of thought process.