Introduction
What is motivation and where does it come from – what is the source, or are there multiple sources? Does our thought processes, or cognition, play an active role in motivation? Can simple or complex reinforcement strategies influence our motivation? All of these questions are answered in our everyday lives as we continue to work based on intrinsic or extrinsic motivation. There is evidence to support that motivation operates in an inherent hierarchy and when steps are skipped in this hierarchy, we can lose our motivation. There are a number of different factors that attribute to the hierarchy of motivation including particular environmental circumstances, opportunity for learning, and even personality characteristics. Therefore, is there a general hierarchy in which motivation is born, maintained, or lost, and how is our own motivation influenced by reinforcers.
What is motivation and where does it come from?
Motivation can be defined as the reason for behaving in a particular way. In terms of musical motivation, this could be the desire for music making and sharing, or even most basically – the motivation to learn. Many music-learners behave differently in ways that are influenced by several factors, and the question is: where does this motivation come from? There are several factors in which we obtain the motivation to learn including malleability, environmental factors, retention, and self-regulation.
Malleability comes from the aspects in which the personality and self-concept regulate our motivations, where “an individual’s identity of self-concept represents the way they think about themselves and their relationships with others.”[1] How does this impact motivation, or how does this create the motivation to learn? Expectations play a huge role in an individual’s behavior – especially their interpretation of different situations and previous outcomes.[2] For example, a pianist performing a solo recital can expect that the audience will remain attentive and quiet during the performance, and when they aren’t attentive or quiet, the pianist will need to adjust (malleability) in order to remain focused on what they need to do. The pianist can gather these expectations and interpret them so that they can adjust accordingly the next time they are in another situation like this. Thus, the pianist’s behaviors during the performance can change according to the environment in which they are in and can reflect on schemas of previous events moving forward.
The environment in which an individual is in can influence where their motivation comes from. This crucial aspect of the creation of motivation determines opportunities in which an engagement with a musical event happens, such as performing or composing. Teachers create an important role in motivation students and the environment in which students learn is vital in influencing the motivation to keep learning once a lesson is done. “An ideal school environment for encouraging engagement with music is one where there are plenty full performing opportunities, teachers are inspiring, and at primary level where there are opportunities for singing.”[3]
This is important because if there isn’t a safe and welcoming environment, then students cannot learn; the students also find difficulties learning if there is not enough opportunities for engagement. There are different environmental factors which can include economic, demographic, and political factors in which they have a major impact on musical engagement and opportunity. For example, the Soviet Union was notorious for the regime’s strict rules on the Socialist Realism aspect of Dmitry Shostakovich’s music. If Shostakovich were to criticize the regime’s political party in any way, he would be brutally punished for it, so he would only write music that pertained to the regime.[4] This is known as extrinsic motivation where an external force is influencing an individual’s motivation to behave in a certain way in order to earn a reward or avoid punishment, which in Shostakovich’s case, was to avoid punishment.
Extrinsic and intrinsic motivation are vital in determining the source of motivation in learning individuals and can influence our retention abilities. When engaging in music learning, there are different ways in which extrinsic and intrinsic motivation can influence our retention of what we have learned. This includes parental support, teacher-student relationship, peer involvement, financial aspects, competition versus ego, and approach success or avoid failure. These aspects continue to heavily influences our own motivation, which can sometimes have a negative affect depending on the frequency and intensity of these variables. Intrinsic motivation can be seen as the highest motivational orientation that impacts students in terms of music learning, whereas extrinsic motivation has a lessened effect.[5] This is because intrinsic motivation is a reflection on personality and development and is entirely based on what an individual finds enjoyable, versus the extrinsic motivation where reward and punishment heavily influence the behavior of an individual.[6] Students who rely on extrinsic motivation will most likely discontinue their learning whereas students who rely on intrinsic motivation will most likely to continue their learning because they enjoy it. It is much more difficult to rely on extrinsic motivation because the rewards or punishment needs to be constant in order for the behavior to continue which can cause an extinction of the behavior (practicing). Often, students who use intrinsic motivation are able to use self-regulation to unlock musical success.[7]
There are different behavioral mechanisms which can be thought of as self-regulation techniques or even learning types. The self-regulation in individuals is typically defined in terms of a cyclical process containing a feedback loop and analysis, which is obtained from prior performances. As mentioned earlier, schemas allow performers to adjust their current performance and future performances because many different types of personal, behavioral, and environmental factors are constantly changing during learning and performance. There are converging relationships between all three of these factors which allow for the strategy use and feedback loop. Considering the individual, environment, and behavior, the process of self-regulation is an integral part for the performing individual to motivate themselves to reach their goals.[8] This learning process influences our motivation to learn and continuously search in new ways of practice and efficiency by allowing the student to make concrete and necessary decisions. This can be seen through the processes of feedback loops, as music learners will begin to be able to take the given information and make cognitive decisions based on what is presented.
