What is Motivation?

“We talk on principal, but act on motivation.” —Walter Savage Landor

Motivation refers to what moves us to act a particular way. Psychoanalysts (led by Freud) found motivation for behavior in the unconscious; behaviorists (Watson and Skinner) emphasized incentives in the environment, such as reinforcers, as motiva- tional forces; and humanistic psychologists (Maslow and Rogers) tended to look inside a person’s feelings and conscious mind, at things such as self-actualization. Maslow, for instance, created the well-known pyramid of needs as one way to view motivation.
Naturally, some motivations are driven by survival needs. Hunger, thirst, and other internal drives are part of our biological makeup. Other motives are more social in ori- gin. Things such as achievement motivation, thrill-seeking, and the needs for power, status, cognition (enjoying thinking), and affiliation (wanting to be with others) cer- tainly are grounded in our evolutionary past but also are greatly shaped by our personal experiences in the world. These more social motives have been extensively studied by psychologists. For instance, the need for achievement was studied for more than 30 years by David McClelland.
Motivation has been described by using certain key ideas:
1. An instinct is an inherited tendency toward certain behavior. Evolutionary psychologists have explained a number of human behaviors on the basis of their survival value (and reproduction value, of course, since surviving isn’t enough to pass on genes!) for our predecessors. The biological drives such as hunger and thirst have obvious value. But some psychologists have also pointed out that motives such as affiliation, aggression, and achievement have their roots in our evolutionary past. That is, these motives had reproduction value for our ancestors. For instance, people today have an instinct (a natural competency, a natural reaction) to avoid people who cheat in social situa- tions. This is because affiliating with cheaters in the past, for our distant predecessors, reduced their ability to reproduce (Cosmides & Tooby, 1992).
2. Intrinsic motivation refers to an animal’s tendency to perform a behavior for its own sake. For example, you might enjoy doodling, singing in the shower, or playing computer games just for fun, not because you get some- thing for these activities. Intrinsic means the motivation is coming from within. Psychologists use the term drive to refer to a force inside of us that makes us do something.
Extrinsic motivation, on the other hand, refers to behavior that is moti- vated by some payoff, something outside the body. For instance, you might agree to do some boring work to get money. The term incentive is used to refer to the payoff.
One of the interesting debates in psychology is the extent to which peo- ple are motivated by drives or incentives. Interestingly, it has been found that
if a person’s behavior consistently leads to a tangible reward, the person may come to think of the behavior as one that is not interesting in its own right. That is, intrinsic motivation may in fact be decreased by receiving tangible rewards. If we want someone to enjoy a behavior, perhaps we should not make that behavior constantly dependent on an outside reward. Praise, com- pliments, and fun often increase intrinsic motivation more than do money, treats, or goodies. However, if a person has little or no intrinsic motivation to perform a task, then extrinsic, tangible rewards can increase motivation.
Almost always, intrinsic and extrinsic factors work together to motivate behavior. As an analogy, consider the fact that a plant will grow toward sunlight. What causes this: the internal nature of the plant or the effect of sunlight on the plant? Of course, it is the interaction between the two forces that gives rise to the actions of the plant. Similarly, humans and other ani- mals have internal mechanisms that interact with things in the environment. It is this interaction that motivates us.
3. Homeostasis refers to a body’s internal state of balance. For example, body temperature, hunger, and thirst are homeostatic motives. A person’s body attempts to maintain a balance in those things. When the body state is too low, a person is motivated to increase it (eat or drink, for example), and when the body state is too high, the motivation is to lower it (stop eating or drinking).
An interesting example is arousal. Psychologists have found that people tend to strive for a medium level of stimulation. When a lecture is boring, students begin to swing their legs, tap their pencils, and fidget. They are motivated to become more aroused. But when people have too much stimu- lation, say, after a hard, stressful day at work, they tend to want relaxation and quiet.
Researchers found that people normally perform at their best when at a medium level of arousal. This is known as the Yerkes-Dodson law. If we need to perform some task and we are understimulated, we will be careless and sluggish. However, if we are overstimulated (too nervous, for example) then we will be tense and distracted and will make mistakes. That’s why opposing coaches call a time- out when a player is to shoot a free throw or kick a field goal. The attempt is to increase that player’s arousal so as to decrease performance. Think about the Yerkes-Dodson law when you take tests. Your best performance is likely to result when you are stimulated some but not too much.
Of course, the optimum level of arousal, though in the middle, does vary from one task to another. In general, tasks that require creativity are per- formed better at a lower level of arousal than are tasks that require tedious repetition. You will proba- bly need a higher level of arousal to add a table of numbers than to solve a crossword puzzle.