Motivation Theory: Week 7 Homework

Although people intrinsically vary in extent of motivation towards specific fields of life such as education, family-friend relationships and other things I believe motivation ultimately drives everyone to the life decisions they make and it can be broken down to simply trying to attain the things they want and avoiding the things they don’t want. If we seek to increase the amount of friends we have we will be more motivated to be outgoing and social. If we want to do better in school, we will be more motivated to study and complete homework. If we wish to become stronger, or toned for the ladies, we will be motivated to work out. You get the picture. In order to attain our desires (or needs), we alter our behavior and carry out specific actions that we believe will get us to our desired result. Then we judge the results and speculate on whether the effort was worth it and reevaluate what we truly want/need. This means that the circle is self-perpetuating. Let me simplify my idea into a picture, as pictures have been proven more effective and concise in explaining theoretical ideas than countless words.

The process of evaluating the outcomes of our directed energy not only helps us continue to make decisions but it is also a naturally reflective process. By using our progress as evidence as to whether or not our strategies towards attaining our goals is effective or not, we use this accumulated “learned knowledge” and use it as clues for future decision-making. Many times general assumptions can be attained and then applied to new situations (or “transferred”). Lets take an example in which studying for a single extended amount of time results in a bad grade. From this, we may take the assumption that this strategy of studying is not effective and implement a new strategy for the next exam. This next time we study a week in advance for a half-hour each day and on this exam we receive the grade we were desiring. Not only are we likely to continue this studying strategy but we may also draw a conclusion such as repetitive practices lead to better results than a single practice of long duration and apply this to weight-lifting. We want to get a great summer bod for the ladies of course, so we may think weight-lifting smaller weights so that we are able to go for longer stretches of days without an off-day may be more effective. Whether this turns out to be true or not is irrelevant, as in time we will discover whether it is effective in getting to the results we want and adjust accordingly. What does matter here though is that our findings come to influence our behavior, both in the same context and initially in different contexts.

Now let’s get into the definition of need. There are many different interpretations but one leading theory is Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. The levels he establishes from lowest to highest are physiological, safety, belongingness, esteem and self-actualization. Let’s brainstorm how these needs might appear at home and in the context of a job:

According to Maslow, lower needs take priority. They must be fulfilled before the others are activated. There is some basic common sense here -- it's pointless to worry about whether a given color looks good on you when you are dying of starvation, or being threatened with your life. There are some basic things that take precedence over all else. Or at least logically should, if people were rational. But is that a safe assumption? According to the theory, if you are hungry and have inadequate shelter, you won't go to church. Can't do the higher things until you have the lower things. But the poor tend to be more religious than the rich. Both within a given culture, and across nations. So the theory makes the wrong prediction here. Or take education: how often do you hear "I can't go to class today, I haven't had sex in three days!"? Do all physiological needs including sex have to be satisfied before "higher" needs? (Besides, wouldn't the authors of the Kama Sutra argue that sex was a kind of self-expression more like art than a physiological need? that would put it in the self-actualization box). Again, the theory doesn't seem to predict correctly the prioritization of needs. There seem to be limits of placing all needs within one of 5 boxes and thus another basis of needs should be considered.

According to Herzberg’s Two Factor Theory, two kinds of considerations impact our motivation. There are hygiene factors whose absence motivates, but whose presence has no perceived effect. There are also motivators whose presence motivates. Their absence does not cause any particular dissatisfaction, it just fails to motivate. Again, this seems to be an oversimplification. It definitely seems that there are factors whose appearance deter motivation to repeat an action, and whose absence motivates us to repeat an action. Contrarily, there must be factors whose appearance motivates us to continue acting as we have and whose absence would deter us from that action.

This becomes more clear the longer you look at B.F. Skinner and his reinforcement theory. He used the term operant conditioning to describe the effects of the consequences of a particular behavior on the future occurrence of that behavior. There are four types of Operant Conditioning: Positive Reinforcement, Negative Reinforcement, Punishment, and Extinction. Both Positive and Negative Reinforcement strengthen behavior while both Punishment and Extinction weaken behavior. Positive reinforcement strengthening a behavior due to getting incentives as a consequence of a behavior. You make a sale, you get a commission. You do a good job at work, you get a bonus and a promotion. Negative reinforcement likewise strengthens a behavior due to having a stressor taken away as a consequence of a behavior. Long-term sanctions are removed from countries when their human rights records improve. This gives the country more freedoms. Extinction is weakening a behavior by not receiving an incentive as a consequence of a behavior. So if person does extra effort, but gets no thanks for it, they stop doing it. Punishment is weakening a behavior by getting a punishment as a consequence of a behavior. This could appear as in having your pay docked for an excessive amount of absences or having your car towed as a result of parking in a no-park zone. This is not a fun experience and I learned from experience really quickly that if you break the law there are undesirable consequences. Just ask my parents about that. In conclusion:

For this theory to work though the benefits and punishments must be perceivable and significant enough to encourage or discourage repetition of the action.

In all reality, what encourages us to act how we do is likely a combination of all of the aforementioned theories. What is the driving factor for motivation is ultimately trying to get what we want and avoiding what we don’t want, which modifies our behavior leading to results which we reflect upon and are either satisfied with and continue until the desires goal is reached or seek to find a new action that will better lead us to this goal if we are unsatisfied with the process. This analysis can happen at any point along the process, as action-reflection is important so that we don’t harm ourselves along the way. If we are lifting very heavy weights and it is putting extreme stress on our bodies and we find ourselves lifting wrong, we will often spot this in the moment and stop with our reps. Hope you have enjoyed the highly scientific, nowhere near all-encompassing journey looking into a theory of motivation!