Does cognition play an active role in motivation?
Consider the pianist mentioned earlier, as they are performing, they must simultaneously tune out an audience that may or may not be disruptive while also focusing on the music in front of them. This cognitive process has a direct connection that can evoke pleasure and motivation: whereby pleasure comes from the beautiful music (subjectively), and the motivation comes from wanting to create the music itself. In order to create the music, the pianist must take time in the practice room to learn all of the necessary patterns, rhythms, and dynamics to perform a cohesive piece of music. Therefore, reinforcing of the cognitive processes must be at work in order for these events to take place. “The reinforcing effect of motivation is largely influenced by the ongoing interaction flow, and thus by fast processes that handle the expressive qualities on the fly.”[9] In the context of the pianist, the expression of the music that comes across can be represented with the cyclical processes of self-regulation or feedback loops. Therefore, the initial question of whether not cognition plays an active role in motivation comes up here. The answer to this question would be definitely. We can clearly see the cognitive processes happening instantly and simultaneously as the pianist performs for the audience. The pianist is constantly evaluating both the audience and the performance and making very fast decisions. In regard to the audience, if they are being distracting, then the pianist must cognitively decide whether to ignore the distractions or let the distractions take over the performance.
When performers are approached in different ways where their attention or focus might be diverted away from the music, often times the motivation suffers. In order to keep their own motivation, performers will cognitively decide whether or not to keep distractions from hindering either their own practice or performance. This cognitive decision will either be intrinsic or extrinsic motivation. For example, if a musician is practicing around other musicians, they might be able to hear what they are working on and decide whether to ignore it or to listen. Often times, if they choose to listen, the motivation to continue practicing can suffer as mentioned before. Therefore, the musician must make a cognitive decision beforehand to ignore the other musicians around them and turn away from the distraction. To do this, one must know about the different degrees of distraction and how it can hinder their own motivation.[10] The first step is to distinguish what it is that is distracting us, which can be a variety of different things such as environment, support, engagement, etc. This allows us to acknowledge what is the distraction is and use various methods to focus on what we are trying to do. The second step is to know why we choose music in the first place. This is an important part of identifying the distractions and deciding whether to pay attention or not. Based on bodily responses to music, the intrinsic motivation to learn and practice music can come from an emotional response, where communicating those emotions with an audience could become a vital aspect of the performance.
Motivation can come from a complexity of factors which can include social environments. And cognitive motivation performers can choose whether or not to communicate emotionally or intellectually with an audience. With interaction is part of motivational learning, Leonard Bernstein’s Young People’s Concerts motivated the performers through verbal and nonverbal interactions with the audience. These bonds between music and society create music-human interactions as a way of reinforcing cognitive and motivational learning.[11]
Choosing whether or not to learn and engage with music is entirely cognitive, and when considering the question of whether or not cognition plays a role in motivation, the answer would be, yes. Music performers need to make cognitive decisions very quickly and accurately to convey ideas and emotions. This can also be seen as a way of influencing motivation for performers, as music becomes a reward and temporary reinforcer of motivation.
Can reinforcement influence motivation?
Often times, we don’t think of reinforcement as a means of motivation, but we use reinforcement most of the time in order to get and stay motivated. These types of reinforcements can be traced back to the experiments conducted by psychologists Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936) and B.F. Skinner (1904-1990). These experiments explored the ideas of classical conditioning and operational conditioning and how they could be used in order to train animals and will later be used as a method of motivational learning.[12]
If we can use operant conditioning to change the behaviors of both animals and humans, why wouldn’t we use it as a motivational strategy? As it turns out, we already do. Teachers often use operant conditioning, specifically positive reinforcement, as a way to shape complex behaviors that will ultimately become habit. In operant conditioning, it’s important to understand that there needs to be a primary reinforcer which can be regarded as motivation. The primary reinforcer is motivation, the secondary reinforcer is the realization that we have become motivated, and the tertiary reinforcer is deciding what we are going to do: practice. We can use operant conditioning as a motivational strategy by learning that motivation is influenced by the desire to receive positive reinforcement. Because of operant conditioning there can be negative effects which can take place. Operant conditioning takes away the part of who people are and what makes them, them. This is because operant conditioning replaces one behavior with another behavior; we could possibly replace an expressive behavior with one that isn’t expressive.[13] Since motivation can be influenced by positive reinforcement, the relationship between reward and motivation becomes clear.
