Word of the Week for the week of October 9, 2016
Intrinsic Motivation
[in-TRIN-zik moh-tuh-VEY-shun]
Meaning & Usage
noun performing an action or behavior because you enjoy the activity itself.
My wanting to "do it all" has to do with intrinsic motivation [definition: undertaking something I feel passionate about, coming from the inside]. So the time machine thing comes from wanting to solve a problem that no one else—not even Leonardo da Vinci, the original Renaissance genius who dreamed it up—was able to solve.
Origin
Intrinsic comes from medieval Latin: intrinsecus, meaning inward (adj.) In applying this to motivation, it comes from twentieth-century studies in psychology.
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