Motivation for activity: types and significance in human life

Every day, any person overcomes many obstacles on the way to their goals, plans and thinks through ways to solve certain problems and tasks. An active life position, the desire for comprehensive development and personal growth are not expressed to the same extent in people, and the key point for understanding this difference is motivation. Not every person knows what it means to motivate themselves and others and how to properly work on developing motivation. The BrainApps resource will help you improve your personality with the help of useful articles and games developed by professionals. In this case, the motivation will be to record achievements so that a person can clearly see improvements in memory, thinking, and attentiveness.

Motivation is considered a process that regulates behavior, that which motivates a person to act. After all, behind any action or inaction there is a motive, even if it is not always conscious. The famous German thinker A. Schopenhauer first mentioned motivation. Motivation is a complex psychological phenomenon that has been studied by many scientists and around which many theories have emerged. To learn how to better manage your time and come to an understanding of how to achieve your goals, you need to understand what types of motivation exist and how to successfully apply them.

The concept of motive and motivation in psychology

Definitions differ in their meaning. Often they complement each other or form a complex system of behavioral reactions and choice of activity. In a simplified version, motive means the reason or motivation for a certain action.

Motivation is the driving force that serves as a product of mental activity, generated by a stable psycho-emotional state, views or worldview. It forces you to make decisions for the long term.

In psychology, motive is a narrower concept that stimulates behavioral activity and is aimed at quickly achieving a goal. Both terms were coined by the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. Understanding the conceptual difference between them is important for assessing the factors that control an individual's behavior.

Psychologists have a dual meaning for motivation. On the one hand, it is a set of motives, on the other hand, it is a process of a set of actions aimed at achieving goals in the long term. Motivation is a multifactorial system that determines social or biological behavior.

Motive in psychology

The desire to achieve a specific result of activity serves as a goal and at the same time a motivating circumstance. A motive is often presented as a special emotional experience that is transformed into a directed action. Motivation is used when choosing a path.

The motive operates when making local decisions within the framework of a general direction or vector. It can be presented in the form of a speculative generalized image of material or idealistic values ​​that act as the subject of aspiration, claim, and lust.

Development methods

Theories of motivation play an important role for a person, because by understanding how motivation is formed, you can use this information to achieve your goals. A successful person must successfully use different types of useful motivation and be able to motivate others when necessary. After studying the theoretical material, you can choose the most useful approach for yourself and stick to it in everyday life.

However, not everyone knows what it means to motivate themselves and others. Various motivation methods are used by specialists for employees and students. There are also methods of self-motivation, which include:

• Reading and repeating affirmations;
• Self-hypnosis;
• Studying the life path of great people;
• Visualization;

Studying theories of motivation for a person helps to better understand one's own behavior and the behavior of other people, and develop a plan to increase productivity. Once you decide what it means to motivate yourself to act, solving many problems will no longer be a problem for you over time.

Achieving success in life is determined not only by motivation, but also by some other skills, for example, non-standard approaches to solving problems. The necessary brain functions allow you to develop individually designed workouts on the BrainApps resource, which take into account the strengths and weaknesses of the brain.

Types of motives

The psychological category is difficult to classify. There are an innumerable number of circumstances that motivate action. Often they do not fit into the framework of harmonious concepts. Each school of psychology develops its own system for classifying motives.

In the generally accepted view they are:

• hidden;
• obvious;
• social;
• household;
• physiological;
• biological.

Depending on the nature or focus, motives are classified according to content, origin, and duration. There are varieties distributed according to the strength of manifestation, level of awareness, and area of ​​activity.

Based on content, the following types of motives are distinguished:

• Ideological. They affect the ideological part of the personality. People are guided by such motives even at the risk of harming themselves.
• Political. They largely overlap with the previous variety. Such motives reflect the political position of the individual. They are often based on the desire for leadership, recognition, and popularity.
• Moral and ethical. They define social behavior and indicate clear boundaries of what is acceptable. This type of motive is based on generally accepted principles of morality, which are not the same in different social formations.
• Aesthetic. The most harmless, constructive category of motives. They guide the choice of profession as an artist, musician or designer.

Classification by origin (source) divides motivating factors into social, collective, and incentive. This includes work motives that are formed under the influence of professional affiliation or type of activity.

Social behavioral criteria take into account the interests and rules of the social formation to which a person belongs. Many everyday actions are subordinated to this type of motive.

Collective motivating factors involve taking into account the interests of the group to which the individual belongs. Incentive motives force you to leave your own comfort zone for the sake of achievements or striving for new heights in life.

