Motivation

Introduction

"I wonder why she acts that way?"
"People! I'll never understand them."
"We've met the enemy, and he is us."
If you have ever had such thoughts as these, this book be of interest to you. Motivation, values, and personality are subjects that touche everyone, both on the job and in the home. Understanding why people do what they do is important for employee morale and job performance. When the work is done, this understanding is important in dealing with family and friends.
Psalm 8 asks, "What is man that thou art mindful of him? The scientist answers,  "Man is a product of internal and external forces." Each person is the result of interaction between biological heritage and cultural history. The kind of person you are and what you depend on both raw material (heredity) and what is done with this raw material (how it is shaped and grown). You must eat to live; but whether you eat rice or meat, and whether you use fingers or utensils, are influenced by culture and experience. The following is a discussion of the world within the person.

The World Within

Two primary determinants of behavior are within the person - biological factors and psychological forces.

Biological Factors

From the moment of conception, biology plays a major role in your development. Inherited makeup determines such important distinctions as whether you are male, female, black, white, nearsighted, or bald. Each person is born as a unique biological entity. This uniqueness is so fundamental that it influences all of a person's experiences throughout life. It expresses itself in the following ways.

Intelligence. Differences in problem-solving ability are important in determining a person's learning rate and the complexity of problems he or she can solve. Intellectually gifted people have an advantage in nearly all that they attempt. Research shows that they are usually healthier, happier, more emotionally mature, and more likely to achieve in both educational and social activities than are their less advantaged counterparts.

Sensitivity. Even during the first few weeks of life, children differ significantly in their sensitivity to stimulation. Some are startled by even minor sounds and cry if sunlight hits their faces. Others are seemingly insensitive to such stimulation.

Vitality. Observation of any group of babies reveals that they vary considerably in energy and activity levels. This is reflected in differences in exploratory activity and in the tendency of highly vigorous infants to deal with life in a more active, aggressive manner than less vigorous babies. Similar differences in vitality level can be seen in the adult world.

Temperament. Temperament refers to a person's emotional makeup and prevailing moods. From early childhood, some people tend to be unemotional and do not easily become fearful, angry, joyful, or anxious. Others tend to become emotional in the face of even minor events and conditions.

Resistance. From birth through adulthood, people show distinct differences in their vulnerability to both physical and psychological setbacks and in their ability to recuperate from such disturbances.

Appearance. General physical appearance greatly influences the way people are treated, which in turn, influences feelings of self-confidence, self-worth, and other important aspects of development from an early age onward. As a rule, a pleasing personal appearance results in favorable treatment, and this results in a positive self-image.

Sex Identity. Although whether a person is male or female makes little difference in inherent capacity for most types of achievement, it contributes significantly to individuality because of differing cultural expectations for men and women. In all cultures, there are fairly consistent differences between the sexes in such characteristics as personal interests, athletic ability, intellectual achievement, and emotional response. To understand the importance of biology in your own life, think of your physical appearance, vitality level, temperament, and gender. How have these factors affected you? These few examples show the important role biology plays in determining what you do and why and how you do it.

Psychological Forces

In addition to biological factors, psychological forces are major determinants of behavior. Dominant among these forces are physical emotional needs. Sometimes you are conscious of your needs, and sometimes not. In any case, the drive to satisfy needs constitutes the motivation behind all purposeful human behavior, helping to explain why people work, why they have certain goals, and what they want in their relationships with others. Psychologists Abraham Maslow divides needs into five categories.

Survival. Survival is a basic and natural need. Taking a breath of air and acting in self-defense are normal expressions of the need for survival. If asked "What is important to you?" most people will say, "Life." If asked "How long do you want to live?", most people will answer, "Forever." Survival needs that motivate behavior include:

• Health. Anyone who has ever been sick or felt pain know the overwhelming desire to get well and feel better.
• Nutrition. When you are hungry, you seek food, and it is natural for this need to influence your actions.
• Exercise. Who has not felt the normal urge to stretch limbs, tense muscles, and breathe deeply?
• Rest. Can you recall a time when the primary thing you wanted to do was to sleep? You needed rest, and your behavior was influenced by this need.
• Shelter. Without protection from climate and weather, people become uncomfortable and may even die; the need for shelter can be a powerful motivator.

Survival needs are basic, strong, and natural forces within the person. Psychologist Viktor Frankl tells of his experiences in a Nazi concentration camp during World War II: "What did the prisoner dream about most frequently? Of bread, cake, cigarettes, and nice warm baths. During the waking hours prisoners were concerned, above all else, with what they would get for their evening meal and how much would be available. When they received food, they were torn between whether they should consume all of it immediately, or save a part of it for that later time when their stomachs would hurt from hunger. In short, whether awake or asleep, their greatest concern was for the most basic physical needs - food and physical comfort.

