Sports Psychology: Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation - Essay Example

Running head: Sports psychology: Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation Sports psychology: Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation [The name of the writer appears here] [The name of institution appears here] Sports psychology: Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation Millions of people throughout the world are highly involved in sports as athletes, coaches, or spectators. Children start at very young ages trying to hit a softball, catch a football, or stand up on ice skates. Recent figures indicate that over 20 million school-aged Americans play organized sports. Furthermore, the percentage of girls involved in sports although still small, is steadily growing. Adults are no less involved in athletics, though their participation tends to be as coaches and spectators. Sports is one of the most frequent topics of conversation during coffee breaks and lunch hours, and games such as the Super Bowl have more television viewers than virtually any other programs. Sports, according to Alderman, are organized games that have become institutionalized. They have a set of rules and procedures that is essentially constant wherever they are played, and they have become part of our social history. Furthermore, although it is not implied by the definition, sports almost invariably involve competition; individuals or teams attempt to beat other individuals or teams. This competition may be either interactive (where there is a critical defensive, as well as an offensive, component) or noninteractive (involving only offense). Basketball and soccer are interactive competitions; figure skating and diving are noninteractive. In terms of motivation, sports have all the necessary ingredients to be intrinsically motivating. The activities themselves are interesting and exciting (at least for some people); challenge and mastery are central components; and participation is, in most cases, voluntary. Certainly in sand-lot games and amateur athletics people seem to need no prods or incentives to play; the direct, experiential rewards derived from the activity seem to be enough to maintain their involvement. Nonetheless, although much of the direct and vicarious involvement in sports is intrinsically motivated, there seems to be an increasing amount of extrinsic force that is brought to bear on athletes. Trophies and awards are often given to outstanding players, and these may be accompanied by cash prizes. In addition, there is considerable social pressure to play indeed, to be the best. Boys in particular are considered unusual if they do not join in athletic competitions. Immediate, extensive media coverage adds to this pressure, and the fame and fortune that accrue to those who stand out in the media are the envy of most spectators. Furthermore, with all this emphasis on extrinsic factors, sports have become an arena for proving oneself not only to others but to oneself. All too often one's self-worth becomes hinged on the outcome of athletic events, and this extrinsic (though internal) pressure can be the main reason why some people persist at sports. It is the mix of intrinsic and extrinsic aspects in most sports settings that make them such an interesting place for exploring motivational dynamics. (Vallerand, R.J, 1999). In the past two decades there has been much research on the processes and interplay between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. To a large extent this research has explored the effects of extrinsic factors on intrinsic motivation. In other words, it has attempted to sort out what extrinsic factors tend to enhance intrinsic motivation for an activity and what extrinsic factors tend to undermine it. Although only a small amount of this research has actually been carried out in sport settings, it is all directly relevant because sports tend to involve intrinsically interesting activities that may be performed in pursuit of extrinsic incentives. Thus, the research paradigms typically used tend to be excellent analogs of sports settings. In this report, therefore, we review a variety of investigations that have focused on intrinsic and/or extrinsic motivation and seem to be directly relevant to sports participation. We also provide a motivational analysis of competition. COGNITIVE EVALUATION THEORY The theory, being motivational in nature, begins with the postulate that intrinsic motivation is based in the human needs to be competent and self-determining in relation to one's external and internal environments. People need to master their environments, and they need to feel a sense of freedom or choice in doing so. These intrinsic, psychological needs motivate a wide range of behaviors that need no extraneous incentives; the feelings of competence and self-determination provide plenty of reward. When intrinsically motivated, people follow their interests and take on optimal challenges; they experience excitement and have a sense of choice about what they are doing. Concepts similar to intrinsic motivation have a long history in psychology, although a paper by White presented a landmark argument in favor of its use for interpreting a wide variety of activity such as play and learning. It also set the stage for the recent empirical investigations. White's concept focused on competence or effectance (words he used essentially interchangeably) whereas a subsequent