The motivational spectrum

When users have no interest in an activity, it's called amotivation. In this stage, they don't care about the task at all and are unlikely to do it. At the other end, intrinsic motivation means users do something simply because they love it. It's fun and rewarding on its own, like the joy of learning to play a new instrument.

In between, there are various levels of extrinsic motivation:

• The least powerful is external regulation where users do something only because someone tells them to. For example, a user completing a task in a gamified learning app solely because the app requires it to unlock the next lesson.
• Next is introjection, where users do something for status or approval from others. For instance, a user participating in a leaderboard challenge within a fitness app to gain recognition from their peers.
• Then comes identification, where users see some personal value in the activity, even if they don't enjoy it. For example, a user engaging in daily quizzes on a language learning app because they know it will improve their language skills, even if they find the quizzes repetitive.
• The most internal form of extrinsic motivation is integration where users fully align the activity with their goals, like walking and logging in their steps in a fitness app because they know it's good for them, even if it's not fun.

Understanding this spectrum helps create better gamification strategies by aligning activities with users' intrinsic and extrinsic motivations.