Trait intrinsic and extrinsic motivations, academic performance, and creativity in Hong Kong college students

Journal of College Student Development, Sep/Oct 2002 by Moneta, Giovanni B, Siu, Christy M Y

We examined the effects of trait intrinsic and extrinsic motivations, measured by the Work Preference Inventory (WPI; Amabile, Hill, Hennessey, & Tighe, 1994), on creativity and academic performance. In an experimental creative writing task, intrinsic motivation correlated with creativity. In a follow-up study, intrinsic motivation correlated negatively with year-1 GPA, whereas extrinsic motivation correlated positively. Findings suggest that our college environment discourages intrinsic motivation and creativity.

Intrinsic motivation is the tendency to engage in tasks because one finds them interesting, challenging, involving, and satisfying, whereas extrinsic motivation is the tendency to engage in tasks because of task-unrelated factors such as promise of rewards and punishments, dictates from superiors, surveillance, and competition (Deci & Ryan, 1985). Intrinsic motivation has been traditionally measured in experimental conditions as free-choice time spent on an interesting task following the departure of the experimenter: The longer the participant keeps working on the task by own choice, the higher intrinsic motivation (Deci, 1971; Deci & Ryan).

Experimental manipulations have shown that intrinsic and extrinsic motivations are state variables that can rapidly change. Factors that can turn off intrinsic motivation and promote extrinsic motivation include surveillance, competition, and rewards that do not provide performance feedback, such as paying a person for completing a task irrespectively of the quality of his or her work (Deci & Ryan, 1985). When these factors are manipulated in experimental conditions to induce temporary states of extrinsic motivation, participants exhibit poorer concept attainment (McCullers & Martin, 1971), impaired problem solving (Glucksberg, 1962), and lower creative output (Amabile, 1979).

In Deci and Ryan's (1985) organismic integration theory, intrinsic motivation is the energizer of the organismic integration process through which elements of one's internal and external worlds are first differentiated and then integrated harmoniously with one's existing structures. The integrative process requires exploratory behaviors to provide the development of competencies. The exploratory behaviors are typically intrinsically motivated; if they actually lead to the development of competencies, they in turn enhance intrinsic motivation. Environments that provide optimal challenges, support for autonomy, and competence feedback facilitate exploratory behavior and promote intrinsic motivation, whereas environments that provide excessive or insufficient challenges, penalize autonomy, and provide controlling feedback discourage exploratory behavior and thwart intrinsic motivation. The theory postulates that the interaction between the person's motivation and the environment has long-lasting, structural effects on psychosocial development. Children who grow in autonomy-- supporting and optimally challenging environments tend to develop stronger intrinsic motivation, self-determination, creativity, internalization of values that originally were not intrinsically motivated, and integration of needs.

Intrinsic and extrinsic motivations have more recently been defined as trait-like dispositions to be driven either by the engagement of work or by a means to some end that is external to the work itself (Amabile, Hill, Hennessey, & Tighe, 1994). The rationale is that, although a person's intrinsic and extrinsic motivations vary across situations and times (states), persons differ in their general tendencies (traits) to be intrinsically and extrinsically motivated across situations and times. Amabile et al. have developed the Work Preference Inventory (WPI), a short self-report questionnaire that measures intrinsic and extrinsic motivations as cross-situationally and longitudinally stable individual difference components. A key finding is that the two motivational traits are independent; thus, it is possible to be high in both traits, low in both, or high in one and low in the other. Furthermore, similar to the case of state motivation, trait intrinsic motivation correlates positively with creativity, whereas trait extrinsic motivation correlates negatively.

We investigated how trait intrinsic and extrinsic motivations relate to creativity and academic performance in a sample of students attending college in Hong Kong.

Trait Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivations and Academic Performance

Trait intrinsic motivation has been found to influence academic performance. Amabile et al. (1994) found that trait intrinsic motivation correlated modestly but significantly with the verbal and mathematical scores of the Scholastic Achievement Test (SAT), which are measures of academic ability and intelligence, and with midterm marks attained in introduction to psychology classes. Trait extrinsic motivation, instead, was unrelated to both SAT scores and midterm marks.

There is, however, a variability of findings. Kahoe and McFarland (1975) had previously found that trait intrinsic and extrinsic motivations interact with perceived difficulty of the course in determining GPA: Whereas intrinsic motivation predicted higher GPA in high challenge courses, extrinsic motivation predicted higher GPA in low challenge courses. Thus, intrinsic motivation may facilitate performance when facing complex learning tasks, whereas extrinsic motivation may facilitate performance when facing simple learning tasks.