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6.5 Self Determination Theory

Course video 33 of 65

Gamification is a technique for motivation, so it ties very directly into psychology. This unit introduces the major psychological concepts relevant to gamification. The first lesson focuses on behavioral approaches and reward design; the second identifies the risks and alternatives to this approach.

Gamification is the application of game elements and digital game design techniques to non-game problems, such as business and social impact challenges. This course will teach you the mechanisms of gamification, why it has such tremendous potential, and how to use it effectively. For additional information on the concepts described in the course, you can purchase Professor Werbach's book For the Win: How Game Thinking Can Revolutionize Your Business in print or ebook format in several languages.

Skills You'll Learn

Psychology, Marketing, Game Design, Gamification

Taught By

Kevin Werbach
Associate Professor

Transcript

Starting in the 1970s, Ed Deci and Richard Ryan, two psychologists at

the University of Rochester, developed the

basis for what's now called, Self-determination Theory.

A comprehensive theory of human motivation.

Which through many studies has been able to show,

that people are not necessarily always motivated by rewards.

And in fact, intrinsic motivation, is a more powerful and more effective way.

To encourage people to act in certain ways.

Under self-determination theory, there's actually a spectrum of motivational types.

So, if we could draw three categories here.

At this end of the spectrum, is what they all Amotivation.

And what that means is, you have no motivation one way or the other.

You are totally indifferent to the activity.

That's called being amotivated.

At the other end of the spectrum, is Intrinsic motivation.

Here, you do the thing for no reason other than, that you love it.

You do the thing.

Because it is rewarding in and of itself.

That's the strongest form of motivation, because it takes nothing

external at all, to get you to do the activity.

So, this is what we find, in a really great game.

You're not doing it for money, you're not doing

it for fame, you're not doing it for status.

You're doing it because it's fun.

In the middle, there is the broad category.

Of Extrinsic motivators.

And, what self-determination theory says, is that there's actually a spectrum

from the most external, to the most internal forms of extrinsic motivation.

So, all the way over here, closest to

amotivation, the most external, they call external regulation.

[SOUND] And I know my handwriting leaves something

to be desired here, but the idea here

is, at this point, you really don't want to

do something, or maybe you are indifferent to it.

The only thing that makes you do it, is someone

tells you to, someone else says do this, and you

do it, simply because you feel like you have to

you, have no perceived locus of control, as psychologist talk about.

There's no you in wanting to do this

thing, it's just doing it for some external cause.

That, that doesn't mean it's bad, or it doesn't

mean that motivation never works, but it does mean

there is no sense of doing it because you

personally value it, which makes that motivation less powerful.

The second category they talk about, they call interjection.

And the idea here is sometimes, we

take external motivators, and make them our own.

So, this is typically where we would find status, which,

as we talked about, is an important kind of motivator.

In behaviorist operant conditioning type approaches to gamification.

Status says, I may not really want to do this, but other people will value me.

They'll think I'm cool, they will like me.

So, I'm going to do it for that reason.

So, it's something about me.

It's not saying I'm doing it purely for those other people, but it's saying.

I am introjecting.

I'm taking their view about status, and somehow

appropriating it to make me want to do the thing.

Next in line, they call identification, and the

idea here is, at this point, I've taken the.

External motivator, and I've somehow made it my own.

It's not just because other people will think I'm

cool, It's because I can see some value in it.

I don't really enjoy learning math, but I can see that knowing something about math,

is important to success in modern business, and the modern economy.

So I'll do it.

It somehow is aligned with my own personal goals.

I identify.

I can somehow logically say, there's value to me

in doing this, but I still don't really want to.

And then finally, the closest to intrinsic motivation they call, integration.

[SOUND] And here, there's a complete alignment

internally, between my goals and the thing.

This is, for example, the way many people feel about exercise.

I really want to exercise.

It's good for me, I know I should do it.

I can say, yeah, I want to exercise, and yet I don't like exercising.

It's just not fun for me.

I still need some push.

I still won't do it just because of love of the thing itself.

And then finally, when we get all the way to this end, an intrinsic,

the activity has reached that stage where

it's worthwhile and motivating, in and of itself.

Now, take away here for gamification.

All of these may be relevant in a gamified system.

The ideal is something that people just love doing for its own sake.

But that's not necessarily realistic in every context.

So the question is, how to utilize these different kinds of motivation.

Appropriately for the situation.

And how to push generally, towards approaches,

that are more dependent on intrinsic motivation.

The more that this is something the person really wants to do for themselves.

And it has to be authentic.

It's not that you've tricked them into thinking they love

do so, doing something, it's that they actually love doing it.

And find some meaning in it.

They find the fun, in the activity, going back to Mary Poppins,

the more you can get towards that direction of the spectrum, the better.

So, okay, so, what does it

actually take to make something intrinsically motivating?

And this is at the heart of self-determination theory.

Under self-determination theory, there are three characteristics.

Of intrinsic motivation.

Three factors, that when they are present, suggest that an

activity will be worthwhile to people, in and of itself.

And this has been tested in study after study,

domain after domain, including with regard to video games.

So the three characteristics are the following.

The first one is competence.

