Dean Winchester and Self-Determination Theory

 

    Self-Determination Theory is a motivational theory that focuses on the intrinsic and extrinsic motivations that people have. Intrinsic motivation is the want to engage in something that interests that person just “for the fun of it”. Intrinsic motivation is also a completely natural motivation, generally one that comes from a person’s need for autonomy, competence, and relatedness (Reeve pg. 112). Extrinsic motivation is where someone is motivated to do things based off of environmental incentives and consequences. Those incentives could include prizes, food, money, approval, and many other things. Extrinsic motivation comes from the basic idea that if you do one thing you will get this thing in return. Most people with extrinsic motivation generally want something out of the activity that they participate in, they usually ask “What’s in it for me?”. This kind of motivation is helpful when wanting to complete a task that is beneficial for them. Yet, in some scenarios when people ask, "What's in it for me?" others believe that they just want something out of the task instead of doing it out of the good of their heart.

            For Dean there are many places throughout the series where he is both intrinsically and extrinsically motivated. If we start at the beginning of the series, we can see that Dean is intrinsically motivated to find his dad. In the first episode Dean goes to find his brother Sam who is at Stanford studying to become a lawyer. Dean finds his brother and tells him that their dad has been on a hunting trip and hasn’t been home in a few days. Normally this wouldn’t be concerning but for them it was alarming because their dad hunts supernatural creatures and beings. At this point their dad was trying to hunt down the supernatural being that killed their mom and another case involving people going missing on the same stretch of road for years. So, Dean is intrinsically motivated based off of his own fear to find his dad. All within the beginning of the first episode we meet Dean, his brother Sam, and Sam’s girlfriend Jessica. Then by the end of the first episode Dean and Sam help solve why those people had gone missing, which turned out was being caused by a ghost of a woman who had killed her children. Unfortunately, they don’t find their dad but find clues as to where he was and where he is going. At the very end of the episode Sam goes back to Stanford to be with Jessica and for his interview, but that when it all goes wrong. He finds his girlfriend pinned on the ceiling dead and then she is consumed by fire, the same thing that happened to his mom as a child. This then causes the extrinsic motivation for Sam to join Dean into hunting for the creature that killed their mom and now Sam’s girlfriend.

            As we get further on into the series we see where Dean is more extrinsically motivated due to events that happen in his life. One of the events in the early part of the series that causes Dean to extrinsically motivated is when his brother Sam is kidnapped by what we come to learn is a demon. Dean has to rely on telepathic messages from another person who was also kidnapped with his brother in order to find where they all are. After finding his way to his brother is Dean is met with the sight of his brother being stabbed in the back by another person who was also there. This sets into motion the next big event to extrinsically motivate Dean into doing something that would change his life yet again. 

    After seeing his brother being stabbed in the back and then dying in his arms Dean goes to extreme lengths to bring his brother back to life. This extrinsic motivator of his brother’s death causes Dean to make a deal with a demon to bring his brother back to life, a deadly pact. Dean goes to many lengths to make sure that his brother never finds out about the deal that he made, not wanting to upset his brother with the information. This can also be considered an intrinsic motivator, not wanting to tell his brother about the deal because he knew what the reaction would be if his brother found out.

            We can see from these couple of examples that Dean has a difficult time regulating and keeping control of his emotions when it comes to his family. When Dean made that pact, he did it because he couldn’t bare the thought of not having his brother around. Whether or not this is considered healthy or not could be debated. This pact could be considered a success in the short term but in the long term the amount of damage both emotional and mental really takes its toll.

            Breaking down who Dean is as a character is incredibly difficult because there are so many different motivators intrinsic and extrinsic. Sometimes it can be difficult to figure out if what he does is completely based off of his own intrinsic motivation to hunt down these supernatural creatures and beings or if its only extrinsic motivators. One of the biggest extrinsic motivators for Dean is his father. This is because Dean idolizes his father and wants to do everything he can do please him and to get his approval. Dean became a hunter because of his father and his father’s obsession to find the being that killed his wife.