Motivation 101

My mother is a very successful cancer scientist. She was born in Iran and immigrated to the US when she was 18 to go to an Ivy League school. Her sister, born with 50% of the same genes, grew up in the same environment, older, yet never did much with her career. Why did these two women have such different priorities regarding their achievement when it came to work? Clearly, individual differences played a part, but what else comes into play to motivate a person to achieve?

We see these kinds of differences all of the time, in the classroom, on the playing field, at work. We see children who will work hard at a goal and continue in the face of failure while others give up at the first sign of difficulty. The children who are persistent often are the adults who succeed. What kinds of variables and practices come into play that motivate a child to work hard to achieve their goals? Psychology has examined this question and although there is no clear cut answer, many plausible theories have been proffered. In the next few blogs, I will discuss some of these theories. I have been trying some of the methods on my own children, sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t, but usually through some combination of what I’ve learned, I’ve been able to motivate my children to work towards their goals.

As I said there is no easy formula and answer, but I hope what I’ve learned may be useful for parents. And you never know when you might need your own kick in the pants!

All the Worlds A Stage

Peggy Orenstein’s recent NY Times Magazine piece on Twittering brings to the forefront many of the issues that psychologists at the CDMC@LA are concerned about. Due to the myriad of self-presentation tools that digital media such as YouTube, twittering and social networking sites provide, people are often hyper aware of their audience. How will this kind of thinking affect children, or the digital natives, as they grow up in a world where they can so easily access a community well beyond their immediate face-to-face network?

In the past, children primarily interacted with friends on the schoolyard, family and neighbors. Now, they can present themselves to hundreds, sometimes several hundred, of “friends” in the click of a mouse, thus at times performing for a virtual audience, waiting for the virtual applause of comments or “likes”. This is a concern not only because children are still learning social skills and developing impulse control and may not always think before they click, but also because, as Orenstein’s article points out, they may end up being focused on how they are presenting themselves, rather than on just enjoying themselves.

Lest one thinks that I am a naysayer about media, know that I check my email compulsively, post on my blog and Facebook, own an Iphone and Kindle and love, love love my DVR. In my opinion, digital media are wonderful tools and have brought the world much more than they have taken away. But I do believe science MUST examine all sides of the question. And children should be taught how to effectively use these tools. It’s an exciting time in the world and media have brought the possibility for real change, let’s hope that in the end… it’s mainly positive.

Leav