Interest and Motivation?
The concepts of interest and motivation appear to be very similar. However, even their dictionary definitions are able to separate the words. Motivation is said to be an incentive. Incentive in turn is described as an enticement or something that incites an action or a stimulus. Interest is described as an engagement of attention and curiosity and a disposition towards a state. An interest is said to be like a hobby, something to which one willingly devotes attention. These definitions mean that someone could be interested without being motivated and also motivated without being interested. It was stated earlier that it is likely that both would be required in order to develop an area of expertise.
Interest would certainly seem to be an essential requirement for someone who is to become an expert in a knowledge area. It is interest through attention, engagement and curiosity that will lead the individual to enquire and investigate and seek knowledge. However, such activity is normally seen to rely on motivation. The word incentive here may mislead because it could be interpreted as the provision of a reward by someone or something else. However, I do not think that the word incentive should be viewed like this. It should be taken more literally as something that encourages or stimulates action. In this case, the action is to actively pursue the things raised by having a strong interest. It is certainly possible for people to have incentive or motivation that is driven by internal thoughts and desires. Humans are complicated creatures that can have motivation that is more complicated than the primary animal motivators like thirst, hunger, reproduction etc.
Some interesting questions regarding helping others to become experts or simply in encouraging others to do better than their current level of achievement may include:
Can you give someone interest?
Can you motivate someone?
There is certainly a lot of material devoted to the view that it is possible to motivate someone else. Indeed, this seems to be a central feature of sports coaching. But how useful is it to motivate someone else? The emphasis would surely be better placed in helping people to understand how they can motivate themselves. Unless motivation is transferred to self motivation then it seems inevitable that motivation by others will become a continuous requirement. However, even self motivation changes over time. I have talked with people that require motivation of others in a sports environment, in a business environment and in an educational environment and all discuss the difficulty of maintaining motivation over long periods of time. But that is just what is needed to become an expert. The maintenance of motivation may not involve a continuously high motivation but a high average motivation over very long periods.
It is also true that interest must be maintained over long periods of time. However, the genuine interest, mentioned earlier, is likely to last. The difficulty with interest comes from the question concerning giving someone else an interest. Each of the groups, sport, business and education, would wish that the people they would want to motivate were also interested in the task. However, it does not seem to be generally accepted that someone can give or coerce someone else to be interested in something or anything for that matter. Employers ask would-be employees what their interests are. Sports coaches may simply want to get rid of a player if they conclude that the player has no interest in the sport. Whilst each would want to try to motivate the employee or player or student, they may not try to make them become interested. So is interest something that is built in from birth or something that each individual learns? Like many human developments, interest may be something that is copied by individuals from a very early age. Very young children seem to be able to acquire real interests. The seemingly now old fashioned idea of hobbies was aimed at children but also something that lasted long into adulthood and old age. I can’t help being fascinated by people with a real interest. It does not seem to matter what the interest is, the truly interested individual seems to always be happy to attempt to explain their interest topic at any level without judgement of any sort. People that label other people with genuine interest as boring, may be missing something really valuable in life. I would not say that all interested people know how to explain things however. Sometimes considerable effort is required on the part of the listener but sometimes it is not, enthusiasm seems to magically cross the space between individuals. However, interests with this capacity to reach out to other individuals from the interested person are always accompanied by knowledge. Someone with interest and no knowledge may want the attention of others but be unable to use that attention effectively.
I recently talked to a managing director of a successful company about new recruits that could be expected to become expert in their area of work at that company. The MD accepted that issues such as motivation were very important but stated that the underpinning recruitment policy was to hire people with passionate interests in something. It did not really matter what the interest was as long as it could be shown to be bordering on eccentric. In other words, successful candidates for jobs at the company would have the knowledge required and have a passionate hobby that they pursued with strong interest. This would be the foundation for expert building.