Question- Describe important Types of Motives.

Or
Describe the relation of Need, drive and Incentive.

Answer-

Types of Motivation

About the types of motivation, the most important view McDougall’s these of Insticts. Instints were defined as complex inherited tendencies, common to all members of a species, compelling each individual - (i) to perceive and pay attention to certain objects and situations, (ii) to experience positive or negative emotional excitement on perceiving them, and (iii) thereupon to act in a way which is likely in the long run to preserve the individual. According to McDougall,“The human mind has certain innate or inherited tendencies which are the essential springs or motive powers of all thought and action.” He lists the main instincts as parental, escape, pugnacity, repulsion, gregariousness, self-assertion, submission, mating, acquisitiveness and a number of minor instincts. He further says that under the working of intelligence and learning experiences, the emotional dispositions attached to each specific instinct (such as anger with pugnacity, or fear with escape, etc.) get organised around objects, persons or principles. These organization are called sentiments of which the chief and supermost is the self-regarding sentiment. According to McDougall these sentiments determine a great deal of behaviour and make it relatively consistent and predictable. Sigmund Freud proposed two fundamental instincts, the sex instinct and the self-preservative instinct. Later on, he combined these two into one “life instinct” and proposed additional “death instinct.”

Criticism of Instinct Theory : As explanation of the ‘why’ of human behaviour, instincts were soon questioned by psychologists like Burnard, Dunlop, Waston and Woodworth. They pointed out that most, human behaviour, espcially adult behaviour, is very much influenced by learning and is, therefore, not innate. A number of experiments were conducted to show that even animal behaviour depended to some extent on learning or external.

Social anthropoligists like Linton, Mead and Benedict also asserted that far from being influenced by the innate universal instincts, human behaviour is shaped and determined by the cultural patterns like educational practices and social roles. The behaviour and personality widely vary from group to group depending upon the customs in each culture.

Drive Theory : After the rise and decline of the instinct doctrine, a new type of explanatory theory became prominent. This was the drive theory. All organisms have physiological needs such as need for food, water elimination, etc. When such needs are not readily satisfied, the organism is driven to activity. On this basis, we speak of physiological drives, such as hunger drive, thirst, drive, etc. Drive is the physiological deficit or tissue deficiency. The strength of a drive may be known from the speed of running towards an incentive (food, etc.), or away from an aversion stimulus (shock), the rate of pressing lever that brings the incentive, or how much shock the organism will take in order to reach a satisfying stimulus or incentive.

There are different explanations of how drives activate the organism. One explanation looks upon drives as source of energy as energizers of behaviour in the sense that drive states are accompanied by the release of hormones and neural mechanisms. Another explanation looks upon the physiologically driven organism as in a state of physiological disequilibrium and the final act such as getting food or water is thought of as compensatory - as restoring equilibrium or homeostatis. But this explanation of drive does not hold good in the case of human beings. A well-fed person may still have a drive to eat a different variety of food. Similarly, sexual activity in the case of human beings cannot be considered as an example of homeostasic response.

Criticism of Drive Theory : The drive theory might explain behaviour among animals like rats, monkeys, etc., but it appears inadequate to describe and explain all of human behaviour. Human beings are far more complex and show much greater plasticity of behaviour than animals, they have physiological drives, but they have other strong urges too which seem to be acquired and learned in a social environment e.g., desire to acquire and hold property and other possessions.

To explain these social strivings as well as the physiological drives found in human beings, the psychologists now use the term motives. The term motive includes influences of learning in explaining the source of human behaviour and also indicates the direction of an activity towards a goal. Thus, a motive is that which arouses, sustains and directs activity.

Types of Motives :
Motives are classified into three types -
(1) Physiological Motives,
(2) Social Motives,
(3) Personal Motives

(1) Physiological Motives : These include hunger, thirst, sex, sleep, elimination of body wastes, maintenance of constant body temperature, sensory stimulation, etc. Emotions too are comparable with physiological motives. The physiological motives correlates of emotions energize behaviour in the sense that physiological drives energize it. Like physiological motives, they impel us to activity. They also engender goal-oriented activities like the lover’s affectionate behaviour toward his beloved one, and the angry man’s aggression toward the object of his anger. Some activate the escape motive. Fear and annoyance exemplify this fact. Sometimes, emotions move us to tears or to performance of helpful and benevolent acts.

(2) Social Motives : The social motives are learned and developed differently in different cultural settings. In the daily life of an adult, behaviour released by learned motive is much more in evidence than that which could merely satisfy physiological needs. Social motives are sometimes called secondary or derived in the sense that they have their origin in the gratification of primary physiological motives in infancy and childhood. For example, an individual learns to desire social approval because the experience of approval from parents and other person has been earlier associated with the satisfaction of primary needs. The desire for approval is, therefore, said to be a derived and learned motive.

Social motives are the motives that seem to be the reasons for behaviour one sees daily among people, whose physiological needs are more than satisfied. The social motives included need for social approval, for a respected place in our group, for possessing money, gold, degrees and other status symbols. These are the motives which provide impetus to our action.

(3) Personal Motives : Many motives are much more personal than those mentioned earlier. They are sort of variations of the universal or cultural theme and are learned through one’s unique life experiences. Individual interests, attitudes, self-concept and life-goals are the examples of personal motives. Since interests show an individuals’ feeling of like or dislike for a situation, and the attitude shows disposition to act positively or negatively in regard to something, they both function as motivators. Without an interest, one may not like to act in a situation. But active interest functions have strong motive. Similarly, a person’s attitudes will attract him towards certain situations and repel him from others.

One’s self-concept too can act as powerful motive. Self-concept includes the cultural picture of what one is, as a teacher, as a student, as a person with particular background and level of aspiration. A person’s self-image determines not only the kinds of goals he sees as suitable for him to strive for, but also his level of aspiration. One’s life goals too function like strong motives.

But not all motives of personal type are manifest, or known to the individual. Some of them may be unconscious and influence him strongly but he seldom knows them. Many strong dislikes, prejudices and other symptoms of maladjustment are due to unconsciousness motives.

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