Self-Determination Theory

The oldest trick for getting someone to do something is to pay them for it, and it often backfires.

Offer a child money for every book they read, and they will read more books, at least for a while. Stop offering the money, and they will often read fewer books than they would have read had you never started. Something similar happens in classrooms with grades, in workplaces with bonuses, in online platforms with points and streaks and leaderboards. The external reward drives the behaviour it was designed to drive, and while it is doing so, it quietly erodes the internal reason the person might have had for doing the thing in the first place. Once the rewards stop, the behaviour often stops too, and sometimes does not come back, because the original motivation has been crowded out by the habit of chasing the prize.

Two psychologists, Edward Deci and Richard Ryan, spent decades working out why this happens, and they landed on three basic psychological needs that make the difference. Autonomy, which is the sense that you are choosing what you do rather than being manipulated into it. Competence, which is the feeling that you are getting better at something that actually matters. Relatedness, which is the sense of being connected to other people who are on the journey with you. When these three needs are met, motivation tends to be the deep, self-sustaining kind that keeps going on its own. When they are missing, no amount of external reward can really substitute, and the rewards themselves start to crowd out the conditions that would have worked better. Most gamified learning platforms have this exactly backwards, and they keep getting built the same way. When you did something well for a long time without being forced or paid, which of those three needs do you think was really holding you up?

Last week we said real motivation is the kind that feeds itself. This week we look at the single skill that, more than talent or hours, predicts who keeps getting better.