“When music is used to reduce stress after a difficult day it is being used as a stimulus for obtaining release.”[14] This is completely subjective though as the obtaining of relief depends on personal preference. In terms of stimulus, music can be used as a temporary reinforcer in other words unexpected rewards can act as surprises, triggering dopamine levels to increase. Since music can be used as a temporary reinforcer, this increases the chance of motivation influenced by reward.[15] However, different temporary reinforcers are introduced when the complexity of motivation factors increases.
Motivation to play and continue to play a musical instrument is complex. The interactions that occur between environmental and internal factors either enhance or reduce motivation. This is because there are multiple factors including musical identity, self-belief, appropriate goals and aims, and being to attribute success and failures in ways which will support ongoing motivation and having a supportive environment both at home and in the environment. Different groups who are successful have different levels of standards and therefore have different levels of fulfillment regarding motivation as opposed to those who struggle. This is because of the social environment in which they are kept this can either have a positive or negative impact on motivation and creates the perception on success versus failure. This heavily influences motivation as it either creates a pathway for success or demotivates people in music learning.[16] The causes of success and failure can influence a variety of future motivations in terms of expectancies, self-belief, and even additional effective responses. These motivations are highly complex because expectancy constructs are vital to continuing motivation; so understanding the perception of success or failure is an important part of understanding individual differences of students and their motivation.[17] Unfortunately, there are both cases concerning self-belief and self-doubt.
In terms of motivation, “those musicians who have a strong, self-belief are likely to be more motivated to persist in developing performance skills.”[18] On the other hand, self-doubt and negative self-appraisal demotivate students especially when there aren’t motives associated with social achievement. This is most apparent during the recent COVID-19 epidemic, where there were no socially occurring events. While instability unfolded so too did the motivation of classical professional musicians and their ability to cope with uncertainty, economic struggles, and work – life interplay during the pandemic. This has forced different types of influences of motivation to take place, where influence is strictly intrinsic rather than extrinsic. Before the pandemic and lockdown, extrinsic motivations played a rather large role in motivation and influenced musicians to play with one another. During the pandemic in lockdown, intrinsic motivations had to outweigh extrinsic motivations which became very difficult. This is because of certain individuals who relied heavily on extrinsic forms of motivation. Overall, self-motivation was an important factor in the different levels of malleability from performing musicians during the pandemic. Since there was no reinforcer for the motivations many musicians struggled to find the motivation to practice. Therefore, it can be concluded that reinforcement does in fact influence motivation.[19]
Conclusion
The hierarchy of motivation can be extremely complex in terms of reinforcers or intrinsic and extrinsic factors. We can continue to ask if there is a general hierarchy in which motivation is born, maintained, or lost, and how is our own motivation influenced by reinforcers. The answer to this question is yes, although it can often times be complex, as I have discussed early on. In my own experience the malleability aspects of my personality and self-concept can stem from my own environment in which I was taught music. My environment had an enormous influence on my learning ability as it was welcoming and patient. This creates a direct influence of reward from the environment which, extrinsically, motivated me to continue in music. Intrinsically, I personally enjoyed the achievement of learning new elements in music, which was far stronger than the extrinsic factors from my environment. I often had a great deal of parental support and my teacher to student relationships felt safe. I often found myself to be motivated both extrinsically and intrinsically at the same time, especially due to a recital that I have attended in the past. These reinforcers helped shape my own motivation and helped me progress further in my own music learning. The interaction, or understanding with music influenced my cognition, especially with future performances, that I continue to use as schemas.
Since I view music as a reward, I must also view it as a temporary reinforcer. This temporary reinforcement helps intrinsically motivate me and helps me think of why I chose music in the first place. This is because of my personal bodily responses to music and how it makes me feel. Motivation thus becomes a conditioned response through the influence or desire to receive positive reinforcement. Overtime, my motivation to continue with music learning has grown stronger as I continue to progress and find intrinsic and extrinsic motivators that often offer rewards.
References
Buran, A. (2010). Fazil Say and the classical music stage as informal learning space. Frankfurt
am Main: Peter Lang.
Cherry, Kendra. “Extrinsic vs. Intrinsic Motivation: What's the Difference?” Verwellmind, 23 May 2022, https://www.verywellmind.com/differences-between-extrinsic-and-intrinsic-motivation-2795384#toc-when-to-use-extrinsic-motivation.
