The book I am reading is Drive by Daniel Pink. It is non-fiction, publication date 4/5/2011. Drive is a book whose purpose is to show readers that the best form of motivation is not a material object, a prize, or any kind of reward. It is actually a feeling of satisfaction, of actually completing it that motivates us the most. An example used in the book is a puzzle. We solve puzzles, yet the majority of us do not get paid for this, nor do we usually win a prize. So why exactly is it that do it? Because of the feeling that we get once we have completed it.
The author most definitely uses logos throughout the book Pink actually begins the book by discussing how a professor of psychology stumbled across this discovery while performing an experiment on primates. Pink states that the primates enjoyed solving a certain puzzle and did it quicker when no reward was given at the end. The book itself is very intrcitley written in the fact that you can tell how passionate Pink is about the topic and how much he's actually thought about it. He uses a significant amount of metaphors to better help the reader understand what it is he is saying. Pink also tackles past beliefs on how our mind worked and showed how involved in economics it was perceived to be. Economics was thought of as "the study of human economic behavior." All throughout the 1900s and even into the early 2000s. But recently new ideas say that "we'd placed too much emphasis on the economic and not enough on the human."
The authors message seems to be that doing something solely for the purpose of getting money, or for winning some form of reward for completing a task, is not the way to get your best. Pink wants us to be aware that the best form of motivation, in his opinion, is just the mere satisfaction of getting it done.
Pink uses very formal language throughout the entire book except for his occasional metaphors. The book seems to be targeted at adults in search of a way to reach their full potential and trying to find a way in which to feel the most content and motivated. The author comes off as persuasive with the amount of facts that he incorporates into the book.
The first book I read of the summer was Flow by Mihaly. It is also a non-fiction, publication date July 1st 2008. Flow is all about how to experience an almost perfect sense of joy, whenever needed. The "whenever needed" part is the most difficult part and is what Mihaly focuses on throughout the book. He calls this sense of immense joy, flow. To describe the sensation he uses examples such as when your doing something that you enjoy very much. Whether it be a hobby such as singing, or playing an instrument. Just any moment where you feel as if the world is perfect. That, is what Mihaly describes as Flow. The problem that Mihaly addresses is that, people struggle to achieve this on a regular basis.
Mihaly uses logos very much in his book. He continuously quotes famous psychologists and even Buddha on occasion. The author somehow weaves all the quotes together to help create a better understanding of what it is he is attempting to discuss. Mihaly says that we are always told to worry about the future, to think about the future, to focus on the future. The problem here is, we don't "live in the moment." We don't enjoy ourselves now, and that is why we are not getting that Flow experience that we all so desperately crave.
The authors target audience seems to be an older age group. People not satisfied with there lives at the moment, looking for joy and happiness. Mihaly targets them by using examples involving retirement, and work and uses language and metaphors that also involve retiring and having kids.
Thursday, August 21, 2014
Summer Assignment Number 3!
The book that I am no currently reading is Drive by Daniel Pink. It basically focuses on what it is that actually "Drives" us to perform our best. The first article that I located which seems to correlate with the similar topic is called "What Motivates us to Do Great Work?" by Jocelyn K Glei. The article summed up is that just the thought of expanding our knowledge or accomplishing something new is enough to motivate us to do our best. The article refers to this as our "inner voice," it's where we decide whether we want to do something or should do something. To provide us with evidence of this, Glei uses and experiment that was conducted.
Both Drive by Daniel Pink and the article "What Motivates us to do Work?" have a common argument both saying just about the same thing. That the reward that we crave the most for completing something, isn't a material object, it's an a emotion, a feeling. It seems as if the same methods are used in the article as Daniel Pink used in his book. Logos plays a big part in both the book and the article. In the article the author Jocelyn uses an example of a college study done, to support what she says. In the book the author also uses a logos approach to support his argument, by using a study done by a well known professor Edward Deci, that portrays and supports exactly what Pink is attempting to say.
Both authors seem to have a similar idea and approach to this topic but if there were a conflict it might be that in the article, the focus and audience seems to be on workers, while in Drive, the focus seems to be anyone interested in this topic. They might argue over why it is they each chose those audiences and I would have to say that I side with Daniel Pinks way of thinking and targeting. He made it accessible to anyone who wants to become aware of what makes them try there best.
The second article I found that I thought related rather nicely with Pinks book is a article written by the Chicago Tribune titled "Are you Born to be Motivated?" by Jen Weigel. This article takes motivation and shows it in a new light. Discussing that how we are motivated might go all the way down to our genes. Along with that, the article discusses the idea of motivation by fear, and motivation by striving for a goal. The author of the article has a similar take as Pink, but they include fear as a motivator which Pink didn't mention very much in his book. Pink focuses more on the satisfaction of accomplishing something. The author uses a large amount of pathos by having a rather large quantity of quotes from well knows psychologists such as Paul White. If an argument took place between these two authors I would side with Weigel because fear as a motivation is definitely something that should be studied a little farther.
The final article that I read regarding motivation was one focused on kids, and targeted at parents and teachers. The title is "How motivation Affects Learning and Behavior " by J.E. Ormrod. This article discusses how in order for kids to learn they have to be motivated to do so,this article suggests through material objects. That is very much the opposite of what Daniel Pink states in his book. Both of their arguments are very different but I can't help but wonder if it's because Pinks is directed at adults for adults, while this article is directed at teachers/parents for children. If these two were to get in a argument I would be very interested to see how it is they would each support themselves but I would have to side with Pink, since his book has a substantial amount of evidence and support while the article was very poorly supported.
1st article- http://99u.com/articles/6943/what-motivates-us-to-do-great-work
2nd article-http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-08-14/features/ct-tribu-weigel-motivation-20120814_1_motivation-personality-social-network
3rd article- http://www.education.com/reference/article/motivation-affects-learning-behavior/
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