![]() ![]() Similarly, Murayama, Matsumoto, Izuma, and Matsumoto ( 2010) examined the neural bases of intrinsic motivation when participants engaged in a “moderately challenging and inherently interesting” stopwatch task. For example, both Kang and her colleagues ( 2009) and Gruber, Gelman, and Ranganath ( 2014) examined the neural basis of intrinsic motivation when participants answered curiosity-provoking trivia questions. Nevertheless, some neuroscientific studies have started to examine intrinsic motivation and intrinsic motivational processes (e.g., curiosity and competence). ![]() Thus, intrinsic motivation is the desire to seek out novelty and explore (e.g., curiosity) and to seek out and master optimal challenge (e.g., competence) for no reason other than the resulting feelings of interest and enjoyment (Abuhamdeh, Csikszentmihalyi, & Jalal, 2015 Deci & Ryan, 1985 Loewenstein, 1994 Reeve, 1989).Īlthough neuroscientific studies on extrinsic motivation are abundant, neuroscientific studies of intrinsic motivation are not (Reeve & Lee, 2012). These subjective feelings (interest and enjoyment) signal experiences of intrinsic satisfaction from a job well done that then function as intrinsic rewards to encourage volitional present and future engagement in that task, activity, or environment (Deci, 1992 Krapp, 2005). These volitional pursuits generate subjective feelings of interest and enjoyment as the individual gains new information (curiosity satisfaction) and develops greater capacity (competence satisfaction). It is a naturally occurring inclination toward exploration, spontaneous interest, and environmental mastery that emerges when the individual anticipates discovering new information (exploration), learning something new (spontaneous interest), and developing and extending existing capacities (environmental mastery). Intrinsic motivation is the inherent tendency to seek out novelty and challenge, to explore and investigate, and to stretch and extend one’s capacities (Ryan & Deci, 2000, 2017). These neural findings are consistent with the conceptualization of intrinsic motivation as the pursuit and satisfaction of subjective feelings (interest and enjoyment) as intrinsic rewards. These findings suggest that subjective feelings of intrinsic satisfaction (associated with AIC activations), reward processing (associated with striatum activations), and their interactions underlie the actual experience of intrinsic motivation. Using event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging, we found that the neural system of intrinsic motivation involves not only AIC activity, but also striatum activity and, further, AIC–striatum functional interactions. To fully explain the neural system of intrinsic motivation, however, requires assessing neural activity while people actually perform intrinsically motivating tasks (i.e., while answering curiosity-inducing questions or solving competence-enabling anagrams). When people imagine performing intrinsically motivating tasks, they show heightened anterior insular cortex (AIC) activity. Intrinsic motivation is the inherent tendency to seek out novelty and challenge, to explore and investigate, and to stretch and extend one’s capacities. ![]()
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