Don’t get motivation expert Tory Higgins started on “carrots and sticks”. As the director of Columbia Business School’s Motivation Science Center, Higgins is used to being asked about the best way to get people to do things they don’t want to do. Most of those who approach him do so with the same incorrect assumption that motivation is all about the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain - about carrots and sticks.

Teachers can certainly be guilty of such beliefs, often relying on systems of sanction and reward to motivate students to do everything from handing homework in on time to revising for exams. This, Higgins suggests, is all wrong.

“What’s fundamental about humans is that they want to be effective - it’s not about pleasure and pain,” he explains. “That’s why people will do lots of things that end up making them feel successful that can actually be painful. The [annual extreme-sports event] X Games are full of people doing dangerous things that are really effortful, even painful, but what matters to them is the sense that they’re being effective.

“So, that’s fundamental for education: if [teachers] want students to be motivated, they need to set the conditions for students to feel that they’re being effective.”

Effectiveness is complex

Higgins’ work in motivation research followed a very personal prompt. After receiving a BA in anthropology from McGill University and a PhD in psychology from Columbia University, Higgins went through a period of depression that, at the time, felt impossible to combat.

“I could not understand what was happening to me,” he recalls. “I promised myself that, if I recovered, I would try to figure out why I was depressed.”

It was the start of Higgins becoming a motivation scientist. His work since has concentrated on how people achieve that sense of effectiveness that is so integral to motivation. He came to realise that being effective is not just as simple as realising a goal, such as achieving a predicted grade; it can be more complex than that.

“I distinguish between two kinds of orientations, and call these promotion and prevention,” says Higgins. “In promotion, you experience your goal pursuits as aspirations. You think of what you’re doing as moving from the current status quo to something better. The prevention system is quite different, because it’s concerned with doing what you ought to do. It’s concerned about safety and security. If you keep everything okay, then that’s what’s good, and what’s bad is if you slip and make a mistake.”

I promised myself that I would try to figure out why I was depressed

So while one student may be motivated to revise to better themselves, another might revise because they fear what would happen if they didn’t. The end result - feeling effective - is motivating, but they feel effective for different reasons.

The problem with these two orientations is that an approach that would motivate one student could actually be demotivating to another. For example, Higgins says, promotion-oriented students respond well to an eager and enthusiastic teacher, while prevention-oriented students feel more comfortable with a teacher who seems careful and relaxed.

Activity type also counts. Higgins’ research has shown that promotion people tend to be more motivated by tasks for which they are allowed to be creative or pioneering, whereas prevention people prefer analytical tasks that require a logic-driven approach.

Shared realities

Higgins suggests that teachers should make sure that they plan revision activities that cover the preferences of both orientations. Some tasks should allow students to innovate and try new things, while others should require them to stick to the facts and use reasoning. If you can strike a balance between these two approaches, you will be on the right track to motivating all your students.

“The good news is that people are responsive to anything in the message that fits them,” he says.

If teachers want students to be motivated, they need to set the conditions for students to feel that they are being effective

“In advertising, you need to have both kinds of messages in what you’re saying. So you talk about what you’re doing or what matters in a promotion language and a prevention language. Good politicians will often talk in this aspirational, optimistic way and during the same speech will bring in issues about safety and security.”

This means that when you deliver your next spiel about how important revision is, it’s more likely to actually sink in if you can appeal to the two types of student, talking about advancement and about maintaining the status quo.

Clearly, motivation is a lot more complex than you might have thought and Higgins has a final curveball to throw at you: students need to buy into what you are saying if you are to motivate them, and that requires you to demonstrate that you are similar to them.

“All the things we think of that are related to humans being different to other animals, in terms of our language and cultures, really come from the fact that, more than anything, we are motivated to create shared realities with each other,” he says.

“How this translates into education is that teachers have to be careful that their students really are being allowed to share reality with them. If they don’t share reality with the teacher, then nothing the teacher is saying is really the truth. And that becomes incredibly demotivating. Given how much wanting to find the truth is motivating, if you’re in a situation where you feel like you can’t get the truth… there’s probably nothing more demotivating than that.”

The good news is that people are responsive to anything in the message that fits them

A sense of shared reality - a feeling that there is a connection or common ground - doesn’t always happen automatically, particularly in a situation in which a student feels that their teacher belongs to another world to them, because of a difference in race, class or background, for example. But there are ways around this. Higgins suggests that you can create shared reality by planning lessons in which teachers and students work together to produce something as a team. And if you can devise a team project that also incorporates elements that appeal to both promotion- and prevention-oriented students, then you will really be on to a winner.

If this is all sounding easier said than done, Higgins is well aware of that. He understands why you might prefer to stick to carrots and sticks. But he recommends you at least try what he suggests, particularly in revision season.

“I know what I’m saying is asking a lot of teachers,” he says. “It really is asking a lot. But it’s also the case that what I’m saying reflects what is going on.

“Motivation is critical to how well we learn, because you’re not going to learn unless you’re engaged. And the extent to which you engage with something is a choice. Whenever you’re talking about people giving a priority to one choice over another, you’re talking motivation. So it’s absolutely basic.”