report by deCharms emphasized the importance of personal causation. Acknowledging both, Deci discussed the human needs for both competence and self-determination, and he used them to interpret the initial studies of intrinsic motivation. Cognitive evaluation theory asserts that any event relevant to the initiation or regulation of behavior can affect one's intrinsic motivation insofar as it gratifies or thwarts one's needs for self-determination and competence. Thus, the effects on intrinsic motivation of extrinsic rewards, social pressure, or positive feedback, for example, can be understood in terms of their functional significance vis-à-vis the psychological needs for self-determination and competence. First, consider self-determination. Inputs that promote autonomy will be associated with a more internal perceived locus of causality and will tend to enhance intrinsic motivation, whereas those that diminish one's autonomy will be associated with a more external perceived locus of causality and will tend to decrease intrinsic motivation. These inputs can be external events such as the offer of a reward, the imposition of a deadline, or the opportunity for choice. They can also be the experience of a general context within which one is functioning. Finally, they can be internal events such as introjected controls or other internalized regulations. Events and contexts can also affect one's sense of competence. If a person's behavior is reasonably self-determined in other words, if the person does not feel controlled then those inputs may function primarily to inform his or her experience of competence. When such inputs leave one feeling more competent, they will tend to enhance intrinsic motivation; when they leave one feeling less competent, they will tend to decrease intrinsic motivation. Finally, cognitive evaluation theory suggests that any input can have multiple aspects and that the relative salience of the various aspects will determine the effects of that input on intrinsic motivation. First, there is the informational aspect which operates in noncontrolling situations and serves to inform one's sense of competence. It relates directly to one's intrinsic motivation, yielding a positive correlation between perceived competence and intrinsic motivation. Second, there is the controlling aspect, which pressures one to behave, think, or feel in specified ways, and thus leads to a more external perceived locus of causality. In so doing, it impinges upon one's self-determination and decreases intrinsic motivation. The obverse of being controlling is being noncontrolling (i.e., promoting autonomy). It is these noncontrolling situations which, when they contain competence relevant information, are referred to as informational. If, however, competence-relevant feedback is conveyed in a controlling context, it is not considered informational. Instead, when control is salient, competence feedback affects people's extrinsic motivation; if it affects intrinsic motivation at all, it does so indirectly. Third, and finally, an input can have a motivating aspect. This aspect conveys that one cannot reliably attain desired outcomes. It decreases one's sense of both competence and self-determination, and undermines intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation, alike. The a motivating aspect is likely to be salient in a situation where behavior and outcomes are structurally independent or where one continually fails in one's attempts to attain contingent outcomes. In summation, cognitive evaluation theory asserts that the effects on intrinsic motivation of an event or context will depend on which aspect is most salient for the perceiver and will be a function of the event's relation to the person's needs for self-determination and competence. Cognitive evaluation theory pertains not only to external events but to internal events as well. Thoughts, feelings, and memories can play a significant role in the initiation and regulation of behavior and, like external events, these internal events can be qualitatively different. The informational versus controlling distinction is relevant to these events as well. Internal events, such as ego involvement or threats of guilt, can be controlling and will leave the person experiencing less self-determination and will undermine intrinsic motivation. When they do not control, but instead serve primarily to inform competence, they will have the same relation to intrinsic motivation as external, informational events. Operational Definitions In order to explore the theory empirically, intrinsic motivation must be defined operationally. There have been two basic approaches to doing this. First, people are said to be intrinsically motivated if they engage in an activity in the apparent absence of extrinsic rewards or constraints. This has been the most widely used operational definition and has led to the measurement of intrinsic motivation by observing people surreptitiously to determine how much time during a free-choice period they spend on a target activity. This so-called free-choice measure has been widely used and has served well, although the measure becomes very complicated in situations where internally controlling regulation is being explored. The second operational definition states that people are intrinsically motivated if they express interest in and enjoyment of the activity. This definition has led to intrinsic motivation for an activity being measured by