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I don't see any contradiction here. Merit trophies do increase motivation, but only for small subset of people, and decrease for the rest. It's also important t

by divan 3y ago

I don't see any contradiction here. Merit trophies do increase motivation, but only for small subset of people, and decrease for the rest. It's also important to note that we're talking about statistical nature of things here. Competition sends negative competence signal to majority of participants, but it's not the only competence signal – parents, coaching and even culture in club also play a role. Same goes for other key needs in SDT – autonomy being most important. Here is a study of swimmers and their drop-out after 10 and 22 months after assessing their coaching styles (autonomous vs controlled). [1] Competition prizes are also form of extrinsic motivation ("external regulation" to be specific). Extrinsic motivation can be (and often is) very powerful. It just don't last. [1] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/225153306_Associations_Among_Perceived_Autonomy_Support_Forms_of_Self-Regulation_and_Persistence_A_Prospective_Study https://www.researchgate.net/publication/225153306_Associati...

somenameforme 3y ago
I would rather we speak humanly, rather than in the intentional obfuscation of language that's ubiquitous in social science to make simple concepts, which are often little more than a researcher's personal biases wrapped in obfuscation, sound 'sciency.' Einstein's paper on special relativity is a zillion times more readable than that 'thing' you linked to which is nothing more than a little survey! Back to speaking like humans, the thing you are not responding to is expectations vs reality. Participation trophies are near ubiquitous in places like the US, and there's an ongoing attack on merit across a wide array of domains - let alone efforts to recognize and reward it. Were this having the effects you claim, would you not expect to see absolutely skyrocketing sports participation? In reality it's down, in many areas sharply so.
- divan 3y ago
  That's interesting. For me that paper is more than readable – probably because I know all the terms, as I studied SDT extensively. But I can understand how terms like "introjected" can sound alien. Before replying to expectations vs reality, we need to establish and agree on facts. Are you saying that in US, across all states and all sports, competition prizes has been replaced by participation trophies and you see a negative trends in sports participation?
  - somenameforme 3y ago
    It's "readable" in the most technical sense of the word, but it's exceptionally obfuscated and needlessly convoluted. Whatever that paper is trying to say could be succinctly and clearly expressed in a page or two, at most. But it wouldn't look as what the authors perceive to be "sciency", because behind the grandiloquent language is invariably a pretty simple premise and experimentation (or a survey in this case) invariably designed to confirm biases, rather than challenge them. It's ubiquitous in the social sciences (see: Sokal experiment) and only going to get much worse with the advent of LLMs that will enable streamlined obfuscation. And no I'm (obviously?) not speaking of every single instance, as for a topic like this there will always be some exception or another. I am saying that as an aggregate - sports participation is down, and participation trophies are up.

by divan 3y ago

somenameforme 3y ago

I would rather we speak humanly, rather than in the intentional obfuscation of language that's ubiquitous in social science to make simple concepts, which are often little more than a researcher's personal biases wrapped in obfuscation, sound 'sciency.' Einstein's paper on special relativity is a zillion times more readable than that 'thing' you linked to which is nothing more than a little survey! Back to speaking like humans, the thing you are not responding to is expectations vs reality. Participation trophies are near ubiquitous in places like the US, and there's an ongoing attack on merit across a wide array of domains - let alone efforts to recognize and reward it. Were this having the effects you claim, would you not expect to see absolutely skyrocketing sports participation? In reality it's down, in many areas sharply so.

divan 3y ago
That's interesting. For me that paper is more than readable – probably because I know all the terms, as I studied SDT extensively. But I can understand how terms like "introjected" can sound alien. Before replying to expectations vs reality, we need to establish and agree on facts. Are you saying that in US, across all states and all sports, competition prizes has been replaced by participation trophies and you see a negative trends in sports participation?
- somenameforme 3y ago
  It's "readable" in the most technical sense of the word, but it's exceptionally obfuscated and needlessly convoluted. Whatever that paper is trying to say could be succinctly and clearly expressed in a page or two, at most. But it wouldn't look as what the authors perceive to be "sciency", because behind the grandiloquent language is invariably a pretty simple premise and experimentation (or a survey in this case) invariably designed to confirm biases, rather than challenge them. It's ubiquitous in the social sciences (see: Sokal experiment) and only going to get much worse with the advent of LLMs that will enable streamlined obfuscation. And no I'm (obviously?) not speaking of every single instance, as for a topic like this there will always be some exception or another. I am saying that as an aggregate - sports participation is down, and participation trophies are up.