Many researchers
have explored the effects of autonomy-supportive versus controlling influences
on intrinsic motivation and the internalization of regulations. In one set of
studies, contextual events such as the offer of a
reward, the
imposition of a deadline, or the provision of choice were manipulated to
examine their effects on intrinsic motivation or internalization. The results
suggest which contextual factors tend, on average, to be autonomy supportive
and which ones tend to be controlling. They also show that the interpersonal
context, as operationalized by the experimenter's interpersonal style, can
moderate the effects of specific external events. Thus the effects of specific
events such as performance-contingent rewards or limits might be different,
depending on whether the experimenter administers them with an autonomy-supportive
or a controlling style or intent. A second set of studies was done in schools
and homes to investigate the relation bletween general interpersonal contexts
(as assessed with questionnaires or interviews) and the intrinsic motivation or
internalization of students in those settings. Let us briefly consider each set
of studies.
Effects of external
events. Rewards
such as prizes and money are often used in homes and schools as a means of
motivating desired behaviors. Their effects on intrinsic motivation have been
explored in several studies. These studies showed that when students received
rewards such as monetary payments (Deci, 1971), good-player awards (Lepper, Greene,
& Nisbett, 1973), or prizes (Harackiewicz, 1979) for participating in an
interesting activity, they tended to lose interest in and willingness to work on
the activity aifter the rewards were terminated, relative to students who had
worked on the activity in the absence of rewards. Similar results were found
when people performed an interesting activity in order to avoid a negative
consequence (Deci & Cascio, 1972).
The use of
promised rewards or threatened punishment is an ubiquitous motivational
strategy. Research on intrinsic motivation (e.g., Ryan, Mims, & Koestner,
1983) and internalization (e.g., Freedman, 1965) has consistently shown,
Ihowever, that although these contingencies may serve to control behavior while
they are operative, they also tend to undermine intrinsic motivation for
interesting tasks and to impede the internalization of regulations for
uninteresting tasks (Deci et al., 1991).
Performance
evaluations are common in school systems and may take the form of grades,
verbal feedback, or written appraisals. Studies have increasingly indicated
that when evaluations are emphasized or made salient they will undermine
intrinsic motivation (Smith, 1974), conceptual learning (Benware & Deci,
1984), and creativity (Amabile, 1979). The same has been found for surveillance
(e.g., Lepper & Greene, 1975).
Other external
events designed to motivate or control people – including deadlines (Amalbile,
DeJong, & Lepper, 1976), imposed goals (Mossholder, 1980), and competition
(Deci, Betley, Kahle, Abrams, & Porac, 1981; Yallerand, Gauwin, & Halliwell,
1986; Vallerand, Hamel, & Daoust, 1991)-have similarly been found to
decrease intrinsic motivation. The theme common to all of these findings is
that each of the mentioned events
is typically
used to pressure a target person to think, feel, or behave in a specific way.
Not surprisingly, then, the event's presence typically signifies to the target
person that he or she is being controlled. Being controlled by an external
contingency tends to diminish an individual's sense of autonomy. It fosters an external
perceived locus of causality and thus decreases intrinsic motivation and/or
forestalls internalization. One might aslk whether there are any specifiable
contextual events that will promote the experience of self-determination and
thus enhance intrinsic n~otivation or facilitate integrated internalization.
Two such events have been identified. Zuckerman, Porac, Lathin, Smith, and Deci
(1978) found that when college students were given choices about what tasks to
engage and how much time to allot to each, they were more intrinsically
motivated
than were
subjects who were assigned the tasks and times. Similar results were obtained
with children by Swann and Pittman (1977). Further, in a study of
internalization, Deci et aI. (1991) found that highlighting choice rather than
using a controlling style contributed to subjects' internalizing the regulation
of an uninteresting activity. Other research has also indicated that when
asking people to do an uninteresting behavior or to do an interesting behavior
in a way that is different from how they want to do it, acknowledging their
feelings of not liking the task or not liking the requested way helps them to
feel selfdetermined. This resulted in maintained intrinsic motivation
(Koestner, Ryan, Bernieri, & Holt, 1984) and increased internalization (Deci et
al., 1991). These studies suggest that in educational settings providing
students with the opportunity to participate in the decision process relative
to educational activities tend to encourage the self-determined regulation of those
activities, which in turn is likely to produce beneficial learning and adjustment
outcomes.
