What motivates you in daily life? Reward or fear of penalty?

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(1) What motivates you in daily life?

(2)

Are you in general more motivated by

fear of punishment (losing/stop doing something you find valuable you already have/are doing = the "stick")

or

joy of reward (gaining/start doing something you find valuable you don't already have/are doing = the "carrot")?






For me it will be:

(1)
- fear of losing money, job, apartment, loved-ones, relatives, etc.
- rewards in the same categories, but not as motivating as the fear.

Losing 10$ you've had seems much worse to me than gaining 10$ you've never had.

(2) fear of punishment

1.) Fear of losing my current lifestyle/sense of security - house, partner, friends
and ending up alone or living in a bad area, among horrible people

Wanting to do enjoyable things - going online, reading, watching films, eating nice food

Wanting a sense of achievement from getting challenging tasks done or supporting other people

2.) I'm more motivated by fear of bad things happening than joy of the reward as I am a naturally cautious, fearful person, always
aware of the fact that things could go wrong at any time so I don't take risks if I can help it

I prefer a relatively boring, secure life to a risky more exciting one as I know I don't have the mental resources to cope
with a lot of uncertainty and unpredictability. The need to keep myself safe in a dangerous world takes precedence over
most things.

For me I think it's reward... I have executive function problems so it's difficult for me to think of long term ramifications. I need to know something is tangible in the moment to have an incentive.

Fear of punishment. I have to keep going, or I'll lose my job, my apartment, my now small savings, etc. Then my parents will be disappointed, and I may have nowhere to turn for help.

The way I'm now operating is to try to stave off disaster.

Actually I need to add one:

Fairness - I'm motivated by things not being fair, because I want them to be, so I'll attempt to change what I think is unfair into being fair. I suppose this could be added to both categories, depending on how one looks at it. But it's probably mostly a punishment when things are not fair.

Mostly my interest. Sometimes fear as well.



Tough to say. I'm pretty motivated by both.

I guess I'm more often motivated by reward, simply because I arrange my life to avoid situations where I'll be motivated by fear. But when I was attending elementary school, fear was definitely my biggest motivator. (Which often resulted in problematic behavior, such as running away from school and wandering around town trying to find somewhere I could be safe. Or getting into a physical fight with the principal when he tried to stop me running away.)

Incidentally, if you find you're more often motivated by fear of punishment than by joy of reward, I think that says more about the life you're leading than who you are inside.

Punishment quite simply does not work on me. If I feel forced to do anything, all the cornered-animal memories from childhood come rushing back, and I fight. Even when I was a child, punishment didn't work for me. If I wanted to do something, I did it. I followed rules not because I was afraid of punishment but because I liked the orderly nature of rules themselves.

Reward doesn't work very well, either. If you reward me for something, I immediately start to lose interest in the task. Ask me to focus on grades, and learning becomes dull. Ask me to focus on being paid, and work becomes a chore. Unless I do things for their own sake, rewards are actually a deterrent. That doesn't mean I won't work or study; in fact, I'm often an excellent employee because I take it on myself to optimize the performance of work-related tasks, to design new ways to do things. Unfortunately my autism makes it hard to work, but when I can work, I'm usually a decent worker, with average speed and superior accuracy. And I study on my own, without needing to, just because I enjoy learning.

I don't do things unless they are intrinsically rewarding. If I clean a bathroom, it's because I take pride in being the best darn janitor in the crew. If I memorize a formula, it's because I want to find out exactly how that formula works and why it's the best choice for this or that situation.

I absolutely cannot do anything unless it is intrinsically worthwhile. It doesn't have to be intrinsically pleasant, but it does have to be worthwhile.

Actually, when I come to think of it, I think one of my greatest natural intrinsic motivational factors is analyzing.

Why was I motivated to start this thread? Because I find it interesting in itself to understand how things work, so I asked all of you what motivates you to gain some insight. It really is interesting. Analyzing things seems to reward me intrinsically.

I am motivated by both positive and negative reinforcement. I try to avoid this dichotomy as much as possible though.

Neither of those things reward me. Music rewards me in my daily life.

But in that sense your motivation for finding music to hear is the reward from hearing it. You are willing to do the (potentially time-consuming/"hard") job of finding the music to gain the "carrot" = the music.

A job I'm very willing to do too

I am willing to do that. I was more focused on the job/paying my bills aspect.

Hi beneficii,

You are right, I was more considering motivation is the very broad sense: what motivates humans to do all the things they do? From work, to hearing music, to preparing food, to walking the dog...

I'd say neither. The former doesn't motivate me at all. It just makes me come apart at the seems and feel suicidal. The latter is hard to find because depression makes the little rewards harder to appreciate and the big rewards are just too far off and/or require so many intermediate steps that I have trouble knowing how to start. I know something has to change soon though or I wall go completely nuts.

Right now, it's fear. I fear losing control. I fear being manipulated/taken advantage of by others. I fear losing the relative safety/security I have.

These motivations change, sometimes by the minute.

Yeah, I agree; that is intrinsically rewarding for me too. I remember in psych class we learned about these experiments done with rats, who were rewarded not with food or anything else, but with a new object to investigate. Just curiosity was enough of a motivator to get them running their mazes very efficiently.