11-1 How do psychologists define motivation? From what perspectives do they view motivated behavior?

Psychologists define motivation as a need or desire that energizes and directs behavior. Our motivations arise from the interplay between nature (the bodily “push”) and nurture (the “pulls” from our thought processes and culture). Consider four perspectives for viewing motivated behaviors:

Early in the twentieth century, as Charles Darwin’s influence grew, it became fashionable to classify all sorts of behaviors as instincts. If people criticized themselves, it was because of their “self-abasement instinct.” If they boasted, it reflected their “self-assertion instinct.” After scanning 500 books, one sociologist compiled a list of 5759 supposed human instincts! Before long, this instinct-naming fad collapsed under its own weight. Rather than explaining human behaviors, the early instinct theorists were simply naming them. It was like “explaining” a bright child’s low grades by labeling the child an “underachiever.” To name a behavior is not to explain it.

To qualify as an instinct, a complex behavior must have a fixed pattern throughout a species and be unlearned (Tinbergen, 1951). Such behaviors are common in other species (recall imprinting in birds and the return of salmon to their birthplace). Some human behaviors, such as infants’ innate reflexes for rooting and sucking, also exhibit unlearned fixed patterns, but many more are directed by both physiological needs and psychological wants.

Instinct theory failed to explain most human motives, but its underlying assumption continues in evolutionary psychology: Genes do predispose some species-typical behavior. We saw this in Chapter 7’s discussion of the limits that biological predispositions place on conditioning. And we will see this in later discussions of how evolution might influence our phobias, our helping behaviors, and our romantic attractions.

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When the original instinct theory of motivation collapsed, it was replaced by drive-reduction theory—the idea that a physiological need (such as for food or water) creates an aroused state that drives the organism to reduce the need. With few exceptions, when a physiological need increases, so does a psychological drive—an aroused, motivated state.

The physiological aim of drive reduction is homeostasis—the maintenance of a steady internal state. An example of homeostasis (literally “staying the same”) is the body’s temperature-regulation system, which works like a room’s thermostat. Both systems operate through feedback loops: Sensors feed room temperature to a control device. If the room’s temperature cools, the control device switches on the furnace. Likewise, if our body’s temperature cools, our blood vessels constrict to conserve warmth, and we feel driven to put on more clothes or seek a warmer environment (FIGURE 11.1).

Not only are we pushed by our need to reduce drives, we also are pulled by incentives—positive or negative environmental stimuli that lure or repel us. This is one way our individual learning histories influence our motives. Depending on our learning, the aroma of good food, whether fresh roasted peanuts or toasted ants, can motivate our behavior. So can the sight of those we find attractive or threatening.

When there is both a need and an incentive, we feel strongly driven. The food-deprived person who smells pizza baking feels a strong hunger drive and the baking pizza becomes a compelling incentive. For each motive, we can therefore ask, “How is it pushed by our inborn physiological needs and pulled by incentives in the environment?”

We are much more than homeostatic systems, however. Some motivated behaviors actually increase arousal. Well-fed animals will leave their shelter to explore and gain information, seemingly in the absence of any need-based drive. Curiosity drives monkeys to monkey around trying to figure out how to unlock a latch that opens nothing or how to open a window that allows them to see outside their room (Butler, 1954). It drives the 9-month-old infant to investigate every accessible corner of the house. It drives the scientists whose work this text discusses. And it drives explorers and adventurers such as George Mallory. Asked why he wanted to climb Mount Everest, the New York Times reported that Mallory answered, “Because it is there.” Those who, like Mallory, enjoy high arousal are most likely to seek out intense music, novel foods, and risky behaviors and careers (Roberti et al., 2004; Zuckerman, 1979, 2009). Although they have been called “sensation-seekers,” many risk takers (such as mountaineers) also are motivated in other ways, such as by a drive to master their emotions and actions (Barlow et al., 2013).

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So, human motivation aims not to eliminate arousal but to seek optimum levels of arousal. Having all our biological needs satisfied, we feel driven to experience stimulation and we hunger for information. Lacking stimulation, we feel bored and look for a way to increase arousal to some optimum level. However, with too much stimulation comes stress, and we then look for a way to decrease arousal.

Two early-twentieth-century psychologists studied the relationship of arousal to performance and identified the Yerkes-Dodson law, suggesting that moderate arousal would lead to optimal performance (Yerkes & Dodson, 1908). When taking an exam, for example, it pays to be moderately aroused—alert but not trembling with nervousness. Between depressed low arousal and anxious hyperarousal lies a flourishing life. But optimal arousal levels depend upon the task as well, with more difficult tasks requiring lower arousal for best performance (Hembree, 1988) (FIGURE 11.2). When anxious, it’s better not to become further aroused with a caffeinated energy drink.

Some needs take priority. At this moment, with your needs for air and water hopefully satisfied, other motives—such as your desire to achieve (discussed later in this chapter)—are energizing and directing your behavior. Let your need for water go unsatisfied and your thirst will preoccupy you. Deprived of air, your thirst would disappear.

Abraham Maslow (1970) described these priorities as a hierarchy of needs (FIGURE 11.3). At the base of this pyramid are our physiological needs, such as those for food and water. Only if these needs are met are we prompted to meet our need for safety, and then to satisfy our human needs to give and receive love and to enjoy self-esteem. Beyond this, said Maslow (1971), lies the need to actualize one’s full potential.

Near the end of his life, Maslow proposed that some people also reach a level of self-transcendence. At the self-actualization level, people seek to realize their own potential. At the self-transcendence level, people strive for meaning, purpose, and communion that are transpersonal, beyond the self (Koltko-Rivera, 2006).

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Maslow’s hierarchy is somewhat arbitrary; the order of such needs is not universally fixed. People have starved themselves to make a political statement. Culture also matters: Self-esteem matters most in individualist nations, whose citizens tend to focus more on personal achievements than on family and community identity (Oishi et al., 1999). And, while agreeing with Maslow’s basic levels of need, today’s evolutionary psychologists note that gaining and retaining mates and parenting offspring are also universal human motives (Kenrick et al., 2010).

Nevertheless, the simple idea that some motives are more compelling than others provides a framework for thinking about motivation. Worldwide life-satisfaction surveys support this basic idea (Oishi et al., 1999; Tay & Diener, 2011). In poorer nations that lack easy access to money and the food and shelter it buys, financial satisfaction more strongly predicts feelings of well-being. In wealthy nations, where most are able to meet basic needs, home-life satisfaction is a better predictor.

Let’s now consider four representative motives, beginning at the physiological level with hunger and working up through sexual motivation to the higher-level needs to belong and to achieve. At each level, we shall see how experience interacts with biology.

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LEARNING OBJECTIVES

RETRIEVAL PRACTICE Take a moment to answer each of these Learning Objective Questions (repeated here from within this section). Then click the 'show answer' button to check your answers. Research suggests that trying to answer these questions on your own will improve your long-term retention (McDaniel et al., 2009).

11-1 How do psychologists define motivation? From what perspectives do they view motivated behavior?

TERMS AND CONCEPTS TO REMEMBER

RETRIEVAL PRACTICE Match each of the terms on the left with its definition on the right. Click on the term first and then click on the matching definition. As you match them correctly they will move to the bottom of the activity.