questionnaires that, for example, ask people to rate how interesting they find the activity. Mayo developed a questionnaire measure of this sort that has been used by Vallerand and Reid, among others, in the domain of sports, and Ryan developed another that has been used in several laboratory experiments. Both of the foregoing approaches to measuring intrinsic motivation assesses what might be considered a state of intrinsic motivation they measure how intrinsically motivated a person is for a target activity at a given time. Other measures are more trait-like in that they assess people's general intrinsic motivation for a class of activities such as schoolwork or sports. These scales measure children's general orientation toward challenge, curiosity, mastery, independent judgment, and self-evaluation, all variables that are related to intrinsic motivation. Perceived Locus of Causality As mentioned, events relevant to the initiation and regulation of behavior can be either controlling or autonomy supportive, and will accordingly affect one's self-determination and perceived locus of causality. Inputs that are controlling lead to a more external perceived locus of causality (i.e., less self-determination) and decrease intrinsic motivation, whereas inputs that are autonomy supportive lead to a more internal perceived locus of causality (i.e., greater self-determination) and increase intrinsic motivation. A great many studies have explored this issue, and these studies can be organized into three groups: those where the input is a specifiable external event such as the offer of a reward, the imposition of a deadline, or the opportunity to choose; those where the input is a general context such as a team or a work group climate; and those where the input is some internal event such as ego involvement. Let us consider these three groups in turn. (Eccles. S. J.,& Fredricks J. A, 2005) External Events: Of the studies that have focused on specific events, most have explored the effects of events that control rather than those that support autonomy. In the first published study, Deci had two groups of college-student subject’s work on a set of puzzles. Half the subjects were rewarded with a dollar for each puzzle they solved whereas the others received no reward. All subjects were then observed in a subsequent free-choice period, and results indicated that the rewarded subjects spent significantly less free-choice time with the puzzles than did the nonrewarded subjects. This was interpreted as evidence that these task-contingent rewards (so-called because the reward is contingent upon doing the task) undermined the subjects' intrinsic motivation for the target activity. Following this experiment, numerous other studies have shown that across ages, sexes, and tasks extrinsic rewards such as money, prizes, food, and good player awards all tend to decrease intrinsic motivation. It appears that because external incentives are so often used to control people to get them to do what they would not otherwise do people tend to experience incentives as controlling and thus as limiting their self-determination. As an example, consider a young boy who began playing catch and hitting a baseball with his father and older brother. He played out of interest and excitement. Eventually he played sand-lot ball with other kids in the neighborhood, and gradually he spent more of his time playing on organized, Little League teams. One year he got a coach who tried to motivate the kids by offering trophies for the most valuable player, the most improved player, the player who scored the most points, and so on. As our young friend continued playing on that team it is possible that his orientation toward the game would change. Whereas the perceived locus of causality was initially internal ("I play because it's fun and interesting") it could become more external ("I play to get a trophy"), leaving him less self-determined. His behavior would, in essence, have become controlled by the rewards and he would lose intrinsic motivation for the game. Ultimately, we predict, he might stop playing baseball if extrinsic incentives did not continue or did not seem attractive enough. Orlick and Mosher tested the above reasoning with a sport-related task. They had children, ranging in age from 9 to 11 years, use the stabilometer, which is an interesting motor balancing activity. First, the children had a free-choice pretest period; then they played under either a reward condition (a task-contingent trophy) or a no-reward condition; and, finally, four days later, they returned for a post-test free-choice period. Results showed that subjects who had participated to obtain the trophy displayed a decrease in free-choice time spent on the task from pre- to post-session, relative to the no-reward subjects. Results of the Orlick and Mosher study suggest that extrinsic incentives can indeed undermine intrinsic motivation for interesting sporting activities. An experiment by Halliwell provided corroborating evidence. (Crocker, P.R.E., & Farrell, R. J, 2004) In a study of actual sport participation, Ryan explored the influence of athletic scholarships on the intrinsic motivation of undergraduate athletes. He used a questionnaire survey to compare the intrinsic interest of male athletes on scholarship to that of nonscholarship athletes, hypothesizing that athletes who received scholarships for playing sports would be less intrinsically motivated toward their sport than