Gary文集 | 以猴为镜领悟动力-国际教育网

Gary文集 | 以猴为镜领悟动力

威睿达思

2021-10-13

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以猴为镜领悟动力

学习、进步，有内在驱动力吗？

如果有，那么为什么我们能获得激励？

关于动机，猴子对人有何指导？

在“如何激励人表现出色，

获得根本满意”方面，

有没有可能大多数的教学机构和公司

都有或多或少的错误表现？

美国威斯康星大学实验

1949年，美国威斯康星大学麦迪逊分校的一个心理学实验室里（彼时家父恰好在周边一栋大厦中研究物理学），一位名叫哈洛的心理学家就学习问题展开一项长达两礼拜的实验工作。他和共事伙伴用八只恒河猴来研究“问题解决”，最终对动机认识颇有突破。多数研究者认为，实验的发现也许可以改变地球，可惜未能如愿。

实验前，学界以为激励动作的，要么是原始的生物内驱力（如：无饱腹感满足的诉求），要么是外在方面（如：奖，惩），哈洛却发掘了激励猴子的第三种原始驱动力。

猴子实验

一

在这次实验中，将一种解谜玩具安放于笼子里，窥探它们会做何行为，并使它们为两星期后的“问题解决”实验做打算。刚放进去，就发生了奇怪的事情：没有任何外在指使，猴子们就开始专注、认真，好像是欣喜地玩这些“谜”具，很快就解开了这个三步之谜，而且越解越快。这太惊奇了——既没人教，也没奖赏！这个结果与我们先前对“灵长类动物如何行为”的认识相冲突！

二

众所周知，给实验对象某种犒赏（如：给小孩糖果，给成人涨薪）会使其更加积极。上述实验所发现的驱动力，有没有可能比前述那两类驱动力更强烈呢？哈洛以相同的谜具，加上葡萄干作为犒赏再测一次，结果猴子犯错加剧，技不如前。哈洛表示，葡萄干事实上打搅了猴子的表现。我们本以为，前两种原始驱力是影响学习的主要原因，而实际上，第三种驱力更为强劲。

三

为此，哈洛发出告诫：对人的行为，我们欠缺科学认知；要想真正领悟，必然探究第三种驱动力——“内在动机”。可惜，他并未以这种新颖的认识挑战老套的成见，而是完结了这项颇具争议的研究（随后使其出名的，是他对情感的研究）。直到20年后，才由美国心理学家德西拿出学术胆量，积极摸索，将哈洛的发现推向新的维度。

动机与人的行为

1969-71年，德西进行了为期七十二小时、包括若干阶段的“动机与人的行为”实验。此番实验以人为对象，安排实验组和对照组都玩一种叫Soma的积木游戏（这种游戏如今在心理学界颇为有名）。实验简要如下：起初，实验组以奖金为玩得好的外在激励，实验对象的动机出现某种程度的短期巩固，进而更努力地拼积木。紧接着，实验组撤掉金钱激励，实验对象就失去了解决问题的“内在兴趣”，其表现和兴趣变得落后于一直未用金钱激励的对照组。这一发现与哈洛的猴子实验一样，也出乎意料。有意思的是，这些发现不但与当今多数人的想法相冲突，而且更重要的是，与目前学校和职场的激励机制相矛盾。

毫无疑问，在激励方面，工商界和教育界的做法与科学认知不一致。指望外在因素来激励人，是时候停止这种做法了。我们应唤醒那种在历史长河的很长时期中一直激励人类的法宝——对学习、探索、创造和成长的那份发自内心的热爱。让我们使孩童摆脱分数和成绩的束缚，使成人脱离“胡萝卜 + 大棒”的桎梏。读罢本文的你，不妨走到窗前或找块空地来理清思路。来几次深呼吸，提醒自己：我有这样的自由——独立思考，找到学习、工作和生活的内在动力！这种自由就在你、我的内心深处，埋得越深，将其释放出来的喜悦就越加强烈。

在Veritas，我们认可分数的价值，以及奖励成就和进步的激励措施，但我们更强调培养学生的能动性和内部动机，以实现可持续的成功和幸福。

由于人是通过激发对学习的内在好奇心而被激励的，因此作为教育工作者，我们需要找到学生对学科和活动方面感兴趣的地方。学生对具有个人意义的学习或涉及他们感兴趣的问题的学习反应是最佳的。

这也是为什么——正如我在之前关于“深度学习”的文章中所讨论的——我们让学生参与公民意识、品格、协作、沟通、创造力和批判性思维的六项全球能力中。当教学和学习活动集中在这些维度内时(特别是创造力和批判性思维，就像在猴子身上证明的那样)，内在动机自然会被激发。

我们无法创建满足每个学生个人需求的课程，但我们可以在学校中创建符合他们总体兴趣的选择和条件。然后，当这种自然好奇心的在有效的组织和有足够的学习课程可供选择，而形成良性循环时，学习就独立于外在的奖励或惩罚。学生学习是因为他们天生就享受这个过程，并且日益成为他们教育和成长的推动者。

真正的回报是内在的和无价的，通常会通向成功的职业生涯和对社会的价值：一个学生从寻求精通一种乐器或艺术领域中找到巨大的满足感，然后成为该领域的专业人士；将对电子游戏和设计的热爱转化为成功的程序员；将自己的个人挑战转化为成功心理学家的学生；因有讲故事和影响他人的能力而成为企业家或社区领袖的学生。

他们“成为”什么当然不是重点。更重要的是，如何在学会学习和学习生活的旅程中享受并茁壮成长。

What a Monkey

can teach us

Why are we motivated?