Di Domenico, Stefano I., and Richard M. Ryan. “The Emerging Neuroscience of Intrinsic Motivation: A New Frontier in Self-Determination Research.” Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, vol. 11, 2017, https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2017.00145.
Dray, Megan M., "Motivation and Retention of Instrumental Music Students in a Suburban
School District" (2014). Multidisciplinary Studies Theses. Paper 9. https://digitalcommons.buffalostate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1013&context=multistudies_theses.
Gerstel, Jennifer. (1999). Irony, Deception, and Political Culture in the Works of Dmitri
Shostakovich. Mosaic: An Interdisciplinary Critical Journal, 32(4), 35–51. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44029848.
Green, B., & Gallwey, W. T. (1986). The inner game of music.
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motivation, and examination outcomes. Psychology of Music, 49(1), 3–20. https://doi-org.ezproxy.bgsu.edu/10.1177/0305735618816168.
Hodges, D.A. (2019). Music in the Human Experience. Routledge.
Leman, M. (2016). The expressive moment: How interaction (with music) shapes human
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López-Íñiguez G, McPherson GE and Zarza Alzugaray FJ (2022) Effects of Threat and
Motivation on Classical Musicians’ Professional Performance Practice During the COVID-19 Pandemic. Front. Psychol. 13:834666. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.834666.
McPherson, Gary, and John McCormick. The Contribution of Motivation Factors to
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[1]Hallam, S., Cross, I., & Thaut, M. (Eds.). (2018). The oxford handbook of music psychology. (p. 482), Oxford, University Press, Incorporated.
[2] Hallam, S. Cross, I., & Thaut, M. (Eds.). (2018). (p. 482).
[3] Hallam, S. Cross, I., & Thaut, M. (Eds.). (2018). (p. 485).
[4] Gerstel, Jennifer. (1999). Irony, Deception, and Political Culture in the Works of Dmitri Shostakovich. Mosaic: An Interdisciplinary Critical Journal, 32(4), 35–51. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44029848
[5] Dray, Megan M., “Motivation and Retention of Instrumental Music Students in a Suburban
[6] Cherry, Kendra., “Extrinsic vs. Intrinsic Motivation: What’s the Difference?” Verywellmind,, 23 May 2022. https://www.verywellmind.com/differences-between-extrinsic-and-intrinsic-motivation-2795384#toc-when-to-use-extrinsic-motivation.
[7] Di Domenico, Stefano I., and Richard M. Ryan. “The Emerging Neuroscience of Intrinsic Motivation: A New Frontier in Self-Determination Research.” Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, vol. 11, 2017, https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2017.00145.
[8] Mornell, A. (2012). Art in motion: II. Frankfurt am Main [Germany: Peter Lang. (p. 225-27)
[9] Leman, M. (2016). “Empowered by Music.” The expressive moment: How interaction (with music) shapes human empowerment. (p. 6-7)
[10] Green, B., & Gallwey, W.T. (1986). “The Power of Will,” The Inner Game of Music, (p. 53-76).
[11] Buran, A. (2010). Fazil Say and the classical music stage as informal learning space. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. (p. 19-22)
[12] Hodges, D.A. (2019). “The Psychology of Learning.” Music in the Human Experience. Routledge. (p. 258)
[13] Mornell, A. (2012). “Operant Conditioning as a Motivational Strategy. On Training Musicians, Athletes, and Scientists – and How We Taught Our Dogs to Sit.” Art in motion: II. Frankfurt am Main [Germany: Peter Lang. (p. 241-252).
[14] Leman, M. (2016). “Expression, Motivation, and Reward.” The expressive moment: How interaction (with music) shapes human empowerment.
[15] Leman, M. (2016).
[16] Hallam, S., Papageorgi, I., Varvarigou, M., & Creech, A. (2021). Relationships between practice, motivation, and examination outcomes. Psychology of Music, 49(1), 3–20. https://doi.org.ezproxy.bgsu.edu/10.1177/0305735618816168.
[17] McPherson, Gary, and John McCormick. The Contribution of Motivation Factors to Instrumental Performance in a Music Examination. Dec. 2000, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1321103X0001500105.
[18] Hodges, D.A. (2019). “The Psychology of Learning.” Music in the Human Experience. Routledge (p. 245).
[19] López-Íñiguez G, McPherson GE and Zarza Alzugaray FJ (2022) Effects of Threat and Motivation on Classical Musicians’ Professional Performance Practice During the COVID-19 Pandemic. Front. Psychol. 13:834666. Doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.834666.
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