those who did not receive scholarships. Results supported the hypothesis in that male scholarship athletes listed more extrinsic reasons for participation and reported less enjoyment of the activity than the nonscholarship athletes. Because other research has determined that surveillance, deadlines, and evaluations all tend to decrease intrinsic motivation, it seems clear that any external event that pressures people's performance, in other words that controls their behavior, is likely to undermine their intrinsic motivation. Rewards have been widely found to do this in sports as well as other domains, and other controls are likely to affect athletes in the same way. There is just one event that has been reliably found to enhance intrinsic motivation by facilitating a more internal perceived locus of causality: namely, the opportunity to choose. Whereas control denies self-determination and tends to decrease intrinsic motivation, choice encourages self-determination and tends to increase intrinsic motivation. Zuckerman, Porac, Lathin, Smith, and Deci had college-student subjects perform 3 puzzle configurations with a total time allotment of 30 minutes. Subjects in the choice condition selected which 3 (out of 6) puzzles they would work on and how much of the 30 minutes would be allotted to each one. Subjects in the no-choice condition were yoked to subjects in the choice condition, so they were told which puzzles to work on and how much time was allotted to each. Results showed that subjects in the choice condition were more intrinsically motivated than subjects in the no-choice condition, using both the free-choice and questionnaire measures. Swann and Pittman and Brawley and Vallerand have found complementary results. Interpersonal Contexts: The research relevant to the locus of causality thus far described considered the effects on intrinsic motivation of a specific event (e.g., a reward or a deadline). Other studies have focused on the effects of general contexts. For example, on one high school basketball team, there may be a general orientation where pressure is ever present and where winning is more important than performance, sportsmanship, or honesty. On another high school's team, the orientation might be more relaxed, with an emphasis on team members' improving their performance, helping each other, and being good sportsmen. It is probable that the motivation and experience of the athletes in these two contexts would be quite different. Deci, Schwartz, Sheinman, and Ryan explored this general issue in elementary school classrooms as it relates to motivation for school work. They reasoned that teachers are the most important factor in determining the classroom context, so they measured the teachers' style of relating to the children. Teachers, they suggested, could be oriented toward controlling the children's behavior versus supporting the children's autonomy. The former would be predicted to facilitate a more external perceived locus of causality in the children whereas the latter would be predicted to facilitate a more internal perceived locus of causality. These researchers developed an instrument (The Problems in Schools Questionnaire) to assess teachers' orientations, and they related it to the children's intrinsic motivation, perceived competence, and self-esteem. Results of the study confirmed that children in the controlling classrooms displayed less intrinsic motivation, perceived competence, and self-esteem than children in the informational, autonomy-supportive classrooms. Ryan and Grolnick used a different procedure to study the same basic issue in elementary school classrooms. They measured the children's perceptions of whether their teachers tend to control behavior versus support autonomy, using deCharms' classroom climate measure. They then related these perceptions to the children's intrinsic motivation, perceived competence, and self-esteem and obtained results complementary to those of Deci et al. Whether the classroom climate is determined by assessing teaching style or children's perceptions, research indicates that interpersonal contexts that pressure and control people tend to have a negative effect on intrinsic motivation and related variables. Other studies have explored the relation between athletes' perceptions of their coaches and motivationally relevant variables in the athletes. For example, Weiss and Friedrichs studied the relation between college basketball players' perceptions of their coaches' behavior and their own satisfaction with their athletic experience. Results revealed that athletes who perceived their coaches to provide more positive feedback and social support and to use a more democratic leadership style were more satisfied than athletes who perceived their coaches to be lower on these variables. Similarly, Scanlan and Lewthwaite found that young males' enjoyment of wrestling related positively to their perceptions of the coaches' being supportive, and negatively to their perceptions of the coaches' getting upset with them. Vallerand and Pelletier studied how swimmers' perceptions of their coaches' orientations related to the athletes' intrinsic motivation and perceived competence for swimming. Analyses indicated that athletes who perceived their coach to be more informational had higher levels of intrinsic motivation and perceived competence than those athletes who perceived their coach to be more controlling. From studies of classrooms and of organized