Interest & Motivation

Interest is a psychological state of engagement, experienced in the moment, and also a predisposition to engage repeatedly with particular ideas, events, or objects over time.

 

In recent years researchers have begun to build a science of interest, investigating what interest is, how interest develops, what makes things interesting, and how we can cultivate interest in ourselves and others. They are finding that interest can help us think more clearly, understand more deeply, and remember more accurately. Interest has the power to transform struggling performers, and to lift high achievers to a new plane.

 

Interest is at once a cognitive state and an affective state, what Silvia calls a “knowledge emotion.” The feelings that characterize interest are overwhelmingly positive: a sense of being energized and invigorated, captivated and enthralled. As for its effects on cognition: interest effectively turbocharges our thinking. When we’re interested in what we’re learning, we pay closer attention; we process the information more efficiently; we employ more effective learning strategies, such as engaging in critical thinking, making connections between old and new knowledge, and attending to deep structure instead of surface features. When we’re interested in a task, we work harder and persist longer, bringing more of our self-regulatory skills into play.

 

Research done by Judith Harackiewicz of the University of Wisconsin has found that interest is a more powerful predictor of future choices than prior achievement or demographic variables.

 

In fact, scientists have shown that passionate interests can even allow people to overcome academic difficulties or perceptual disabilities. One study found that students who scored poorly on achievement tests but had well-developed interests in reading or mathematics were more likely to engage with the meaning of textual passages or math problems than were peers with high scores but no such interests.

 

Insight

Using interest to create opportunities for social interaction and eliminating the social barriers. Using game as a medium to generate interest and constantly adding new injects(info) to sustain engagement and interest levels high.

 

http://www.businessinsider.com/keep-people-interested-to-keep-them-motivated-2013-11?IR=T&r=US

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