Security. Once survival needs are satisfied, security becomes important. Freedom from threat and protection from loss are major security goals, helping to explain our interest in savings accounts, medical insurance, seniority rights, and burglar alarms. People do not want to lose what they have gained. All ages and types of people experience the need for security. Both the child who is afraid of the dark and the worker who fears unemployment feel the need for security, and the drive to satisfy this need influences their actions.

Security needs can motivate the behavior of societies as well as individuals. In the United States during the 1950's, fallout shelters were common, and and elaborate civil defense program was in place because of fear of nuclear war. Justifiably or not, people believed that the danger of nuclear war decreased during the 1970's. Consequently, fallout shelters lapsed into ill repair and went unstocked, and civil defense readiness was reduced to during that period. Only in recent years have large numbers of Americans again felt vulnerable, thus motivating renewed interest in civil defense.

Typically when people feel they have and reasonable protection, such as when they have an early warning system in the case of national security or a financial nest egg in the case of material security, they can tolerate quite a bit of uncertainty. However, if conditions are dangerous or events appear out of control, the need for security can become a powerful motivator.

Love. When survival and security needs are satisfied, the need for affiliation (love) emerges. The need for love is an emotion that people share with other species. Researcher Harry Harlow's classic study of rhesus monkeys show that the normal growth and development of these animal cousins of ours depends on the satisfaction of affiliation needs.

In the case of people, each person strives to secure a place as an accepted member in a social milieu. This is true for people in all cultures, whether aggressive or peaceful, primitive or advanced. Every individual makes a distinct effort to belong to some aspired social group. If you have ever felt a need for love or a need to express love, you have experienced a natural need for affiliation and this has influenced your behavior. The need to give love can be as powerful a motivator as the need to receive love. Consider the following:

Martha was eleven years old when it was learned that her father was dying of kidney disease. There was only one way to save his life. The little girl's answer was yes, she would give her kidney to her father. On the day of the operation, Martha was placed on one table, her father was placed on the table next to her, and anesthesia was administered. Eight hours later, the little girls opened her eyes, looked at her mother, and asked, "Mommy, am I dead yet?" ... Martha had misunderstood. She that in order to save her daddy's life, she must give up her own. What motivated Martha to do this? Martha was motivated by the need to give love to her daddy.

The need for love is a normal human need. People are psychologically built so that they require this interaction. Studies of children in institutions in which they do not receive affection show that they do not develop normally, in spite of the fact that all of the physical needs are met. The following shows the life and death importance of the need for love:

The evidence is now compelling that emotionally deprived animal, including humans, are less resistant to stress effects and to disease than emotionally satisfied animals: that they have higher morbidity and mortality rates, and they tend to be less developed physically and behaviorally. 

Death is but an extreme consequence of general physical and psychological decline that affects children completely starved of emotional interchange. The die from deprivation of love, just as if they had been deprived of food and died from hunger – for what they indeed die from is an unsatisfied hunger for love. 

In the late 1920’s, several hospital pediatricians began to introduce a regular regimen of “mothering” in their wards. Dr. J. Brennemann, who for a time had attended an old fashioned foundling home where the mortality rate was nearer 100 percent than 50 percent, established the rule in his hospital that ever baby should be picked up, carried around, and “mothered” several times a day. At Bellevue Hospital in New York, following the institution of “mothering” on the pediatric wards, the mortality rate for infants fell from 55 percent to less than 10 percent. 

In short, it was discovered that infants need something more than the satisfaction of basic, physical needs if they are to make any progress – that is, to survive and grow in physical and mental health. That something came to be recognized as what was latter called “Tender Loving Care”.

More recent evidence of the importance of human interaction comes from studies of children who have been deliberately isolated from human contact by their own families. Usually, they have been locked in an attic room or cellar. In all of these cases, the children are underdeveloped in the areas of motor skills, speech, and socialization. Attempts to socialize them usually result in extremely slow progress, and death often occurs at a very early age. Consider the case of Anna:

Anna was discovered at the age of six. She had been born illegitimate, and her grandfather had insisted that she be hidden from the world in an attic room. Anna received a bare minimum of physical care and attention and had virtually no opportunities for social interaction. When she was found, she could not talk, walk, keep herself clean, or feed herself; she was totally apathetic, expressionless, and indifferent to human being beings. In fact, those who worked with her believed at first that she was deaf and possibly blind as well.

