Why Some People are More Motivated than Others

An Experiment

In 1998, Psychologists Claudia M. Mueller and Carol S. Dweck from Columbia University conducted a study on more than 400 students from the fifth grade. 

They made two groups of children and gave them a series of puzzles to solve. In the beginning, they gave them easy puzzles where almost all the children performed well. They then congratulated the children in group A, telling them that they performed well because they were smart and gifted. 

They also congratulated the children in group B, but this time told them that the reason for their good performance was that they put in a lot of effort and hard work. 

After telling the children this, they gave them another series of tests: puzzles that were more difficult than the first time. 

What they noticed was that the children in Group A got discouraged easily. After trying for some time, they gave up solving the puzzles. When asked about their experience, they said they didn’t enjoy solving the puzzles much.

The children in Group B spent more time trying to solve these difficult puzzles. These children also said that they had fun doing the exercise! They had higher levels of motivation and self-satisfaction even when faced with a challenge.  

Since the puzzles were difficult this time, the children in both groups were told the truth that they failed in some of the puzzles and then asked why. 

The children in Group A thought that the reason for their failure was that they just weren’t smart enough. They felt disheartened and were found to be performance-oriented. A few failures and set-backs were enough to make them question their abilities and lose hope. 

On the other hand, the children in Group B felt the reason for their failure was that they didn’t try hard enough. They were determined to try again and use a different approach or method to solve the puzzles. These children were process-oriented and didn’t seem to care too much about whether they succeeded or failed, and gave more value to the entire learning experience. 

What We Can Learn from It

The children in Group A had such low levels of motivation and self-belief because they thought they couldn’t control the situation. They thought they succeeded in the first puzzle because of being born with brains, but also failed in the second puzzle due to those brains not being good enough. 

Telling someone that they’re talented or gifted may sound like a compliment, but it is really saying that the person was just born with it, instead of giving them credit for their efforts! 

Since the Group A kids weren’t given true credit in the first experiment, they thought they had no control over their intelligence. Research also indicates that when children are constantly told that they’re gifted, they’re more concerned with justifying that label: “Am I really gifted and as smart as they say I am? If it’s true, why did I fail the test? Maybe I’m not smart.” They begin to doubt themselves. 

How does this apply to adults?

When we stop giving ourselves real credit for our achievements, it backfires and makes us much less motivated to accomplish more things in the future.

If you did really well on a presentation last week and told yourself, “I really did get lucky! It was an easy topic.”, then the moment you’re struggling with the next presentation, you’ll think that the only thing that’s changed is that this time your luck has run out! 

On the other hand, if you recognized your own efforts: “I stayed up all night last night and worked really hard on this presentation. I’m so glad I did well.” Then next time you’re struggling, you’re going to remind yourself that hard work pays off well (just like it did last week!). 

This is why the levels of motivation are higher in people who take credit for both their successes and their failures. Thinking that you succeeded because of forces beyond your control will give you a handy excuse for whenever failure comes around. 

Just like the kids in Group A and Group B, successes and failures happen to all of us. We have easy challenges and then more tricky ones. The point is not how well you perform, but how much you enjoy a challenge, and how motivated you remain throughout the learning process. 

So next time you succeed: take credit. And when you fail, do the same thing! You’ll be more motivated to keep trying, and have fun doing it.