Video games and motivation

571 Words2 Pages

The conversations heard in an early morning restaurant that is open for twenty-fours a day, the strangest conversations could be heard. A young musicians who played in the same club the previous night’s starts a conversation her friend about not having a television set at home and follows up by the fact that because there is no television set, than her kids do not play video games. In this crowd, the lack of a television is not surprising in a household. The friend, obviously awake from the previous night, responds, “Yeah, I didn’t have a TV set or video games, but instead of teaching my kid that these things were not important or needed, I instead taught him to work around what I wanted and go to his friend’s house to watch TV and play video games”. The idea that motivation is extrinsic is what many parents would expect and desire of their children. In addition, while that may indeed be the case, the extrinsic motivation may not be the source they desire. In addition, it could be argued that to be intrinsically motivated it is the true desire of what the parents want for their children
Reeve states that intrinsic motivation “is a natural motivation that emerges spontaneously out of people’s psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness” (Reeve, 2009, p.112). It is the desire to take an action or a behavior that meets the person’s internal needs and desires to be more complete in what that person desires to be. In contrast to intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation “arises from some consequence that is separate from the activity itself” (Reeve, 2009, p.113). Therefore, with intrinsic motivation there is not external source that is driving the completion of an activity. In the example of video games and...

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...ng activities in their presence and receiving praise as reward, while the same time, playing the video game at a friend’s house to meet the intrinsic motivation and self-determination they desire, and that, also may be what is really desired by the parents.

Works Cited

Delfabbro, P., & King, D. (2009). Motivational differences in problem video game play.
Journal of CyberTherapy and Rehabilitation, 2(2), 139+.
Retrieved from http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA225437134&v=2.1&u=lom_ falconbaker&it=r&p=CDB&sw=w&asid=68d019a0fd83766b2449101c85f98afd
Gillet, N., Vallerand, R. J., & Lafrenière, M. K. (0). Intrinsic and extrinsic school motivation as a function of age: the mediating role of autonomy support.
Social Psychology of Education. doi:10.1007/s11218-011-9170-2
Reeve, J. (2009). Understanding motivation and emotion.
Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

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