Which has to do with the person's sense of ability.

Their sense that they are

accomplishing something, solving problems, surmounting obstacles.

They are achieving something within the activity.

The second one is autonomy, which says the person feels like they're in control.

I'm the one making the choices, it's not someone else telling me to do this.

It's me doing it by my own free choice.

Meaningful choices.

And the third one is relatedness, and by this Deci and Ryan, means something like.

Your activity is connected to something beyond yourself.

That could be some sense of meaning or purpose.

It could be, I am doing this because I'm

using less energy, and that's good for the planet.

It could be, I'm doing this because it will help my company, and I

believe in my company, and want to be a good team player in the organization.

Or it could, be I'm doing this with friends.

Social interaction is an element of relatedness, which

we see a great deal, with regard to games.

So, lets look at one example quickly, from a gamified side, and

how some of the standard kinds of game elements we've talked about.

Can activate, these three motivators,

of intrinsic motivation under self-determination theory.

And the point here is that game elements are not necessarily one or the other.

It's not that a badge is inherently

an external motivator, or inherently an internal motivator.

It can be one or the other, depending

on the context, and the way that it's applied.

So, these examples are about a site called Fitrocaracy, a site to

encourage people to exercise, to work out and to get into shape.

And Fitrocracy uses all of the standard

kinds of PBL type game elements we've seen.

But they do it in a fairly coherent sophisticated way, which

is really targeted towards intrinsically motivating

people, to engage in the activity.

So, first here, this is what happens on Fitocracy when you level up.

You get a certain number of points.

Standard game element.

It says you are a level up, now you're now at level

three, and here is the badge that you get for leveling up.

But notice how this is all integrated together, it's not just you've leveled up.

It's, congratulations!

You've earned it!

earning, i.e.

A sense of competence that you've done something

hard, that got you to that next level.

You're now level three.

Awesome!

And the click button says I'm awesome!

And you can share it with your friends.

To tell them how awesome you are.

And this is part of the overall structure of this site.

It really wants to make you feel good about yourself, when

you exercise, and it wants you to see this as a challenge.

And a challenge that when you overcome some of those challenges, when you start

to tag and, and report your workouts, and start to move up, and how.

Effective your workouts are, that means you are leveling up,

not just in some abstract sense, but you are getting better.

You're getting into better shape.

So, that's all about competence, and again, it's in how the site

is designed, to make the person feel, that their activity is achieving something.

Mastering something, as opposed to just doing something, for no particular reason.

Second one is autonomy.

And here typically in games and gamification, the issue is choices.

How much freedom does the user have?

The games that are heavily structured and scaffolded, where you have

two choices but the game will push you to just one choice.

And there's very little freedom within those choices, tend to activate

less autonomy, than the more sandbox type game environments, where the user

has lots of scope for choice, and within gamification, when services give

users lots of options, choose your own adventure, decide where you go.

That tends, tends to activate more autonomy.

So, here we see on Fitocracy.

You get to choose your interests.

And you get to custom build what sets of challenges that you

have, based on the kinds of workouts you want to engage in.

And some of them are groups, some of them are individual.

The point is, your decisions about which path you want to take, customize the site.

So you feel like the experience is one that you are in control of.

It's not telling you.

Cardio is what matters, you get to choose that.

And then, once you make those choices, it

gives you a whole set of different potential quests.

So, it's not just that you need to engage in one type of workout.

Here's a whole bunch of different workouts, this

one's only worth ten points, this one's worth 300.

But obviously, the first one's a lot easier.

So, you get to make choices, and trade off what's more important to you.

Autonomy.

The decisions are in the control of the

player, not predetermined across the board by the game.

Finally, relatedness, here in Fitocarcy we see a very strong social element.

It's better with friends.

Recruit your friends.

Help keep each other motivated.

Here's a pop-up that you see some other people on the site.

And it'll recommend people you follow.

Here's groups, you can join together with groups that are interested

in particular kinds of workouts, who have particular kinds of questions.

The whole experience is structured very much around, you're not in this alone.

This is not just about you, sitting in

a gym, or in your basement, and lifting weights.

This is about some activity, that you engage in

with a community, it's bigger than you, that's relatedness.

So, three good examples of applying

self-determination theory, to make a gamified

site, even when using the standard

PBL elements, feel more intrinsically motivating.

If you're interested in more on

self-determination theory, two good books to recommend.

One is a book called Drive by Daniel Pink, and

this is a kind of business popularization of self-determination theory.

He recounts the history of the work by Deci and Ryan.

And then shows how this kind of approach can be applied in business, and gives

some great examples of companies, that are

using these kinds intrinsic motivators for great success.

Really well written book, if you want to.

Understand how this, these concepts apply in business.

It's not about gamification per se, but it's very

relevant to the discussions that we have in this course.

The second one is by Richard Ryan, and a co-author, Scott

Rigby and it is specifically applying self-dermination theory to video games.

It's called, Glued to Games.

And it shows some of their research on, specifically, how

video games can activate these three motivators of self-determination theory.

So, ideally, every gamification implementation,

should be based on some attempt

to engage these aspects of

intrinsic motivation, which self-determination theory outlines

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