- Motivation – process that influences the direction, persistence, and vigour of goal directed behaviour
Perspectives on Motivation
- Instinct Theory and Modern Evolutionary Psychology
- Instinct (fixed action pattern) – an inherited characteristic, common to all members of a species, that
automatically produces a particular response when the organism is exposed to a particular stimulus - Theories faded due to circular reasoning (People are greedy. Why? Because greed is an instinct. Why? Because people are greedy.)
- Modern evolutionary psychologists propose that many motives have evolutionary underpinnings
- Instinct (fixed action pattern) – an inherited characteristic, common to all members of a species, that
- Homeostasis and Drive Theory
- Homeostasis – a state of internal physiological equilibrium that the body strives to maintain
- Requires a sensory mechanism for detecting changes in internal environment, a response system that can restore equilibrium, and a control centre that receives information from sensors
- Drive theory – physiological disruptions to homeostasis produce drives, states of internal tension that motivate an organism that reduce this tension
- Clark Hull proposes that reducing drives is the ultimate goal of motivated behaviour
- Flaws in theory found in certain behaviours, such as when people skip meals to diet (increases rather than decreases state of arousal)
- Homeostasis – a state of internal physiological equilibrium that the body strives to maintain
- Incentive and Expectancy Theories
- Incentives – environmental stimuli that pull an organism toward a goal
- Modern incentive theorists emphasize the pull of external stimuli and how stimuli with high incentive value can motivate behaviour, even in the absence of biological need
- Expectancy x value theory – goal directed behaviour is jointly determined by two factors: the strength of the person’s expectation that particular behaviours will lead to a goal, and the value the individual places on the goal (incentive value)
- Motivation = expectancy x incentive value
- Extrinsic motivation – performing an activity to obtain an external reward or to avoid punishment
- Intrinsic motivation – performing an activity for its own sake (enjoyment of the activity)
- Overjustification hypothesis – giving people extreme rewards to perform activity that they intrinsically enjoy may overjustify that behaviour and reduce intrinsic motivation
- Psychodynamic and Humanistic Theories
- View motivation within a broader context of personality development and functioning, but take radically different approaches
- Freud believed that most behaviour resulted from a never-ending battle between unconscious impulses struggling for release and psychological defenses used to keep them under control
- Abraham Maslow believed that psychology’s perspectives ignored a key motive: our striving for personal growth
- Deficiency needs – concerned with physical and social survival
- Growth needs – motivate us to develop our potential
- Proposed concept of need hierarchy, a progression of needs containing deficiency needs at the bottom and growth needs at the top
- Physiological > safety > belongingness and love > esteem > cognitive > aesthetic > self-actualization (need to fulfill our potential, ultimate human motive)
- Can only focus on needs of highest level if bottom levels are satisfied