sports, therefore, it seems that the general context within which one learns or plays can have an important influence on one's intrinsic motivation. (Vallerand, R.J, 1999). Internal Events: Studies discussed so far have indicated quite clearly that external events and interpersonal contexts can either control behavior or support autonomy and will accordingly affect intrinsic motivation. Ryan argued that this analysis is also applicable to internal initiating or regulatory events. He proposed that, just as external controls can pressure people toward outcomes and therefore undermine their sense of self-determination, internal events such as certain thoughts or feelings can also pressure people toward outcomes and thus leaves them feeling less self-determined. For instance, the thought, "I have to practice today; I won't feel OK about myself unless I do it," is a form of internal control that, psychologically, is similar in many ways to being told by someone else that you have to practice. In testing this hypothesis, Ryan reasoned that ego involvement is a type of internal regulation that is controlling rather than self-determined, and should therefore result in less intrinsic motivation. Ryan also suggested that task involvement, in which the individual is intimately engaged in the activity and is not highly invested in the outcomes per se, would be associated with minimal pressure and would be conducive to higher levels of intrinsic motivation. He referred to this as internally informational regulation. In the experiment, college undergraduates were randomly assigned to conditions of ego-involvement and task-involvement. Results supported the hypothesis in that ego involved subjects displayed less subsequent intrinsic motivation than task involved subjects. In other studies it was found that people who become publicly self-conscious, for example, when seated in front of a mirror or video camera, tended to become internally controlling and to end up with less intrinsic motivation for the target activity. Whatever the means by which people become demanding and controlling with themselves, the results seem to be the same: They restrict their own self-determination and lose intrinsic motivation. Ryan and Deci recently explained that the receipt of positive feedback by ego-involved subjects provides them with evidence that they achieved their internally controlling goal of doing well, so the subject would not be likely to persist at the activity during the free-choice period. However, if these ego-involved subjects do not get positive feedback, hence they do not know whether they have achieved their goal, they might persist during the free-choice period not because they are intrinsically motivated, but rather because they still need to prove to themselves that they can do well. This, as we hinted earlier, represents a problem for the free-choice measure in that the measure would be assessing two qualitatively different internal motivations. Nonetheless, when research is carefully designed in light of the theoretical definitions, these variables have been meaningfully separated. In the Ryan and Deci study, one group of ego-involved subjects got positive feedback and the other did not. In a subsequent free-choice period those subjects who did not get feedback persisted more than those who did. Thus, although ego involvement undermines people's intrinsic motivation, it may lead them to persist vigorously in an attempt to prove their own worth. This persistence, however, is likely to show the qualities of being controlled rather than intrinsically motivated. The distinction between internally controlling and internally informational events is very appealing for the realm of sports. The two are very different forms of self-regulation, and they may have very different consequences for athletes' enjoyment, persistence, and even performance. For instance, if a tennis player were to regulate her behavior in an internally controlling fashion by pressuring herself to perform, by aggrandizing herself after successes, and by derogating herself after failures, we would expect her intrinsic motivation for tennis to be quite low. On the other hand, should the athlete monitor her behavior informationally, with relaxed attention rather than pressured evaluation, her behavior would be self determined and we would expect her intrinsic motivation to be high. Although both forms of self-regulation may foster persistence, they would be accompanied by very different affective experiences. The controlling style would entail the experience of pressure and tension, whereas the informational style would more likely entail the experience of autonomy, freedom, and self-determination. (Amorose, A. J., & Hollembeak J, 2005). Reference: Amorose, A. J., & Hollembeak J. (2005). Perceived Coaching Behaviors and College Athletes’ Intrinsic Motivation: A Test of Self-Determination Theory. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 17, 20-36. Crocker, P.R.E., & Farrell, R. J. (2004). The Driving Force: Motivation in Special Olympians. Adapted Physical Activity Quarterly, 21, 153-166. Eccles. S. J.,& Fredricks J. A (2005). Family Socialization, Gender, and Sport Motivation and Involvement. Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 27, 3-31. Vallerand, R.J. (1999). An integrative analysis of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation in sport. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 11, 142-169. Read More