Motivation

The concept of motivation focuses on explaining what “moves” behavior. In fact, the term motivation is derived from the Latin word ‘movere’, referring to movement of activity. Most of our everyday explanations of behavior are given in terms of motives. Why do you come to school or college? There may be any number of reasons for this behavior, such as you want to learn or to make friends, you need a diploma or degree to get a good job, you want to make your parents happy, and so on. Some combination of these reasons and/or others would explain why you choose to go in for higher education. Motives also help in making predictions about behavior. A person will work hard in school, in sports, in business, in music, and in many other situations, if s/he has a very strong need for achievement. Hence, motives are the general states that enable us to make predictions about behavior in many different situations.

Motivational Cycle Psychologists now use the concept of need to describe the motivational properties of behavior. A need is a lack or deficit of some necessity. The condition of need leads to driving. A drive is a state of tension or arousal produced by a need. It energizes random activity. When one of the random activities leads to a goal, it reduces the drive, and the organism stops being active. The organism returns to a balanced state. Now you must wonder if there are different types of motives. Are there any biological bases explaining different kinds of motives? What happens if your motive remains unfulfilled?

Let’s discuss this in the types of Motives.

Types of Motivation: Basically, there are two types of motives: biological and psychosocial. Biological motives are also known as physiological motives as they are guided mostly by the physiological mechanisms of the body. Psychosocial motives, on the other hand, are primarily learned from the individual’s interactions with the various environmental factors. However, both types of motives are interdependent on each other. That is, in situations the biological factors may trigger a motive whereas in some other situations, the psychosocial factors may trigger the motive. Hence, you should keep in mind that no motive is absolutely biological or psychosocial per se, rather they are aroused in the individual with varying combinations.

i. Biological Motives The earliest explanations of motivation relied on the concept of instinct. The term instinct denotes inborn patterns of behavior that are biologically determined rather than learned. Some common human instincts include curiosity, flight, repulsion, reproduction, parental care, etc. Instincts are innate tendencies found in all members of a species that direct behavior in predictable ways. The term instinct most approximately refers to an urge to do something. Instinct has an “impetus” which drives the organism to do something to reduce that impetus. Some of the basic biological needs explained by this approach are hunger, thirst, and sex, which are essential for the sustenance of the individual.

• Hunger: When someone is hungry, the need for food dominates everything else. It motivates people to obtain and consume food. Of course, we must eat to live. But what makes you feel hungry? Studies have indicated that many events inside and outside the body may trigger hunger or inhibit it. The stimuli for hunger include stomach contractions, which signify that the stomach is empty, a low concentration of glucose in the blood, a low level of protein and the amount of fats stored in the body. The liver also responds to the lack of bodily fuel by sending nerve impulses to the brain. The aroma, taste or appearance of food may also result in a desire to eat. It may be noted that none of these alone gives you the feeling that you are hungry.

Some physiologists hold that changes in the metabolic functions of the liver result in a feeling of hunger. The liver sends a signal to a part of the brain called hypothalamus. The two regions of hypothalamus involved in hunger are - the lateral hypothalamus (LH) and the ventro-medial hypothalamus (VMH). LH is considered to be the excitatory area. Animals eat when this area is stimulated. When it is damaged, animals stop eating and die of starvation. The VMH is located in the middle of the hypothalamus, which is otherwise known as the hunger-controlling area which inhibits the hunger drive. Now can you guess about people who overeat and become obese, and people who eat very little or who are on a diet? • Thirst: What would happen to you, if you were deprived of water for a long time? What makes you feel thirsty? When we are deprived of water for a period of several hours, the mouth and throat become dry, which leads to dehydration of body tissues.

Drinking water is necessary to wet a dry mouth. But a dry mouth does not always result in water drinking behavior. Motivation to drink water is mainly triggered by the conditions of the body: loss of water from cells and reduction of blood volume. When water is lost by bodily fluids, water leaves the interior of the cells. The anterior hypothalamus contains nerve cells called ‘osmoreceptors’, which generate nerve impulses in case of cell dehydration. These nerve impulses act as a signal for thirst and drinking; when thirst is regulated by loss of water from the osmoreceptors, it is called cellular-dehydration thirst. However, the precise physiological mechanisms underlying the thirst drive are yet to be understood. • Sex: One of the most powerful drives in both animals and human beings is the sex drive. Motivation to engage in sexual activity is a very strong factor influencing human behavior. However, sex is far more than a biological motive. It is different from other primary motives (hunger, thirst) in many ways like, (a) sexual activity is not necessary for an individual’s survival; (b) homeostasis (the tendency of the organism as a whole to maintain constancy or to attempt to restore equilibrium if constancy is disturbed) is not the goal of sexual activity; and (c) sex drive develops with age, etc.

