Irresistible Apps: Motivational Design Patterns for Apps, Games, and Web-based Communities

Chapter     2

Psychology of Motivation

This chapter provides the core psychology grounding that you’ll need in order to truly comprehend how motivational design patterns work. Too much of what you may have read in other sources simply presents a design “trick,” without justifying if or how it has the desired effect on users. It’s my goal to take you deeper into the science of psychology, not just to show you how the existing motivational design patterns work, but to give you the understanding you’ll need to come up with your own patterns.

In this chapter, you’ll learn

• About the danger of “cargo cult design”
• What “behavioral psychology” and “Skinner boxes” are, as well as the weakness of focusing only on these ideas
• What intrinsic motivation ...