Lisa Simpson...

 Lisa’s rivalry

The Self-Determination Theory (SDT) aims to show how human basic needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness are impacted by social contexts resulting in either support or erosion of people’s motivations and actions for personal growth, well-being, and constructive integration in the society. To grasp the multilayered phenomena of motivations and regulations at work in humans, the SDT creators, Deci and Ryan, came up with two other sub theories, Cognitive Evaluation Theory (CET) and Organismic Integration Theory (OIT). The CET posits that feelings of competence facilitate intrinsic motivation only in combination with autonomy or an internal perceived locus of causality. External contexts can also cause people to internalize and integrate values and regulations, that become part of their sense of self. In addition to amotivation (lack of motivation) and intrinsic motivation, OIT distinguished four types of extrinsic motivation according to the perceived locus of causality, degree of valuing and of regulation. I will exemplify these different types of motivatio using a few typical behaviors of members of Lisa’s family. Homer Simpson, Lisa’s father, thinks parenting in binary behaviorist terms of rewards and punishments. Bart, his 10-year-old, gets this simplicity, and takes advantage of it by working around his father’s expectations. His extrinsic motivation for doing homework for instance is externally regulated by the promise of tangible immediate rewards. Lisa’s mother displays in general both an extrinsic motivation characterized by introjected, and integrated types of regulations, according to different experiences she has. First, she often does things to please others, her husband, and children. For instance, despite the violence of the sport, she lets Lisa play hockey to satisfy Homer and Bart. For more important aspects of her parenthood experiences, her extrinsic motivation is triggered by family responsibilities to which she attaches high value and importance, thus displaying an integrated regulation. That also means a higher degree of autonomy, competence, and relatedness, resembling more intrinsic type of motivation.

Especially as the young child she is, Lisa Simpson has natural intrinsic motivation showcasing love of learning, creativity, interest in social interaction. She tackles novelty with curiosity and challenges with thoughtfulness and persistence. However, the storylines in the different episodes centered on her, afford opportunities for her motivations to oscillate among different types as in the OIT’s continuum. For instance, when each of the members of her family sends her away one by one for making noise while she plays her saxophone, Lisa doesn’t give up. In that particular episode, however, her persistence was actually relying on much more than her natural intrinsic motivation. Especially when being dismissed even by her mother, Lisa would have perhaps resorted to give up if her motivation was only fueled by the internal regulation of her intrinsic motivation. In fact, in that episode, she was determined to win an audition for the school band. With her home environment hostile, and her intrinsic motivation to play saxophone probably undermined (no manifest enjoyment), her choice to persist was motivated and regulated externally by her goal to win a spot in the school band. 

More generally, Lisa seems to have internalized the value of learning and the value of performing well in school as she is always “an A student, a teacher’s pet, the best in everything she does” as she herself says it. Her need for competence is nurtured by her teachers and her mom, and sparingly by her brother (with mischief) and her father (mostly absent-minded).

Further in the episode, Lisa learns that there is new student in her classroom who is very bright, and just like her, plays saxophone and tries out for the school's band. Lisa’s motivation to be in the band becomes suddenly instrumental in the sense that she now needs to prove herself and everyone else that she is the best student and saxophone player in the school. 

Referring to her "rival", Lisa says “She’s better than me at everything that makes me be special”. Her motivation to try out for the audition becomes extrinsic with an introjected regulation as she fights to maintain her self-worth. She has panic attacks whenever the new girl is being praised by the teacher. In other words, the positive feedback her rival gets, comes across as negative feedback for herself, and her feeling of competence in the classroom. She becomes insecure and in search of more attention from everyone, included her mother. Even Bart, her mischievous brother, has her attention when he offers to sabotage the new girl in some way to clear the way for Lisa to pass the audition. While admitting that sabotaging the new girl “goes against every moral fiber in my body”, she resorts to it as the ultimate solution to restore her self-worth.

Well, in a dramatic moment, she finally realizes that the social comparison with the new girl was toxic and that she is “above average. There is no shame in being second.” In other words, Lisa through relatedness (being friends rather than rivals), reverts to intrinsic motivation to play saxophone, and do well in school, given that competing with someone else has no more any relevance to her.