Physiologists suggest that intensity of the sexual urge is dependent upon chemical substances circulating in the blood, known as sex hormones. Studies on animals as well as human beings have mentioned that sex hormones secreted by gonads, i.e. testes in males and the ovaries in females are responsible for sexual motivation. Sexual motivation is also influenced by other endocrine glands, such as adrenal and pituitary glands. Sexual drive in human beings is primarily stimulated by external stimuli and its expression depends upon cultural learning ii. Psychosocial Motivation: Social motives are mostly learned or acquired. Social groups such as family, neighbourhood, friends, and relatives do contribute a lot in acquiring social motives. These are complex forms of motives mainly resulting from the individual’s interaction with her/his social environment.

• Need for Affiliation: Most of us need company or friends or want to maintain some form of relationship with others. Nobody likes to remain alone all the time. As soon as people see some kind of similarities among themselves or they like each other, they form a group. Formation of group or collectivity is an important feature of human life. Often people try desperately to get close to other people, to seek their help, and to become members of their group. Seeking other human beings and wanting to be close to them both physically and psychologically is called affiliation. It involves motivation for social contact. Need for affiliation is aroused when individuals feel threatened or helpless and also when they are happy. People high on this need are motivated to seek the company of others and to maintain friendly relationships with other people.

• Need for Power: Need for power is an ability of a person to produce intended effects on the behaviour and emotions of another person. The various goals of power motivation are to influence, control, persuade, lead, and charm others and most importantly to enhance one’s own reputation in the eyes of other people. David McClelland (1975) described four general ways of expression of the power motive. First, people do things to gain a feeling of power and strength from sources outside themselves by reading stories about sports stars or attaching themselves to a popular figure. Second, power can also be felt from sources within us and may be expressed by building up the body and mastering urges and impulses. Third, people do things as individuals to have an impact on others. For example, a person argues, or competes with another individual in order to have an impact or influence on that person. Fourth, people do things as members of organizations to have an impact on others as in the case of the leader of a political party; the individual may use the party apparatus to influence others. However, for any individual, one of these ways of expressing power motivation may dominate, but with age and life experiences, it varies.

• Need for Achievement: You might have observed some students work very hard and compete with others for good marks/grades in the examination, as good marks/grades will create opportunities for higher studies and better job prospects. It is the achievement motivation, which refers to the desire of a person to meet standards of excellence. Need for achievement, also known as n-Ach, energizes and directs behavior as well as influences the perception of situations. During the formative years of social development, children acquire achievement motivation. The sources from which they learn it include parents, other role models, and socio-cultural influences. Persons high in achievement motivation tend to prefer tasks that are moderately difficult and challenging. They have a stronger-than-average desire for feedback on their performance, that is to know how they are doing, so that they can adjust their goals to meet the challenge.

• Curiosity and Exploration: Often people engage in activities without a clear goal or purpose, but they derive some kind of pleasure out of it. It is a motivational tendency to act without any specific identifiable goal. The tendency to seek for a novel experience, gain pleasure by obtaining information, etc. are signs of curiosity. Hence, curiosity describes behavior whose primary motive appears to remain in the activities themselves. What will happen if the sky falls on us? Questions of this kind (What will happen if…) stimulate intellectuals to find answers. Studies show that this curious behavior is not only limited to human beings, but also to animals that show the same kind of behavior. We are driven to explore the environment by our curiosity and our need for sensory stimulation. The need for varied types of sensory stimulations is closely related to curiosity. It is the basic motive, and exploration and curiosity are the expressions of it. We get easily bored with repetitive experiences. So we look for something new.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs:

