Matty Griffiths, Year 2 Sports and Exercise Science, Durham University.
The importance of people’s psychological well-being in western societies has been translated into many areas, one of these being sport. Sports psychology has proved itself to be key in maximising performance within the athletic population. One of the most important and intriguing aspects of sports psychology looks at motivation (Marheni et al, 2018) and more recently its elevated significance in mental health. This article will walk you through how motivation is categorised and later explore how it may be linked to mental health, as I think the findings have a broader application than the sporting context in which they were conceived.
How motivation is categorised
Research around Motivation by Deci and Ryan (1985) saw the emergence of the Self-determination theory (SDT), the basis for much of the academic understanding of motivation. Within SDT, Organismic Integration Theory (OIT) describes the states of motivation an individual can experience: Amotivation, Extrinsic Motivation and Intrinsic motivation.
Starting with Amotivation, this is a state where an individual simply feels unmotivated. They are no desire to engage which will mean an individual perceives themselves as incompetent and/or has the perception that any outcome from participation will yield no positive impact.
Meanwhile, extrinsic motivation has multiple layers which investigate how external entities affect an individual’s drive. Different regulatory styles explain how someone is externally motivated. An externally regulated individual would have rewards and punishments dictate their engagement in a specific exercise. Introjected regulation results in an individual’s compliance being a result of them feeling shame if they did not. Identified regulation would mean someone sees the benefit in partaking in an activity but not the activity itself. Finally, integrated regulation is when someone feels participation is part of their ethos and in line with their values. For example, someone who attends all of their academic commitments because being a ‘good student’ is something they believe in.
Intrinsic motivation, however, simply refers to the drive to do something coming from the pure form of enjoyment and inherent satisfaction that is felt by someone partaking in an activity. While this is a better predictor of long-term engagement with activities over extrinsic motivation, it has also been shown to correlate with higher burnout rates due to the intensity of application that it can lead to.
What can impact motivation?
Appreciating the complexity of motivation is vital when looking at its link with mental health (Lake and Turner, 2017), such as the quality of an individual’s motivation over its extent or. seeing that their motivation may be situational (Gillet et al, 2017). An example of this can be seen in Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development (1978). Vygotsky (1978) suggests there is an optimum level of difficulty to maximise learning: a task needs to be stimulating enough to require effort from the leaner, yet not so challenging that they do not see themselves as competent enough for it. This can occur naturally, as Vygotsky observed that parents naturally speak to their children slightly above their child’s current linguistic ability, yet not too far beyond it so that the parents can still be understood.
This links to an aspect of SDT (Deci and Ryan, 1985) called Basic Needs Theory. This theory states that there are three criteria that an individual needs to support a healthy psyche: Competence, Autonomy and Relatedness. As stated in Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development (1978), an individual must feel they can be competent at a task for them to participate effectively, which is echoed within Basic Needs Theory. Autonomy is the need for an individual to feel as they are in control of what they are doing, which can be a criticism of extrinsic motivation. Relatedness links how the individual feels a certain activity will affect them within a social context. Basic Needs Theory helps support the blend between social and physiological requirements and contextualises them when looking at motivation.
How does motivation affect mental health?
A study conducted by Sheehan et al (2018) aimed to look at the correlation between types of motivation and mental health within a sporting population. Some intriguing findings were made, for example, introjected regulation within an individual who is externally motivated resulted in a poor mood along with feelings of anxiety in those who experience extrinsic regulation. Looking at intrinsic motivation, while there was a correlation between factors such as autonomy and an increase in positive mood states, depressive states were also common.
Context when assessing mental health is vital, so taking these findings with caution is advised. However, there is a clear correlation between poor moods and feelings of anxiety for the extrinsically motivated and positive mood states for those who are intrinsically motivated. One exception is the link between depressive states and burnout in intrinsically motivated populations (Leymre et al, 2007)
Although these findings are taken from a sporting context, I feel the awareness of where our motivation comes from and how that makes us feel is key in caring for our mental health. So, as we move into exam season, I think the biggest takeaway is just to be aware of what drives you to get up for that early lecture or pull that all-nighter at the library and how that might be making you and your peers feel.
References
Deci, E.L. and Ryan, R.M., (2012). Self-determination theory.
Gillet, N., Morin, A.J. and Reeve, J., (2017). ‘Stability, change, and implications of students’ motivation profiles: A latent transition analysis.’ Contemporary Educational Psychology, 51, pp.222-239.
Lake, J. and Turner, M.S., (2017). ‘Urgent need for improved mental health care and a more collaborative model of care.’ The Permanente Journal, 21.
Lemyre, P.N., Roberts, G.C. and Stray-Gundersen, J., (2007). ‘Motivation, overtraining, and burnout: Can self-determined motivation predict overtraining and burnout in elite athletes?’ European Journal of Sport Science, 7(2), pp.115-126.
Marheni, E., Purnomo, E. and Cahyani, F.I., (2019). ‘The Role of Motivation in Increasing Achievement: Perspective Sports Psychology.’ In 2nd International Conference on Sports Sciences and Health 2018, pp. 59-62.
Sheehan, R.B., Herring, M.P. and Campbell, M.J., (2018). ‘Associations between motivation and mental health in sport: A test of the hierarchical model of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.’ Frontiers in psychology, 9, pp. 707.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). ‘Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes.’ Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
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