>
>Alfie Kohn sent me a note on Friday offering to respond to any questions
>that members of the list might have on topics covered in Punished by
>Rewards. If you would just post your questions to the list, I will forward
>them to Kohn.
>
>Roxanne
Dear Mr. Kohn,
I appreciate your willingness to respond to questions. I also thank you
for your snail mail letters to me in the past. I value them greatly.
You make the following statements in Appendix B: What is Intrinsic
Motivation?:
"My point is that it is not at all obvious what is meant by the phrase
intrinsic motivation. what appears at first blush an uncomplicated idea
reveals itself as a tangle of possibilities, all of which have substantive
implications for what we counterpose to the use of rewards."
"...once our definition of IM goes beyond someone's desire to perform a
particular task, we begin to run into problems."
"...the major question is whether we understand the concept in terms of a
desire to engage in a particular task or in terms of certain qualities and
more general motivations that define human beings."
Every time we engage in dialogue on the Deming Electronic Network and now
here on the Learning Organization list, the discussion always moves from
an uncomplicated idea (desire to perform a particular task vs. "If you do
this, you'll get that") to a tangle of possibilities.
My general question:
Why did you write Appendix B? Why do we begin to run into problems when
we go beyond defining IM as someone's desire to engage in a particular
task? Why the tangle?
My specific question:
I loved your book "The Brighter Side of Human Nature." What, if any, is
the relationship between altruism and intrinsic motivation?
I appreciate your time,
Thanks,
Don Kerr
--"Kerr, Donald A" <Donald.A.Kerr@USAHQ.UnitedSpaceAlliance.com>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>