    There are various views on human motivation, the most popular among these is given by Abraham H. Maslow (1968; 1970). He attempted to portray a picture of human behaviour by arranging the various needs in a hierarchy. His viewpoint about motivation is very popular because of its theoretical and applied value which is popularly known as the “Theory of Self-Actualisation”. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs model can be conceptualized as a pyramid in which the bottom of this hierarchy represents basic physiological or biological needs which are basic to survival such as hunger, thirst, etc. Only when these needs are met, the need to be free from threatened danger arises. This refers to the safety needs of physical and psychological nature. Next comes the need to seek out other people, to love and to be loved. After these needs are fulfilled, the individual strives for esteem, i.e. the need to develop a sense of self-worth. The next higher need in the hierarchy reflects an individual’s motive towards the fullest development of potential, i.e. self-actualisation. A self-actualised person is self-aware, socially responsive, creative, spontaneous, open to novelty, and challenge. S/he also has a sense of humour and capacity for deep interpersonal relationships. Lower level needs (physiological) in the hierarchy dominate as long as they are unsatisfied. Once they are adequately satisfied, the higher needs occupy the individual’s attention and effort. However, it must be noted that very few people reach the highest level because most people are concerned more with the lower level needs.

Frustration and Conflict: So far we have taken a look at the various theoretical perspectives on motivation. They explain the process of motivation and what leads to motivated action and what are the reasons for different motives. Now we will try to understand what happens when motivated action is blocked or it fails due to certain reasons. We will also try to understand what happens when one is faced with more than one motive or need at the same time. These two concerns can be explained in the form of two important concepts related to motivation, namely frustration and conflict.

• Frustration: The blocking of a desired goal is painful, but all of us experience it in life to different degrees.

Frustration occurs when an anticipated desirable goal is not attained, and the motive is blocked. It is an aversive state and no one likes it.

Frustration results in a variety of behavioral and emotional reactions. They include aggressive behavior, fixation, escape, avoidance, and crying. In fact, frustration-aggression is a very famous hypothesis proposed by Dollard and Miller. It states that frustration produces aggression.

Aggressive acts are often directed towards the self or blocking agent, or a substitute. Direct aggressive acts may be inhibited by the threat of punishment.

The main sources or causes of frustration are found in: (i) environmental forces, which could be physical objects, constraining situations or even other people who prevent a person from reaching a particular goal, (ii) personal factors like inadequacies or lack of resources that make it difficult or impossible to reach goals, and (iii) conflicts between different motives.

• Conflict: Conflict occurs whenever a person must choose between contradictory needs, desires, motives, or demands. 

There are three basic forms of conflicts, for example, approach conflict, avoidance-avoidance conflict, and approach-avoidance conflict.

Approach-Approach Conflict comes from having to choose between two positives and desirable alternatives.

Avoidance-Avoidance Conflict comes from choosing between two negatives, or mutually undesirable alternatives. In real life, these double avoidance conflicts involve dilemmas such as choosing between the dentist and tooth decay, roadside food and starvation, etc.

Approach Avoidance Conflict comes from being attracted to and repelled by the same goal or activity. These types of conflicts are also difficult to resolve, as they are more troublesome than avoidance conflicts. A central characteristic of approach-avoidance conflict is ambivalence — a mix of positive and negative conflicts.

Some Examples of approach-avoidance conflicts are: a person wanting to buy a new motorbike but not wanting to make monthly payments, wanting to eat when one is overweight, and planning to marry someone her/his parents strongly disapprove of.

In all the cases of conflicts, the selection of one option against the other depends on the relative strength/importance of one over the other, and environmental factors. Conflicting situations should be resolved after due consideration of the pros and cons of each of the choices.

A point to note here is that conflicts cause frustration, which in turn, can lead to aggression. For instance, a young man who wants to be a musician but is pursuing a course in management due to parental pressure and is not able to perform as per the expectations of his parents may turn aggressive upon being questioned on his poor performance in the course.

Summary:

The process of persistent behaviour directed towards a specific goal, which results from certain driving forces, is called motivation.

• There are two types of motivation, namely, biological, and psychosocial motivation. 

• Biological motivation focuses on the innate, biological causes of motivation like hormones, neurotransmitters, brain structures (hypothalamus, limbic system), etc. Examples of biological motivation are hunger, thirst, and sex.

• Psychosocial motivation explains motives resulting mainly from the interaction of the individual with his social environment. Examples of psychosocial motives are need for affiliation, need for achievement, curiosity and exploration, and the need for power.

• Maslow arranged various human needs in an ascending hierarchical order, beginning with the most basic physiological needs, and then safety needs, love and belongingness needs, esteem needs, and finally on the top of the hierarchy is the need for self-actualisation.

• Other concepts related to motivation are frustration and conflicts.