Understanding Motivation

• Motivation is a need or desire that energizes behavior and directs it toward a goal
• Behavior is purposive, not random, and people show positive (work done on time) and negative (arrive late for work) behavior for a reason
• Motivation gets someone to do something.
• People are not likely to change a behavior or do something different unless motivated
• Motivation focuses people on a desired result or goal
• Motivation fuels the persistence needed to put forth sustained effort on a task
• Motivation makes behavior more energetic
• Energy comes from the same word as motion
• Motivation "moves" a person
• Motivation changes preferences or choices

Perspectives to Understand Motivated Behaviour

• Instinct theory focuses on genetically predisposed behavior
• Drive reduction theory focuses on how our inner pushes and external pulls interact
• Arousal theory focuses on finding the right level of stimulation
• Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs describes how some needs take priority over others
• Intrinsic motivation is something within a person that energizes behavior, such as interest, curiosity, personal challenge, and improvement
• Extrinsic motivation is something outside the person that energizes behavior, such as money, fame, and power
• Most behavior follows a combination of both types of motivation

Basic Motivational Concepts

• Reward: A work outcome of positive value to the individual
• Extrinsic rewards: Valued outcomes given to someone by another person.
• Intrinsic rewards: Valued outcomes that occur naturally as a person works on a task

Key terms

• Need: an internal deficiency that may energize behavior
• Drive: the psychological expression of internal needs or valued goals (hunger, thirst, drive to success)
• Response: any action, glandular activity, or other identifiable behavior
• Goal: the target or objective of motivated behavior

Types of Motives

• Primary Motives (Intrinsic or innate motives) include:
  • Hunger
  • Thirst
  • Pain avoidance
  • Needs for air
  • Sleep
  • Regulation of body temperature
• General (stimulus) motives include:
  • Expression of needs for stimulation and information
  • Activity, curiosity, exploration, manipulation, and physical contact
  • Seem innate by nature and are not always necessary for survival
• Secondary motivations (Extrinsic motivations) include:
  • Develop as a result of specific learning experiences.
  • Performing behaviors to achieve an external consequence, such as a reward
  • Making music
  • Blogging
  • Trying to win in the skateboarding finals in X Games
• Many secondary motives are related to learned needs for power, affiliation (the need to be with others), approval, status, security, and achievement
• Fear and aggression also appear to be greatly affected by learning

Conscious vs Unconscious Motivation

• Conscious Motivation: Having the desire to engage activity and being aware
• Unconscious Motivation: Having the desire to engage in an activity but being consciously unaware of the desire.
• Freud's psychoanalytic theory emphasized unconscious motivation

Factors Affecting Motivation

• External motivating factors originate outside the body that regulate behavior
• Internal motivating forces originate inside the body that regulate behavior