Attempts to socialize Anna had only limited success. The girl died 4 ½ years later, but during that time, she was able to learn some words and phrases, although she could never speak complete sentences. She also learned to use building blocks, string bead, was her hands, brush her teeth, follow directions, and treat a doll with affection. She learned walk, but could run only clumsily. By the time of her death at almost eleven, Anna had reached the level of socialization of a child of two or three.

Kingsley Davis (1948) comments: “Here was a human organism who had missed nearly six years of socialization. Her condition shows how little her purely biological resources when acting alone, could contribute to making her a complete person.”

People need more than the basic biological and physical necessities. Human contact, affection, and love are essential for normal growth and development. Indeed life itself depends on it. The words of social psychologist Erich Fromm summarize our need for love: 

Man is torn away from the primary union with nature that characterizes animal existence. Having at the same time reason and imagination, he is aware of his aloneness and separateness, of his powerlessness and ignorance, of the accidentalness of his birth, and of his death. He could not face this state of being for a second if he could not find new ties with his fellow man that replace the old ones, regulated by instincts . . . The necessity to unite with other living beings, to be related to them, is an imperative need on the fulfillment of which man’s sanity depends. This need is behind all phenomena that constitute the whole gamut of intimate relation, of all passions that are called love in the broadest sense of the word.

Respect. Once survival, security, and affiliation needs are satisfied, people are motivated by  the need for social esteem (respect) – the need to be considered favorably by other. The pursuit of fame, regardless of the field – business, government, the arts – can easily be explained by this powerful need. It is natural to want the recognition and respect of others; when this need is not satisfied, and individual feels inferior, weak, and discouraged. William James, the father of American Psychology, writes:

We are not only gregarious animals, liking to be in sight of our fellows, but we have an innate propensity to get ourselves noticed, and noticed favorably, by our kind. No more fiendish punishment could be devised, were such a thing were physically possible, than that one should be turned loose in society and remain absolutely unnoticed by all the members thereof. 

The need for recognition is a major determinant of behavior from youth through adulthood:

•  A youngster may excel in school to win the praise of parents;

•  A teenager may diet or exercise to be considered attractive by the opposite sex;

•  A young adult may choose to explain a certain career or mate to achieve the respect of and admiration of others;

• An older adult may build a business or become a community leader to be considered successful.

The need for social esteem is the motivating force here behind each of these behaviors. To evaluate this motive in your own life, consider the following questions: Do you dress up when you go out? Do you clean house when you expect company? Do you “put your best foot forward” on the job? What have you done or what are you doing now, that is an expression or your need for respect?

Fulfillment. After physical and social needs are satisfied, people are motivated by the need for self fulfillment. Self-fulfilled people may or may not please others by what they do, and there efforts may not result in the attainment of intended goals. Regardless of their consequences, if a person does something because it is valued personally, then the act itself is fulfilling. 

In studying the characteristics of the self-fulfilled person. Maslow identified people he believed were living rich, fulfilled lives. Included were Albert Einstein, Eleanor Roosevelt, Ludwig Van Beethoven, and Albert Schweitzer. Maslow found that these people shared 15 characteristics:

• Acceptance of self and others. Self-fulfilled people accept themselves and other as they are. They place high value on every person as a unique individual and accept individual differences as normal and even desirable.

•  Accurate perception of reality. Self-fulfilled people have the ability to see events and conditions as they actually are, without denying painful or unpleasant information. Their assessments and judgments are realistic.

•  Intimacy. Self-fulfilled people are able to have close, intimate friendships in which they reveal themselves fully. They are easily able to express and receive affection.

•  Personal Autonomy. Self-fulfilled people are self-sufficient, with the strength to stand alone when necessary. They will stick by their personal convictions, even when others disagree. This strength helps them survive crises and losses

•  Goal-directedness. Self-fulfilled people have a sense of purpose in life. They make decisions based on life goals, even if this means temporary sacrifice and frustration.

• Spontaneity. Self-fulfilled people are spontaneous and natural. They respond to life in an effortless way and are not bound by social convention.

The nine remaining characteristics of the self-fulfilled person are as follows: a need for privacy; an appreciate for new experiences; a sense of unity with nature; a sense of brotherhood with all people; the ability to relate to others without consideration of race, religion, or creed; distinct ideas of what is right and wrong; a sense of humor; creativity; and the ability to resist cultural influences that run counter to personal principles.

In summary, Maslow writes about the self-fulfilled person:

I have found none of my subjects to be chronically unsure about the difference between right and wrong in his actual living. Whether or not they could verbalize the matter, they rarely showed their day-to-day living the chaos, confusion, inconsistency, or conflict that are so common in the average person’s ethical dealings. Further, the self-fulfilled person practically never allows convention to hamper him or inhibit him from doing anything that he considers very important or basic.