Gorbatsevich, T. A.

English

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creasing rate of venereal diseases. Secondly, it’s a common knowledge, that 
confession protected people from depressions and mental disorders. The effec-
tiveness of priest replacing with the psychologists doesn’t need any comments. 
And, may be the most important thing, due to the religious norms the doctor 
thought firstly about the duty and secondly about the money for he was re-
sponsible to the God for the results of his medical care.  
Besides, nowadays the doctor must be a good public-speaker and has a 
skill to convince people. Accessibility of special literature, a number of pro-
fane TV shows make the work of the doctor a hard thing, because many peo-
ple consider themselves educated enough to argue with the doctor about the 
cure methods, drugs, tablets, etc. For pedeatrist the skill to explain and con-
vince is almost as important as his medical skills. One thing is to cure the 
child, another – to explain to the mother what and why should she do to make 
her child healthy. It’s obvious that the health state of the child is the direct re-
sult of how the doctor could explain to the parents how to treat children in an 
appropriate way. Furthermore, the general level of education is also essential 
for a doctor, because it is unlikely for person to follow his advice if the doctor 
doesn’t know elementary things. In order the interaction between the physi-
cian and the patient to be effective, the patient has to trust him. It is possible 
only in case the doctor’s knowledge is much broader than just medical knowl-
edge and one can see it. Moreover, one has to remember that the physician is 
not only a professional worker; he is a human as well; a person who has to be 
at an appropriate level of culture. He has to bring up children according to the 
traditions, teach them to differ good from bad, right from wrong. He has to 
make his own choice in the political, social life, etc. The main idea of these 
examples is that the human life is not concluded only in the professional ac-
tivities, it is much richer and much more interesting. 
In conclusion we can say, that the refusal from the humanitarian part of 
the medicine is unwanted, and even dangerous as it can cause serious conse-
quences in the nearest future. The return to the cradle, quite the contrary can 
help medicine to regain its once high status and to solve the existing problems. 
As Hippocrates said, philosophy must be instilled in medicine and medicine in 
philosophy, because all the qualities of philosophy hold their meaning in 
medicine. 
 
T. A. Gorbatsevich  
Belorussian State University 
DEFINING  WORK  MOTIVATION:  FOCUSING  ON  THE 
SELF-DETERMINATION  THEORY 
Effective control of an economical phenomenon requires an understand-
ing of the phenomenon of work motivation. Understanding of the nature of 
human motivation is gradually improving over the years. In the fields of so-
cial, personality, and developmental psychology there has been a great deal of 
research on motivation. There are different motivational theories, such as In-
 
 
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centive Theory of Motivation, Achievement and Hierarchy Theory of motiva-
tion, Drive theories. But a good comprehensive model of work motivation is 
not available. The goal of our research is to define the category of work moti-
vation. The object of our research is work motivation, its subject-matter being 
the definition of work motivation. 
To understand the concept of work motivation, first of all it is necessary 
to give a clear definition of human motivation as a whole. The concept of mo-
tivation is being discussed in special literature within 3 aspects: motivation as 
a psychological state of a person who is performing a certain behavior; moti-
vation as a process of encouraging a person to perform a certain behavior (the 
latter is referred to as motivating); and motivation as a set of reasons that de-
termines a person to be engaged in a particular behavior. In our research moti-
vation is considered according to a third aspect. A review of the literature re-
veals that over the past two decades, more than 800 publications have ex-
plored the intrinsic–extrinsic motivation dichotomy (Vallerand, R.J). One of 
such theories is the SDT, which is a methodological base for our research. Ac-
cording to the SDT (Deci, E.L., & Ryan, R.M.), different types of motivation 
determine human behavior. These types of motivation are posited to differ in 
their inherent levels of self determination. Self-determination involves a true 
sense of choice, a sense of feeling freedom in doing what one has chosen to 
do. For example, a self-determined person chooses to behave in a manner that 
reflects his/her autonomy, and his behavior is not directed to achieve an exter-
nal reward or escape aversive stimuli in the environment. In simple terms, the 
SDT focuses on the degree to which an individual’s behavior is self-endorsed 
and self-determined. 
Listed on a continuum from high to low levels of self-determination there 
exist intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation and amotivation. Intrinsically 
motivated behaviors are those in which one is engaged for one’s own sake, in 
other words, for receiving pleasure and satisfaction from performing activities 
(Deci, E.L.). On the other hand, extrinsic motivation pertains to a wide variety 
of behaviors where the goals of action extend beyond those inherent in the ac-
tivity itself. Besides intrinsic and extrinsic motivation Deci and Ryan proposed 
a third motivational concept namely, amotivation, to fully understand human 
behavior. When amotivated, individuals experience a lack of contingency be-
tween their behaviors and outcomes. Their behaviors are neither intrinsically 
nor extrinsically motivated. Amotivated behaviors are the least self-
determined because there is no sense of purpose and no expectations of reward 
or possibility of changing the course of events. 
In our research we tried to apply the principals of the SDT in the sphere 
of work motivation and encouragement. According to the SDT, these four 
types of motivation are differently related to various types of outcomes. It 
takes place because these motivations differ in their inherent levels of self-
determination, and because self-determination has been hypothesized to be as-
sociated with enhanced psychological functioning (Deci, E.L., & Ryan, R.M.). 
 
 
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So we would expect intrinsic work motivation to be mostly associated with 
positive outcomes (e.g., persistence). In contrast, the most negative outcomes 
(e.g., depressive states) will stem from amotivation followed by external regu-
lation. In addition, STD postulates that the needs for competence, autonomy, 
and relatedness are central concepts to understand the initiation and regulation 
of behavior (Frederic Guay, Robert J. Vallerand). Competence implies a need 
for having an effect, for being effective in one’s interactions with the envi-
ronment. The need for autonomy is defined as a sense of feeling free from 
pressures and to have the possibility to make choices among several courses of 
action. In its turn, relatedness refers to interpersonal attachments and bonds 
developed between individuals, and is based on a fundamental striving for 
contact with others. So we would expect the effects of social factors in terms 
of their meaning for a person’s feelings of competence, autonomy, and relat-
edness. That is, a social context in the workplace that offers people the possi-
bility to satisfy their basic needs will lead to a self-determined type of motiva-
tion (intrinsic motivation) whereas events that thwart these needs will produce 
non-self-determined types of motivation (external regulation and amotivation). 
Some studies have shown that negative feedback is associated with a decrease 
in perceptions of competence and intrinsic motivation (Vallerand, R.J). 
Thus we can give the definition of the work motivation focusing on the 
SDT. Work motivation is a set of reasons correlating with the need for compe-
tence, autonomy, and relatedness of the worker determining one to be engaged 
in a professional activity. According to this theory we suppose that intrinsic 
motivation of workers contributes to employee output. The main psychologi-
cal needs of employees should be taken into account. They should be treated 
as experienced and capable autonomous. Top managers have to develop cor-
porate culture, including development social bonds in the workplace. This 
model (definition) of work motivation is consistent and gives a correct de-
scription of a group of needs (motivation factors) determining an employee 
behavior. It also explains the mechanism of correlation between motivation 
factors and employee behavior. Of course, additional empirical researches are 
necessary in order to check all aspects of this approach to work motivation. 
 


Defining work motivation: focusing on the self-determination theory

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Defining work motivation: focusing on the self-determination theory

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