fun fun function I need to be honest
with you today I started out doing this
episode as an episode about the find
function in JavaScript because you know
I figured that I would look at a keyword
tool see what people search for on
YouTube and see what what kind of
episode would be popular and bind that’s
up there right in the heavens so bind
would most definitely bring in a lot of
new viewers so I sat down to do it you
know that feeling that you got mean in
school when you had to do some homework
you know you felt like oh I need to do
this I have to do this but I really
don’t want to I would much rather play
xbox that feeling and that’s superdumb
because these videos I make these on my
spare time nobody is forcing me to do
them so it’s really a bizarre thing to
feel but somehow just optimizing after
other people’s needs just the simple act
of doing that would just mess up my
motivation they were here it would just
mess up something in my so highest went
screw it
I’m just gonna go out and I’m gonna make
a video about this instead the loss of
motivation that you feel for a otherwise
pleasurable activity when an external
incentive is introduced I want to talk
about this because I think that a lot of
people will recognize themselves in this
feeling probably it’s something that you
felt when you got your first programming
job programming which was previously
something that you did on your spare
time because you liked it ah it’s now
something that you get paid to do and
somehow that makes you less motivated to
do it that is fascinating to me this is
of course not a new phenomenon this is
something that the author Daniel pink
basically built his entire career
talking about pink talks about three
pillars of motivation autonomy mastery
and purpose purpose is what it sounds
like it’s that you need to feel like
there is a bigger bigger plan behind
what you’re doing and that there is that
it is a worthwhile thing to do in the
grand scheme of things mastery means
that the tasks that you are doing needs
to be in skill level it needs to be at
the edge of your abilities but not
outside of them and also not too far
within your abilities because if it’s
too far outside you will be stressed out
and you will feel like oh you won’t get
a sense of self-efficacy which I will
talk about later that you don’t get that
feeling of I can do this and the
opposite of that is if the activity
feels too much within your abilities you
will feel bored because it’s not
challenging you but the first one
autonomy is the one that I want to spend
the most time on today because I think
it’s the it’s definitely the trickiest
one to pull off you probably felt this
when when there is a task that you feel
like this should be done I want to do
this nobody is telling you to do it
nobody is rewarding you to do it but you
want to do it how you do it and it feels
so good and you are so energetic and it
just flows for you and that is the power
of autonomy oh I need to climb this
there’s a there’s a fence but there’s a
where am I
oh it’s a quarry I’ve never been here
quarries are so cool one of the
components of flow is that you feel a
sense of control and a sense of agency
over the task that you’re performing
which is the same thing that pink talks
about when he talks about autonomy and
to me all that makes sense but it it is
also very tricky for me to transport
that into any kind of professional
situation because to me the very
definition of a job is that you’re doing
something that other people need and
they are willing to pay you for that how
can this be reconciled with autonomy I
think about this subject a lot and it
frustrates me to no end see this this is
cool there’s been a lot of research on
this and in psychology over the years
and there’s actually a theory around
this called motivation crowding theory
and it deals with situations like the
one I’m experiencing today or the
situation that you would experience if
you say say that you were at your
partner’s parents house and you’ve just
had a nice dinner that they offered you
and you say that wow this was such a
nice dinner thank you so much I would
like to offer you $100 for this dinner
even though you are now offering more
than just the thanks you have just made
yourself a really weird person and you
have even somehow cheapen the dinner
right and this is what motivation
crowding theory deals with there is
actually a very specific term for this
whole situation and it’s called the over
justification effect it’s when you add a
reward to a previously unrecorded
activity and that causes the motivation
to shift from inner motivation to outer
motivation which then undermines the
inner motivation but this doesn’t tell
the whole story because this doesn’t
always happen I’ve done tons of work
where I’ve been rewarded handsomely for
them but I’ve I’ve still felt
in control and autonomous and have been
highly motivated while doing them so why
does this happen in some cases and in
some cases not there are of course some
other clever chaps that have made
another theory about this and it’s
called the cognitive evaluation theory
and that theory attempts to explain when
outer motivation will destroy inner
motivation and when it will not so what
cognitive evaluation
what cognitive evaluation theory
suggests is that there are two factors
at play when when you’re confronted with
an external motivator and how that will
affect your motivation and those two
factors are our need to feel competent
and our need to feel in control let’s
first talk about our need to feel
competent I mentioned self-efficacy
earlier and self-efficacy is the the
feeling that I am capable of this you
judge yourself on your capabilities and
you determine that this this given task
that’s within your abilities
self-efficacy is a more specific term
than self-confidence which is a more
general concept for instance I I don’t
wear this hat a lot because ah I don’t
feel self-confident enough to actually
pull it off I feel like I feel like a
steampunk douchebag however my god it’s
the wind is the wind is picking up my
self-efficacy on the other hand that’s
more specific my self-efficacy around
solving a complicated programming
problem that might be very high I feel
like I could do that
I don’t know if anybody is here you know
I can’t see any people and it’s Sunday
I’m recording this on Sundays by the way
yet like the things these things they
make all kinds of noise all the time
that thing over there that’s just a
scary place I wouldn’t want to walk here
at night but this this is so cool this
is so big and your self-efficacy might
very well be helped if somebody offers
you a lot of money to do something
because that you you could interpret
that as somebody wow this person really
believes I can do this or if you’re
about to give a talk and a lot of people
sign up for your talk and it seems like
wow they they signed up for my talk
they believed in my abilities and that
might also cause me to believe in my own
abilities my self-efficacy increases and
my motivation increases but my need to
feel competent is not the only thing
that is at play here remember it’s also
my need to feel in control humans don’t
like oh my god just look at this
building it is so cool and so scary and
just have a look at this window here
this is where they keep the serial
killer humans don’t like to feel like
we’re being controlled maybe it’s some
evolutionary thing I don’t know but we
don’t we don’t like feeling like we’re
being controlled like we’re being cursed
into something during rain I’m gonna
find a roof
to stand under so when you’re in a
situation where somebody offers you a
lot of money to do something or if a lot
of people sign up for your tour or if a
lot of people star your open-source
project on github that might make you
feel more competent and admired and that
might raise your self efficacy but it
might also trigger that part of your
brain that don’t like to be controlled
if it does it will feel like all of this
money or this attention is being somehow
used to control you it’s pressuring you
to do something and then you will not
feel motivated Jesus is really starting
the annoying part is that I don’t know
in practice how to not trigger the fear
of being controlled
whenever I get confronted with an
external incentive whenever money or
deadlines or view counts or likes get
involved I tend to like my motivation
yes tends to go out the window and I
still lack good tooling to deal with
this do you recognize yourself in this
at all what is this what was this even
useful maybe this is just me and some
people writing research papers but if
you do recognize yourself have you found
some way of dealing with this if so
please try to comment down below because
I really would like to know that is it
for this episode of fun fun function I
release these every week on Monday
morning Oh 800 GMT if you liked this
episode you should watch that one or if
you don’t want to wait that long you can
check out an episode another episode
here I am going to push through the rain
now I am mpj this is fun fun function
until next Monday morning stay curious
what they have a laboratory really