This is the 4th lecture of [[Keith Campbell]]'s [[PA Intro to Psychology]] from [[Peterson Academy]] ## Definitions Motivation is the energy to drive us towards or away from something. #### Related terms: These terms are related, and sometimes used interchangeably with 'motivation.' - Needs: Higher in urgency and necessity than motivation - Goals: Usually refers to the endpoint of a motivational system or the pursuit of a need --- ## Classical models of motivation: [[Henry Murray]] came up with lots and lots of needs. Simpler models (always preferred) appeared later. [[David McClelland's Theory of Needs]] and [[Deci and Ryan's Self-Determination Theory]] both identify three meta-motivations, which are affiliation or relatedness, achievement or competence, and power or autonomy. --- ## Big historic breaks in motivation studies - ### Approach vs Avoidance - Approach motivation, also known as appetitive behavior, is a reward-seeking motivation. It is highly energetic, adrenaline rising, dopaminergic. In simple terms, it feels good. - Avoidance motivation is to run away from something, out of fear and anxiety. It feels bad. - There are natural objects of inviting approach like food, sex, status and power. Same goes for avoidance with things like snakes, heights. - People's personalities are also more often oriented towards one than the other. On top of that, environmental context changes how approach or avoidant minded somebody is. In terms of financial markets, bull markets invite approach behavior, whereas bear markets invite avoidance. - ### Intrinsic vs Extrinsic Motivation - Intrinsic motivations are drives that come from within, like the feelings of joy and fear. Or it can be simply "just because I want to" or "just because I don't want to" - Extrinsic motivations are rewards and punishments that come externally. - Much of our behavior is a combination of both, but it is useful to recognize these two different systems of motivation at play. - How they relate: the classic [[Lepper, Green and Nisbett 1973]] study shows that offering extrinsic motivation to someone who is already intrinsically motivated to do something (like children drawing art) would reduce their intrinsic motivation, and also their joy in doing that thing. - Sometimes the distinction is not as clean. It is possible for me to internalize certain rewards or expectations of the things I do. I think this is similar to the idea that you can voluntarily choose (to participate or enjoy) the fate that you're dealt. - ### Implicit vs Explicit (or Unconscious vs Conscious) - The differentiating factor is whether we are aware of certain motives. - Henry Murray and Christiana Morgan's Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) is designed to measure people's unconscious motives. Roschach tests were earlier examples of attempting to get at the contents of one's unconscious. --- ## Maslow's hierarchy of needs Maslow's hierarchy of needs consist of a set of motivation needs that are arranged in a hierarchy, meaning one needs to be met before the next is or can be sought out. > [!quote] Human needs arrange themselves in hierarchies of prepotency. That is to say, the appearance of one need usually rests on the prior satisfaction of another, more prepotent need. Man is a perpetually wanting animal. ### Tier 1: Physiological needs This involves everything our body needs to function properly, like oxygen, blood, salt and their proportions to one another. ### Tier 2: Safety needs 'Safety' here essentially means the stability and predictability of the development environment.[^1] >[!quote] Another indication of the child 's need for safety is his preference for some kind of undisrupted routine or rhythm. He seems to want a predictable, orderly world. Quarreling, physical assault, separation, divorce, or death within the family may be particularly terrifying. ### Tier 3: Long and belonging needs The need to connect with others, and to the world. >[!quote] If both the physiological and safety needs are fairly well gratified, then there will emerge the love and affection and belongingness needs. Now the person will feel keenly, as never before, the absence of friends, or a sweetheart, or a wife, or children. He will hunger for affectionate relations with people in general, namely, for a place in his group, and he will strive with great intensity to achieve this goal. - Mark Leary and Roy Baumeister talks about this as the need for belonging, to connect to others and something bigger than oneself. - [[John Bowlby's Attachment Theory|Bowlby]] talks about this as the need to for security via attachment to a caregiver. - [[Deci and Ryan's Self-Determination Theory|Ryan and Deci]] talk about the need for relatedness in their self-determination theories. - [[David McClelland's Theory of Needs|McClelland]] talks about the need for affiliation in his theory of needs - [[Aristotle]] thinks of humans as social animals - This needs seems to be homeostatic, meaning you can have enough of it. ### Tier 4: Esteem needs The need for self-esteem, to be esteemed, status, and recognition.[^2] >[!quote] All people in our society, with a few pathological exceptions, have a need or desire for a stable, firmly based, usually high evaluation of themselves, for self -respect, self-esteem, and for the esteem of others... By firmly-based self-esteem, we mean that which is soundly based on real capacity, achievement, and respect from others... Satisfaction of the self-esteem needs leads to feelings of self-confidence, worth, strength, capability, and adequacy of being useful and necessary in the world. - [[David McClelland's Theory of Needs|McClelland]] talks about this as the need for achievement in his theory of needs. - These needs are not homeostatic, the desire for it does not turn off once you have *enough* status—you never have *enough* status. ### Tier 5: Self-actualization Classically formulated as "everything a man can be, he must be." >[!quote] Even if all these needs are satisfied, we may still often (if not always) expect that a new discontent and restlessness will soon develop, unless the individual is doing what he is fitted for. A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write if he is to be ultimately happy. What a man can be, he must be. This need we may call self-actualization. ### Tier 6(?): Self-transcendence This is not part of Maslow's classical hierarchy of needs, but is something he pondered upon as he got closer to the end of his life. He was reflecting upon the possibility to go beyond the self. >[!quote] Transcendence refers to the very highest and most inclusive or holistic levels of human consciousness. Behaving and relating as ends rather than means to oneself, to significant others, to human beings in general, to other species, to nature, and to the Cosmos. - Nietzsche's three metamorphoses—the camel, the lion and the child—is a good metaphor for this. - In relation to this, Maslow himself speaks of peak experiences as "rare, exciting, oceanic, deeply moving, exhilarating, elevating experiences that generate an advanced form of perceiving reality and are even mystic and magical in their effect upon the experimenter." - This is more popularly known as flow states, as studied and coined by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. He found that flow states come when the challenge matches your ability. --- ## What about happiness? Sonja Lyubomirsky describes happiness as "joy, contentment or positive well-being, combined with a sense that one's life is good, meaningful, and worthwhile." Happiness here is an aggregate of idea of feeling good, and having a sense of purpose in life. ### Hedonia or hedonism, of life-satisfaction is about maximizing pleasure, and minimizing pain. ### Eudaimonia Aristotle's idea of what makes a good life—his specific answer was doing philosophy.[^3] Socrates listened to his inner daemon for directions, and it told him to do music before he died. Freud was pushed by his inner tyrant to do psychology. ### Richness Work by Shige Oishi and Erin Westgate looks at another dimension of happiness that does not necessarily involve pleasure, nor our higher calling, but is simply experiences that we feel are interesting, deep, and makes for a good story. --- Highly relevant: [[Paths to Self Growth]] Back to: [[PA Intro to Psychology]] Previous lecture: [[Psychology Throughout Life]] Next lecture: [[The Self]] [^1]: For how the lack of this could negatively affect a child, read Rob Henderson's memoir documenting his experiencing jumping from foster home to foster home. [^2]: Maslow is being very specific about how self-esteem is defined, with it being necessarily an accurate reflection of reality. For other, or broader conceptions of self esteem, visit Keith's [[Understanding Self Esteem|lecture]] on self-esteem. [^3]: This is classically understood as Aristotle arguing that philosophy is the only way to eudaimonia. Keith is explaining this in a more general way that can be applied to self-actualization. It is the obeying of one's inner voice that leads one to eudaimonia.