Motivation as a Continuum

therefore accepted its regulation as his or her own. An example of this type of motivation could be a boy that memorizes spelling list because he thinks it is relevant for writing, which he values as a life goal. By doing so, the boy has identified with the value of this learning activity.

Finally, after identification, the OIT taxonomy of human motivations shows the most autonomous form of extrinsic motivation: integrated regulation. Integration occurs when identified behaviours and regulations have been fully assimilated to the self. The assimilation can be done only through a perfect congruence between a person’s values and needs, and new regulations. In other words, the more one internalizes the reasons for an action and assimilates them to the self, the more one’s extrinsically motivated actions become self-determined. Although integrated forms of motivation share many features with intrinsic motivation – being both autonomous and unconflicted –, they are still extrinsically motivated because behaviours motivated by integrated regulation are still done for their presumed instrumental value with respect to some outcome that is separate from the behaviour itself, even when it is volitional and valued by the self.

The far right end of Figure 2 is occupied by intrinsic motivation. This positioning aims to emphasizes that intrinsic motivation is a prototype of self-determined activity.

However, this does not mean that internalizing extrinsic regulations would automatically lead to the transformation of these external regulations into intrinsic motivation.

develops his own motivational path. However, developmental issues are evident in two ways:

1. The types of behaviours and values that can be assimilated to the self increase with growing cognitive and ego capacities

2. People’s general regulatory style does, on average, tend to become more

“internal” over time (Chandler and Connell, 1987), in accord with the general organismic tendencies toward autonomy and self-regulation (Ryan, 1995) In order to assess these issues, Ryan and Connell (1989) tried to test if these different types of motivation would indeed lie along a continuum of relative autonomy. To do that, they investigated some achievement behaviours, such as doing homework, in elementary schools, assessing external, introjected, identified, and intrinsic reasons shown by children for engaging in these behaviours.

The results have given a clearer idea of the general scenario; in fact, the authors discovered that the four types of regulation were intercorrelated according to an ordered correlation pattern. This means that there are evidences for an underlying continuum of autonomy: differences in attitudes and adjustment were also associated with the different types of extrinsic regulation. Some of these evidences were (Ryan and Connell, 1989):

 The more students were externally regulated the less they showed interest, value, or effort, and the more they indicated a tendency to blame others (teachers) for negative outcomes

 Introjected regulation was positively related to expending effort, but was also related to more anxiety and to poorer coping with failures

 Identified regulation was associated with greater enjoyment and more positive coping styles

 Intrinsic motivation was correlated with interest, enjoyment, felt competence, and positive coping

Other studies concerning the types of extrinsic motivation have been made in the last 30 years. These studies have extended the previous findings, showing for example that more autonomous extrinsic motivation is associated with greater engagement (Connell and Wellborn, 1990), better performance (Miserandino, 1996), less dropping out

(Vallerand and Bissonnette, 1992), higher quality learning (Grolnick and Ryan, 1987), and greater psychological well-being (Sheldon and Kasser, 1995).

All of studies have shown the significance and the importance of extrinsic motivation; it is also clear the fundamental role of internalization for both personal experience and performance outcomes. It is critical now to understand how to promote the autonomous regulation of extrinsically motivated behaviours.

“Because extrinsically motivated behaviours are not inherently interesting and thus must initially be externally prompted, the primary reason people are likely to be willing to do the behaviours is that they are valued by significant others to whom they feel – or would like to feel – connected, whether that be a family, a peer group, or a society.” (Ryan and Deci, 2000)

These lines from “Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation” seem to suggest that the first base for facilitating internalization is providing a sense of belongingness and connectedness to the persons, group, or culture disseminating a goal. In Self-Determination Theory this is called a “sense of relatedness”. The more individuals feel themselves linked to other people, or to a goal, or to a principle, the greater the internalization of specific behaviours related to those people, to that goal or principle.

Another issue related to extrinsically motivated behaviours concerns perceived competence. It is clear, here, that the more a person feels competent in relation to a task, the more he or she will internalize the goal. This happens especially when an individual understands the task and has the relevant skills to succeed at it. Furthermore, Ryan and Deci (2000) theorizes that supports for competence – offering optimal challenges and positive-relevant feedback – facilitate internalization

Finally, it should be remembered that, according to the SDT approach, an internalized regulation may be only introjected and this regulation could easily lead the people to feel satisfaction for their needs for competence and relatedness. However, introjection does not lead the people feeling self-determined, even if they would be controlled by that regulation. This fact is linked to the final suggestion made by Ryan and Deci, which is related to the concept of autonomy – interpreted here as the possibility to decide upon the way to perform a task without any external influence. The authors, indeed, suggest that autonomy facilitates internalization; in fact, it is the critical element

for a regulation being integrated rather than just introjected. External contexts, when they support competence and relatedness, can yield introjected regulation, but only autonomy supportive contexts lead to the integration and the self-determination of the regulation.