Extrinsic Motivation

When I think about extrinsic motivations the first thing that comes to mind is money. Money and extrinsic motivations go hand and hand. Extrinsic motivations are major concepts of today's world. With the lack of jobs and cash flow availiable, people are willing to do almost anything if they're getting paid. We mostly do if for the money, not the enjoyment. Notice I said, "we" because this relates to all the commom people.

 

After reading Drive, I heard on the radio that the state of Ohio was going to start a program targeting college students. This program is willing to give students a cash reward for attending college classes. The purpose of this is to try to reduce the number of students missing and skipping class. Most students are going to respond to this in a positive manner because of the external rewards they will receive. I obsevered this situation in two different ways. The first way was to offer a form of extrinsic motivation to these students, so they will be more willing to attend classes. In my perspective, the students will be compromising with the program for that matter. The second way is to encouragge students to attend classes, so that they will become college graduates and will stay in state to produce a more professional working class. At the end of the day the solution is still one thing, extrinsic motivation. Do you think extrinsic motivation is the main problem in today's society?

Whats Your Drive???

Drive has really changed my perspective about my motivational approaches. Although it took me a long time to decide what my internal drive was, it also forced me to think on a higher level. This thinking process made me question myself and the reason why I take interest in certain things. I had this weird feeling during the channels of this fiasco. Step by step I figured the desired answer. I have decided that my motivation will be fully based on myself, not the the external affairs that I receive from it. Like most people, I have a lot of external motivation, but challenging myself to do things because I love it or just because it's the right thing is going beyond my natural self being and I'm are molding a better person in the process. Are you up for the challenge.


This is the blog that has the correct date and time. Here is the link.
http://erika-whatsyourdrive.blogspot.com/2011/08/drive-yourself.html

Type X and Type I

Erika Dennis erika_dennis84@yahoo.com to me
show details 6:37 AM (14 hours ago)
Although Drive describes many factors of motivation, they also introduce two factors to describe people. These two factors are known as type X and type I. Type X behavior us encouraged " more by extrinsic desires than intrinsic ones" (pg. 77). Thus type represents motivation 2.0. Examples of this are people like Donald Trump. For example, Donald Trump may donate to a charity, but he is only doing it for publicity. Type I is the complete opposite if type X. It represents a good deed thar is done for personal and cultural effective gain. According to Drive, Type I " concerns itself less with the external rewards to which an activity leads and mire with the inherent satisfaction of the activity itself. (pg. 77). Examples like this would be people like Opera Winfrey.
The main goal is to upgrade from type X to type I. By doing so, we will "strengthen our organizations, get beyond our decade of underachievement, and address the inchoate sense that something's gone wrong in our businesses, out lives, and our world" (pg. 77). This transformation will not only be beneficial to our lives, but also to the entire world as well. We will also be producing a better generation of people who will be able to teach others. Type I teaches people to focus more on doing a good deed for the advancement of society, not just self gain. Although type X appears to be a better deal, type I always outperform type X in the long run. Pink states, "Intrinsically motivated people usually achieve more than their reward-seeking counterparts" (pg. 79).
If a person embodies type X factors, it is possible for them to become a person with type I factors. Although I would like to consider myself as this kind of person [type I], I know I have a tendency of letting extrinsic rewards obscure by vision of the main purpose. How is one suppose to transform to type I behavioral habits if they have the desiring need for external rewards such as money to maintain a sustainable living during hard times.

Mesoamerican Origins

If origins began in Mesoamerica, animal domestication would certainly be different. First off, the animals that would be domesticated would be different ones: rather than Eurasian and African animals, it would be the animals of Mesoamerica. That means that instead of having animals such as pigs, horses and chicken, to name a few, domesticated worldwide we would have animals native to Mesoamerica domesticated. So, that means that the animals domesticated would have been very different. Also, animals that have gone extinct in Mesoamerica would have had better chances of survival and those of African and Eurasian descent would have had less chances of survival.

Societies in the Americas would have been better physically. That is, they would have been healthier and they would have been able to develop immunity to more diseases, as did the Africans and Eurasians in reality. Those of the Americans would have had much better chances against the European conquerors and perhaps could have been the conquerors of the world and history could have had been written much differently, with a hint of Mesoamerican culture.

Irrelevant

I've tried and tried to apply the content of Drive to my senior project and myself and I am just about ready to give up. This does not make any sense to me. I've written about how according to Drive the project I want to do will not work. However, I am not convinced. This book isn't for me. None of it makes sense. I have lived my whole life and have done fairly well. What drove me to do so? No, not myself. Everything came from extrinsic motivations: either positive or negative. When people doubt me, I make it goal to prove them wrong. When people help me, I make it a goal to make them proud. I feel that I have never done anything that I wanted because I wanted. I don't feel that I have ever motivated myself. I've heard of the concept before and tried it; but, it wasn't me. The book Drive, instead of aid me, put a big brick wall in my path and confused me. I don't know what to do.

What do I do?

I do not know what I want to do. I cannot decide between entrepreneurship and conducting an experiment. According to Drive, if my motive with entrepreneurship is to make money, then it will be of poor quality. However, though I am driven by making more money, I also would like to help others better their lives by learning them to make more money. I also am thinking of conducting an experiment. I have read books on the effects of exorcize on education and am genuinely interested in conducting an experiment of my own. This would not acquire me any money, simply satisfaction. Drive, is convincing me to pursue this rather than entrepreneurship. However, I am not yet sure. Knowing myself, I know I am driven to do very well when money is involved. Those task, though, have always been manual work. So, my goal is one of two things: do both projects or find a way to combine the both. Any suggestions?

Humans Evolving From Mesoamerica?

What if humans evolved from Mesoamerica? Wow according to Diamond that would have affected so many things, for example, he mentions in page 159 the the major five domestication mammals (cows, sheep, goat, pig, and horse). Well these important mammal were not necessary found in Mesoamerica. He does mention the African Elephant but as you might have read form the reading, the African Elephant was captured and tamed but could not be domesticated, so both Africa and Mesoamerica had issues with animal domestication. With that being said, I believe the definition of a domesticated animal is: “...defined as animal selectively bred in captivity and thereby modified from its wild ancestors, for use by humans who control the animal's breeding and food supply.” (159).
Mesoamerica, I believe, would have been a harder place to start human evolution. Why? Honestly well Mesoamerica didn't have much large animals that could provide much of anything and the animals that were available were small or too hard to capture. Also Diamond, mentions how many animals change in size through out evolution. Yes they change size but they didn't get bigger in Mesoamerica in fact they got smaller in size that wouldn't have help us either.
Also in Mesoamerica, the animals were not use to humans, thus making them not aware to avoid the enemies, humans. The very few animals that were available in the island were being taken advantage of. Since the evolution of animals and humans would have been similar then I believe animal domestication would have taken longer to acquire. What do you guys think?