Continuing from the Competence Plus One Theme, Kathy K. Clayton writes: “Sometimes our students or children are doing worthy things but only as a result of immature or impermanent motivations. Our task then becomes that of celebrating good choices as worthy competence, even as we seek to ease the young do-gooders forward into more celestial motivations for their good deeds. Higher levels of motivation—doing the right things for the right reasons — becomes the plus one of growth.
Those who would seek to promote worthy behavior for higher more heavenly reasons often refer to a “ladder of motivation.” Figuratively moving up that ladder toward even more elevated reasons for good behaviors is a “plus one” of growth toward becoming true disciples who “have no more disposition to do evil? (Mosiah 5:2).
The visual, pictured as an ascending of steps that are labeled as external motivators. Obviously, the goal is to move ourselves and those we care about the ladder of motivation as we do the right things for the right reasons.
The first external motivator is force. A person responding to that motivator engages a desirable behavior simply because he is forced to do so. His agency is conscripted to preclude the possibility of his making a poor choice. At times that motivator may be an appropriate imposition. For example, if a child begins to impetuously step into a busy street without looking for traffic, a caring person might grab him by the arm and pull him back onto the sidewalk and safety. The child would be doing the right thing by avoiding oncoming traffic,but he would have been forced to do it.
The second external motivator is fear. A person motivated by fear makes a good choice only because he is afraid of displeasing someone he cares about, afraid of punishment or denial of privileges, or afraid of other adverse consequences imposed by teachers or parents. There is a temptation to content ourselves with thinking that if we punish a behavior, we will discourage it. While that may be true superficially and in the short term, that simple equation poses serious risks. If good behavior is only the result of fear of punishment, there must always be someone on location or in the loop to administer that punishment to achieve the effect of deterrent. The wrongdoer has no opportunity to develop an intrinsic appetite for goodness.
Additionally, when bad behavior is promptly responded to with an external punishment, the transgressor often feels he has paid for his error and carries on without experiencing a truly changed heart. His goal going forward may simply become not being caught the next time. Such thinking can actually promote additional poor behavior if the wrongdoer reverts to cheating or deceit to avoid future imposition of punishment. He may feel little genuine remorse, only regret for having been caught. Such unintended consequences for punishment may be counter-intuitive as they give us more of what we don’t want instead of more or what we are trying to promote. A good choice is always a good thing, but our goal for ourselves and those we are seeking to influence should be to promote movement toward more internal, Christlike reasons for our good choices.
The Third external motivator is reward. . . . (continued)
~Kathy K. Clayton, Teaching to Build Faith and Faithfulness (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2012), 93-94
