Motivation+vs+Efficiency

__** Title: **__ Does motivation affect efficiency?

__ Abstract: __ We found five subjects to have take five different tests, one control test, and the other four with one of the following forms of motivation: Fear, encouragement, social, and bribery. We tested them with five ten question long tests, and found positive external (Bribery) to work best on the subjects.

__** Purpose: **__ We want to see if certain types of motivation will impact how well a person can complete a task. As the page "6 Types of Motivation Explained" states: "Motivation is generally defined as the force that compels us to action." ("6 Types of Motivation Explained, 2012). Or in literal terms, the desire to do things. ("Motivation", 2013). We want to see if the different forms of motivation have different effects on people, and whether or not they're more efficient. There are two general forms of motivation: extrinsic and intrinsic. Extrinsic is a form of motivation in which the stimuli comes from the outside, while intrinsic motivation comes from the inside ("Types of Motivation", 2012). From those two forms of motivation, there are other, smaller branches that can help to encourage someone. We will be using multiple of those branches to see which form of motivation is best. Along with that, we understand that different types of people are more easily motivated by one form of motivation than others (Browning, 2012). Some say that negative forms of motivation can have negative effects on people, and we have some what adopted that theory, and believe that positive forms of motivation will work better. ( "The Surprising Science of Motivation.", 2013) But, we still understand that both forms (positive and negative) work and that both need to be tested. (Adams, 2003) In this test, we hope to see which form of motivation is the most well-rounded, and effects the most individuals (in a positive way) .

We will use generic forms of motivation to help our test subjects complete the tests. We will use: Fear (Saying something bad will happen [Physical harm, BUT it will NOT be done to them, only a threat for the purpose of science] if they don't do the task correct), Social (Assuring them that we will think they are a complete idiot if they don't pass the test), and so on. The benefit of this sort of test is monumental in human psychology and the twisting of a person's mind towards a certain end. Just think of the advantages of knowing, based on a person's initial responses to things, what can be done (particularly in a cheap and effective way) to sway, or motivate, that person. This can help with getting to talk to a psychologist's patient, for example.

Summarized, we will have subjects take five different tests with four different motivators, and one control test.

__** Hypothesis: **__ If we give several people several different types of motivation, we will find that an extrinsic positive form of motivation will be the best suited for more people.


 * __ Materials: __**
 * Five Different Tests
 * Pencil/s
 * Test Result Log
 * Test Answers
 * Five Test Subjects


 * __ Procedure: __**


 * (Note:** The forms of motivation: Fear (Explained above. Negative external.), Bribery (Self-explanatory. Positive external) , Achievement (That this would make themselves a much better person, etc. Positive internal), and Social (If they fail, they look horrible to others. Negative internal) How exactly you motivate them will vary with subject.

1. Get five variations of a test, one for each form of motivation and one for the control. (Tests should be roughly the same difficulty) 2. Give each subject one of the tests, and have all subjects take their respective test. These are the control tests. 3. Document the number of correct answers. 4. Give the subject another one of the tests. Give him or her a form of motivation from the list of types of motivation above. 5. Record the number of correct answers. 6. Have the same subject take a different test, with a different form of motivation. 7. Record how many answers he or she got correct. 8. Repeat steps 6-7 until all forms of motivation have been used. 9. With another subject, repeat steps 4-7. 10. Put data into a table.


 * __ Data: __**


 * || Fear Test || Bribery Test || Achievement Test || Social Test || Control Test ||
 * Subject 1 || 6/10 || 8/10 || 5/10 || 3/10 || 5/10 ||
 * Subject 2 || 5/10 || 7/10 || 6/10 || 5/10 || 6/10 ||
 * Subject 3 || 7/10 || 10/10 || 6/10 || 4/10 || 5/10 ||
 * Subject 4 || 7/10 || 9/10 || 4/10 || 3/10 || 8/10 ||
 * Subject 5 || 5/10 || 7/10 || 7/10 || 3/10 || 4/10 ||
 * Effective? || No || Yes || Somewhat || No || Somewhat ||
 * Ranking: || 4 || 1 || 3 || 5 || 2 ||

(Note: The graph maker we use goes as high as it can with the axis numbers. This test was out of ten points, not twelve as the Y-Axis says)

__ Analysis: __ Note: Our data could have been very corrupted regarding this experiment. This analysis is acting as if the data is not corrupt and is true.

From our experiment , we can determine that a positive  external form of motivation works best for motivation; in our test, this form was bribery. We also see that the negative internal form of motivation had the least results As I look at this data, I begin to wonder, or wonder further I should say, about how the human mind works. If we can assure that our results are accurate, which they may not be, we can see that most people prefer matter over mind, and would prefer a piece of candy over a threat (never actually done) or insults and being known from then on as a moron. Matter over mind? I would think that our subjects being teenagers that they would care much more about what someone thinks about them than a small piece of candy, and I wonder why the test results are the way they are. The group of people chosen? Have they stopped caring what others think (low chance of that)? What made them go for the candy? I hypothesized this would happen, and I believe it did because people have come to care for matter over mind. Whether there was a conscious (or unconscious) realization during or before the tests were taken, whether the subjects decided that they needed the candy and nothing else, was and is unknown to us.