Interpersonal
contexts.
For people involved in the educational process, it is undoubtedly disconcerting
to recognize that many of our standard educational structures and practices
tend, on the average, to be experienced as controlling and to have negative
consequences for the development of autonomous self-regulation. Accordingly,
one might wonder how to use these motivationally relevant events and structures
in ways that do not have the widely repIicated negative effects.
The answer to
this question, we believe, lies in the fact that situational events such as
rewards and feedback are administered by people within a general interpersonal
ambience. Several laboratory studies have shown that the interpersonal style a
person uses in administering events greatly influences the events' effects.
In these
laboratory studies, events such as positive feedback (Ryan, 1982),
performance-contingent rewards (Ryan et al., 1983), and limits (Koestner et al.,
1984) were administered in one of two ways-with language and style that were
controlling and pressuring (using words like should and must) or with language
and style that were noncontrolling and implied choice. The results consistently
showed that the manner of presentation was important. For example, even though
positive feedback tends to enhance intrinsic motivation, it decreased intrinsic
motivation if it was presented in a controlling manner, and even though rewards
tend to diminish intrinsic motivation, they maintained or enhanced it if the language
or style of presentation was nonpressuring and signified competence.
A noncontrolling
style of presentation has also been shown to contribute to the internalization
of regulations and to subsequent autonomous self-regulation (Deci et al.,
1991). It thus seems possible that many otivational
techniques that tend to be controlling can be used in ways that are
nondetrimental. This, however, requires that administrators of such events be
able to adopt the recipients' frame of reference and present the events in a
way that does not leave the recipients feeling like pawns (decharms , 1968).
Classrooml climates. Results that
complement these laboratory experiments have been found in classroom contexts.
For example, in one study, Deci, Schwartz, et al. (1981) used an instrument to
assess teachers' styles, reasoning that some teachers are oriented toward
supporting students' autonomy whereas others are oriented toward controlling
students' behavior. Of course, teachers' orientations influence the general
classroom climate, and the results revealed that students in classrooms with
autonomysupportive teachers displayed more intrinsic motivation, perceived
competence, and self-esteem than did students in classroioms with controlling teachers.
In another
study, Ryan and Grolnick (1986) assessed elementary school students'
perceptions of whether their teachers were controlling or autonomy supportive
in the classroom. Students who perceived their teachers to be autonomy
supportive reported higher levels of intrinsic motivation, perceived
competence, and self-esteem than did students who perceived their teachers to be controlling.
Vallerand (1991)
had high school students complete the AMS (Vallerand et al., 1989) along with
ratings of the teachers' autonomy supportiveness and their ca~ntrollingness.
Students' perceptions of the autonomy supportiveness of the teachers were positively
associated with the selfdetermined fol-ims of motivation (viz., intrinsic
motivation and identified self-regulation),, and their perceptions of the
teachers' controllingness were
positively
associated with the non-self-determined forms of motivation (viz., external
regulation and amotivation).
Finally, in a
study by deCharms (1976), some teachers were taught to be more autonomy
supportive, and this resulted in enhanced intrinsic motivation and increased
achievement in their inner-city students compared with
the students of
teachers who had not received the training.
Home contexts. Children's
motivation toward school activities is influenced not only by their school
experiences but also by their home lives. Interview and questionnaire studies
have revealed that parental styles
concerning
autonomy support versus control (as well as involvement) influence studerits'
autonomous self-regulation of schoolwork and in turn their school achievement.
Parents who were judged by expert raters to be
more autonomy
supportive and involved (Grolnick & Ryan, 1989) or who were perceived that
way by their elementary school children (Grolnick et al., in press) had
children who were more intrinsically motivated and more autonomous in their self-regulation.
These children of autonomysupportive and involved parents also performed better
in school than did children whose parents were more controlling and uninvolved.
Vallerand (1991)
conducted a study with high school students that was similar to the Grolnick et
al. (in press) study with elementary children. In it, he found that the more
autonomy supportive the students perceived their
parents to be,
the more self-determined were their motivational profiles; in contrast, the
more controlling the students perceived their parents to be, the less
self-determined were their motivational profiles. Thus, the effects of home
contexts parallel those of the school context.
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