Personal interests don't have to arise "naturally" but are often triggered by
external events
In recent years researchers have begun to build a science of interest,
investigating what interest is, how interest develops, what makes things
interesting, and how we can cultivate interest in ourselves and others. Interest
has the power to transform struggling performers, and to lift high achievers to
a new plane.
Interest is a psychological state of engagement, experienced in the moment,
and also a predisposition to engage repeatedly with particular ideas, events or
objects over time. Paul Silvia of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro speculates that interest
acts as an “approach urge” that pushes back against the “avoid urges” that would
keep us in the realm of the safe and familiar. Interest pulls us toward the new,
the edgy, the exotic. As Silvia puts it, interest
“diversifies experience.” But interest also focuses experience. In a
world too full of information, interests usefully narrow our choices: they lead
us to pay attention to this and not to that.
Interest is a powerful motivator. In fact, scientists have shown that
passionate interests can even allow people to overcome academic difficulties or
perceptual disabilities. One study found that students
who scored poorly on achievement tests but had well-developed interests in
reading or mathematics were more likely to engage with the meaning of textual
passages or math problems than were peers with high scores but no such
interests. Another study, of prominent
academics and Nobel laureates who struggled with dyslexia, found that they were
able to persist in their efforts to read because they were motivated to explore
an early and ardent interest.
Does interest have to arise naturally in children? Some educators have
questions or qualms about meddling in what they feel should be a natural,
organic and student-led process. But it is possible to elicit interest that
didn’t exist before. As researcher Suzanne Hidi notes, “Teachers often think
that students either have, or do not have, interest, and might not recognize
that they could make a significant contribution to the development of students’
academic interest.”
In fact, research suggests that well-developed personal interests always
begin with an external “trigger” — seeing a play, reading a book, hearing
someone talk — and that well-designed environments can make such a triggering
more likely.
(MORE: The Key to Smarter Kids: Talk to
Them)
Some argue that students’ interests should emerge organically and
authentically from their own investigations of the world. The educational
philosopher John Dewey warned teachers against artificially
“making things interesting,” and a long line of research has shown that
providing “extrinsic,” or external, rewards for an activity can undermine
students’ “intrinsic,” or internal, motivation to engage in that activity.
But research also shows that, done carefully, the deliberate elicitation of
interest has many positive effects, and does not produce the negative results
that educators may fear. Especially for academically unmotivated students, it’s
imperative that the adults in their lives create environments that allow them to
find and develop their interests. And parents and educators can promote the
development of kids’ interests by demonstrating their own passion for particular
subjects. A study of 257 professional
musicians, for example, found that the most important characteristics of the
musicians’ first teachers (and, of course, parents are often kids’ first
teachers) was the ability to communicate well — to be friendly, chatty and
encouraging — and the ability to pass on their own love of music, through
modeling and playing well.
(MORE: Overpracticing Makes
Perfect)
Two more thoughts on intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation: although research
has convincingly established the value of intrinsic interest, in the real world
most of us are driven by a combination of intrinsic and extrinsic
motivation. High-achieving students learn for learning’s sake, but also to get
A’s; successful businesspeople are driven to create useful products or
productive organizations, but also to enjoy financial rewards. There’s nothing
wrong with this mingling of motives.
Second, when intrinsic motivation is entirely absent, there’s nothing to
undermine with an external incentive. Parents and teachers are sometimes
reluctant to offer a reward to a young person for doing something he or she
“should” like for its own sake — a monetary bonus for reading a book, for
example. But if the kid shows no interest in reading the book in the first
place, there’s no intrinsic motivation to undercut. And if the student does read
the book in order to get the money — and discovers that reading is actually
pretty fun — that’s a win for everybody.
In short, while motivation is more complex than we sometimes assume, there is
clearly a role for parents and educators to nudge young people’s interests
along.
This article is from the Brilliant Report, a weekly
newsletter written by Annie Murphy Paul.
Time
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