Is there some driving force in us that brings us to learn and grow?

What can monkeys tell us about motivation?

Is it possible that most of our learning institutions and companies around the world are completely off-track about how to motivate people towards peak performance and deep satisfaction?

University of Wisconsin experiment

At a psychology lab at the University of Wisconsin, Madison in 1949 (coincidentally while my father was studying physics in a nearby building), scientist named Harlow began conducting a two-week experiment on learning. He and his colleagues worked with eight rhesus monkeys to study problem-solving and ended making a breakthrough in understanding motivation. Many scientists believe the findings of this experiment should have changed the world. Sadly, it did not.

Previously it was thought that it was either primary biological drives (such as hunger, thirst and the need for sexual gratification and intimacy) or external factors (such as rewards or punishment) which motivated behavior. Harlow discovered a third drive which which was primarily motivating the monkeys.

Monkey experiment

One

Harlow’s experimenters placed puzzles in the monkeys cages to observe how they reacted and prepare them for problem-solving tests at the end of two weeks. But right away, something strange happened. Unprompted by anything, the monkeys began playing with the puzzles, with focus, determination and what seemed like enjoyment. They soon figured out how to solve the three-step puzzle, with increasing speed. How odd. Nobody had taught them or rewarded them. This ran counter to accepted notions of how primates--including bigger-brained, less furry ones like you and me--behaved!

Two

We typically assume that if you offer some reward (such as sweet treat for a child or pay raise for adult), the subject will work harder. Was it possible that this newly discovered motivating force was stronger than the other two? Harlow then re-tested the monkeys with the same puzzles but offering raisins as rewards. With this approach the monkeys actually made more errors and performed worse than before. Harlow stated that the raisins were in fact disrupting their performance. Indeed this third motivating force was more powerful in influencing learning than the primary two drives we presumed to be dominant.

Three

Harlow sounded the alarm that our scientific thinking was lacking, and to truly understand human behavior we had to consider this third drive, which he called “intrinsic motivation”. However, rather than challenge the establishment with this startling insight, Harlow abandoned this contentious research and and later became famous for his research on affection. It would be twenty years before another scientist by the name of Deci dared to take this finding to another level understanding.

Motivation and human behavior

This time in 1969-71 the experiment regarding motivation and human behavior was conducted on humans. Edward Deci divided the participants in to an experimental group A and a control group B. Through a series of sessions over three days, Deci had the groups solve the now well-known Soma puzzles. In short, when money was used as an external reward with group A, the subjects would exhibit some short-term increase in motivation and work harder; however, at a later session without financial incentive, the originally paid group A would lose their “intrinsic interest” in problem solving, and perform less well, with less interest than the never-paid group B. This finding (like Harlow’s monkeys) ran counter to what we expected. Most interestingly, these findings run counter to what most people think today, and importantly, counter to how we design our schools and work places.

We know clearly that there is a mismatch between what science knows and what we do in business and education. It’s time we stop looking to external factors to motivate people. It’s time we reawaken the intrinsic love of learning, exploring, creating and growing that motivated mankind for much of history. Let’s free our children from the yokes of points and scores, and adults from the prison of carrots and sticks. When you finish reading this, perhaps you can walk to the window or find an open space to clear your mind. Breathe in and remind yourself of your freedom to think on your own and find your intrinsic motivation to study, to work, to live! It’s there inside you. The deeper it may be buried the greater your joy when it is released.

And while at Veritas we recognize the value of grades and incentives to reward accomplishment and progress, we put more emphasis on cultivating student agency and internal motivation for sustainable success and happiness.

Since people are motivated by engaging their inherent curiosity for learning, as educators we need to find what interests students in terms of subjects and activities. Students respond best to learning which has personal meaning for them or touches on issues they have interest in.

This is also why—as I discussed in my article on Deep Learning—we engage students in the six global competencies of citizenship, character, collaboration, communication, creative thinking and critical thinking. When instruction and learning activities are focused within these dimensions (particularly creative and critical thinking as evidenced with the monkeys), intrinsic motivation is naturally stimulated.

We cannot create a curriculum that caters to every students’ individual needs, but we can create options and conditions in a school which matches up with their general interests. Then, when this ecology of natural curiosity is fully engaged within appropriate structure and sufficient options for courses of study, learning is independent of extrinsic rewards or punishments. Students learn because they enjoy the process inherently, and increasingly become agents of their education and growth.

The real rewards are internal and priceless, often leading to successful careers and value to society: A student who finds immense satisfaction from seeking mastery with a musical instrument or field of art, and later becomes a professional in their field; a student who channels their love of video games and design into becoming a programmer; a student who transforms their own personal challenges into becoming a successful psychologist; a student who because of ability to tell stories and influence others who becomes an entrepreneur or community leader.

What they “become” of course is not the point. It is more a question of how to enjoy and thrive in this journey of learning to learn, and learning to live.