However, we have reason to suspect that the motivational influence of a sweet is very high in some individuals. While the negative motivation involving social status can be motivating (of course), some forms of it may not always be a problem. For example, around a person's friends, or people they care little for, a person generally won't mind their actions as much as they would around a teacher or love interest, someone they want to impress. However, a candy is ever- prevalent , leading into an area known as " //temptation// ."

Looking into the other two forms, being fear and achievement, I honestly thought that fear would yield better results. Last time I checked, people were afraid of being punched (our threat, yet again, not done and only threatened for the sake of the experiment), but yet they did not seem to react to the threat at all. Why not? Were they not scared (the most likely answer), or is this generation just too stupid to realize that a punch means pain? I felt as though that would have had the second best results, but yet it had second to last. Shouldn't they fear physical harm? I feel as most likely they didn't feel threatened, but if they actually were, what stopped the motivator from working? That is something I don't understand.

Achievement, on the other hand, managed to have the third best results, which I find oddest of all. The subjects don't care how others view them negatively <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.5;">, but care when they do positively? That fact almost sickens me, that they don't care if it's bad, but would like to soak in all the glory of positive things. I would think that the results for social and achievement would be around the same, the subjects wanting to be viewed highly equally as they wanted to not be viewed as an idiot. But they don't think that way. Why not? Are they really so arrogant and vain that they choose to ignore the negatives and only take in positives? May I make the comparison of the Vain Man in //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.5;">The Little Prince //<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Times,serif;"> to how the results portray the subjects (If you have never read the book, the Vain Man is a man who only hears comments about himself and ignores all negative comments). It may be something that the subjects have developed over time for their own good, factoring out the things that will make them possibly worry and stress? I assume that they might not have cared, and that would be why the results are as they are.

__ Conclusion: __<span style="font-family: Times New Roman,Times,serif;"> We have found that a positive external form of motivation yielded the best results, <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.5;">proving our hypothesis of a positive external force being the best form of motivation. The form of motivation that gave the lower results was the negative internal, proving further that our hypothesis of positive external motivation being the most well rounded form to be true; I say this because this test is literally the opposite of my predicted results (Negative being opposite of positive and internal opposite of external), and if this test scores the lowest, a certain form of logic prevails in saying that the opposite of the test should yield the highest results, which it did.

__ Limitations: __ In the tests, we could have had several things gone wrong. First off, the tests could have been more difficult to one person than another, ruining our data. If one person simply couldn't answer the problem, not even motivation could have changed that. For example, if I asked you an easy way to stop a yawn and you had no idea even remotely about the subject, and no option of answers were given, could you answer it? My guess would be no. To fix this, we could possibly have found or made a test that was perfectly passable by every subject taking it.

Another thing that could have gone wrong is the simplest thing: They could have not cared for the forms of motivation at all. If they didn't care, even about the test in general, they would have just wrote down some answers and called it good. If that happened, an entire set of data would be corrupted. And what if (at least for the internal ones) they didn't care about what I thought? The internal ones were directed mostly at me (saying that I would think of them that way), and what if they didn't care what I had to think? Someone not caring could have literally ruined our experiment. To stop this, we could choose subjects that reflect their care in classes ( paying attention, taking notes, etc. ) and choosing those students to do the test, hoping that they would care about our test.

One other thing is that, what if the tests that had the higher scores were just easier in general? What if that's the only reason why they scored highest? And what about the reverse, the lower scoring tests being lower because they were too difficult? We attempted to make the most well rounded test we could, using thing we could only hope people understood, but that could have gone wrong. In order to fix this, we could simply make a more well rounded test than the five we have, making the difficulty the same for all.

Based off our data, our new hypothesis is: If we motivate someone with bribery, then they have a higher chance of doing the task we asked for them.

Nobody was harmed in the making of this ISP.


 * __ Bibliography: __**

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;">Adams, Amanda. "Applying the Science of Motivation." Applying the Science of Motivation. IDEA Health & Fitness <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;"> Association, Mar. 2003. Web. 21 Feb. 2013. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%;"> <http://www.ideafit.com/fitness-library/applying-the-science-of-motivation-0>.

Browning, Geil. "10 Ways to Motivate Anyone." Inc.com. Mansueto Ventures LLC., 8 May 2012. Web. 27 Nov. 2012. <http://www.inc.com/geil-browning/ten-ways-to-motivate-anyone.html>.

"Motivation." Psychology Today. Sussex Publishers, LLC, n.d. Web. 21 Feb. 2013. <http://www.psychologytoday.com/basics/motivation>.

"The Surprising Science of Motivation." //Keen Talks RSS//. Keen Talks, n.d. Web. 21 Feb. 2013. <http://keentalks.com/surprising-science-motivation/>.

"Types of Motivation." Leadership-Central.com. Leadership-Central, n.d. Web. 27 Nov. 2012. <http://www.leadership-central.com/types-of-motivation.html>.

"6 Types of Motivation Explained." Lifehack RSS. Lifehack, n.d. Web. 27 Nov. 2012. <http://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/6-types-of-motivation-explained.html>.