Tell me where you are from and I will tell you where your motivation may be

It will be over simplifying to say that a nation's identity can be reduced to a single characteristic, as it is unethical to rely on stereotypes to describe anyone.  Yet some comedians may refer to a single word to pinpoint to beliefs that may be representative of a culture.

In various stand up comedy shows I have heard Canadians to be generally well-known for their politeness, Americans for their sense of patriotism, Germans for their precision, Japanese for their harmony, Indians for their hard work, and Iranians for letting their emotions to guide them.

One may well never be able to reduce the complexity of cultural identities to a single item. Within the same culture, there are way too many exceptions, and too many individuals that are each different from another. But I wonder if, leaving such items as the culinary, clothing, etc. aside, there are some habitual particularities that mark some cultures and affect the behaviour of individuals within it leading us to do things the way we do them. What can possibly be the causes and effects of such particularities at a national level? To what extend would it affect the individual within that culture?

Is motivation bound to culture?

Reinforcing awareness to the dangers of stereotyping has become second nature to me. As you will notice, despite my beliefs, there is a question that I am burning to ask. Does our cultural background mark our motivation in a particular manner? I occasionally wonder if there our cultural background marks our motivation and ask myself questions about what is the relation between motivation and culture.

We are presently living in the world of globalization that is undertaken by technology. We may not need to travel very far to get things done as the world of the internet allows many professional among us to get things done from the luxury of our home. Yet, we all have different personnalities and ties to various culture. Would it be possible to think: let me know your culture and I will tell you what your motivation is? or vice-versa?

I believe that it is possible to predict motivation on the basis of culture. The similarities between cultures may make it more difficult for us to distinguish what is at stake with respect to motivation and what lies at the heart of our motivation based our culture.

In a previous blog (Motivation: from emotion to action 1) I argue that the actions that we undertake are directly dictated by our motivation. In another post within the same blog, I differentiate between motivation and resolution (On motivation and resolutions) and indicate that motivation refers to the energy that is needed to meet our resolutions. The layer that I am adding to this definition is that our motivation is partly guided by our cultural background.

I still need to develop on that, which I aim to do in my future posts.

Go, go, family go!

Motivation, writing and social media

Would you agree that it is more engaging to continue to write when you know that there are actually some people who would be out there to read your work? I wonder what is motivating you to continue to read this blog and at the same time, if you maintain your own blog, what is motivating you to continue to write your blog.

For me, I am going to keep this post quite short, but before I say until next time, it is on days like today where I think: 1) how is it that so many thesis and research papers get written throughout the world where only very few get to read these sometimes amazing pieces of work? and 2) how can we possibly motivate students to practice their writing skills where they would actually be able to share their written pieces (if they would choose to do so) with others.

It seems to me that social media has been the motivational tool for many of us, encouraging greater number to read, write; hence go ahead and explore an area which may have been felt reserved to others. From an educational point of view, the quality of the written work differs. While some pieces may be masterpieces others may be less inspirational. What amazes me is that within this pool of information available to us (for as long as we possess the required technology, including the knowledge and the willingness to take part in it), is how fame comes to some while living the others. Some bloggers see themselves more successful than others. How come? Experience, style, philosophy are of course all great assets to the blogger. Beyond that I have not yet conducted any research on this yet, but I believe that the theme chosen is also highly important. Originality is also key as much as accessibility is important.

It is then with less fear that I agree that my two young daughters spend some time familiarizing themselves with technology. I am happy when uder supervision they each sit behind their computer, ready to explore their writing skills on a wordprocessor application, and their research skills on the internet. They even get to post their work for us to see. What a fun way for them to practice their presentation skills even at a young age! How lucky can they be if only as parent I can encourage them to put inpractice their grey cells in that manner rsther than jumping to embrace tevhnology for some useless computer games.

Well, I will keep you posted on how we are doing, but why not take the opportunity to let me know your reaction and experience to these.


Until next time,
Go, go, family go!