The basis of such behavior is always a thirst for material wealth. This is the most important type of motive that forces us to learn, make discoveries and inventions. Below are 4 main generalized groups of incentives.

Internal and external

Such motivating factors are of enormous importance for choosing a goal and determining the means to achieve it. They are aimed at revealing one’s own potential and demonstrating individuality.

In psychology, a motive is an internal urge or external circumstance that encourages a certain action. The first is associated with the emotional state, ideological position, and range of interests of the individual.

Internal motives are aimed at:

• increased self-esteem;
• realization of natural abilities;
• satisfying the need for positive emotions;
• achieving life comfort;
• acquisition of material goods;
• doing one's own duty;
• showing love and care for loved ones.

Such incentives to action are considered stable, unchangeable over time. For example, a student’s desire to learn a lesson is determined by internal motives - interest in the subject, thirst for new knowledge, and the desire to get a high score.

This brings moral satisfaction from a job well done. External motives are associated with circumstances that indirectly or indirectly depend on the will of a person, the sphere of application of his efforts.

A typical example is choosing wardrobe items according to the season or the desire to take an umbrella with you in anticipation of rain. Public opinion, comfort, and the vagaries of nature do not depend on internal factors of the individual. They create motives called external ones.

Good performance of assigned work, professional duties, and the desire for personal growth pursue the goal of increasing one’s own value in the labor market. Here there is a clear combination of internal motives from those cited earlier in the article with external ones, determined by the current situation.

The latter play a crucial developmental role, forcing them to compete. What matters is social encouragement or condemnation, which is inextricably linked with the choice of external motive. They are more effective than internal ones, therefore they are used to control the behavior of an individual.

Positive and negative motives

Such factors are subject to and subject to emotional influence. They are aimed at satisfying the natural need for positive moral feelings. The desire to avoid negative emotions determines the choice of path or sequence of actions.

Negative feelings include:

• fear;
• anxiety;
• moral torment;
• physical pain;
• the desire to avoid punishment for an offense.

An individual always subconsciously tries to choose the course of action that will provide positive emotions and exclude negative ones. Such motives are called positive or negative.

Psychologists disagree about the effectiveness of such motivating factors. Fear and the instinct of self-preservation are considered incredibly powerful stimuli. Negative motives are aimed at overcoming obstacles standing in the way of a goal.

Stable and unstable

The first are based on natural needs and requirements. Therefore, stable motives do not need additional reinforcement. They remain relevant in the long term.

Unsustainable motives are subordinated to situational goals and the satisfaction of immediate needs. Factors inducing action based on worldview, personal interest, and taste preferences are particularly stable.

Achieving success

Based on promoted life values. Social norms encourage individuals to strive to achieve success in life. A special system of standards has been created with an understanding of prestige and respectability.

They are equivalent to the concept of success and are aimed at creating the required motivating factors. The system of modern value guidelines has elevated a certain scale of achievements with attributes of high social status to the top of the psychological hierarchy.

There are many obstacles on the path to success in life. To overcome them, powerful motivation is required, which consists of material wealth, personal comfort, and public recognition. To get closer to a distant and elusive goal, intermediate milestones are outlined. Achieving each of them is a separate motivating factor.

In psychology, motive is also a progressive, systematic, consistent movement towards a global life goal. This path often requires leaving your own comfort zone. It is the motive that makes a person decide to take such actions.

Under the influence of an incentive, an individual sacrifices little to solve a global problem. In psychology, a comfort zone is understood as a personal mental, physical and spiritual space that a person is willing to sacrifice in order to achieve a goal with expected compensation.

All people verbally declare their desire to achieve success, but not everyone is ready to make sacrifices for it. The corresponding motive is intended to compensate for the costs on the thorny path to high social status. Here a hidden motivating factor of a subconscious nature often comes into play.

Creative activity

A special type of activity is creativity - the process of creating something qualitatively new, never existing before. Artists, writers, and scientists are engaged in creative activities.

Creativity can also be considered as a component of other activities. So, our applicant from the example above can be creative in the process of preparing a resume and come up with a completely new approach that will captivate the employer.

The key abilities for creative activity are:

• combine existing knowledge;
• create new images in the mind (imagination);
• create vivid, strong ideas (fantasy);
• gain knowledge unconsciously (intuition).

Functions of motives

To explain the background of any behavior, reactions to changes in conditions or actions in psychology, extrinsic (external) or intrinsic (internal) reasons are used. They are closely related to the basic functions of motives. There are 3 of them - motivation, direction, regulation.

Psycho-emotional qualities are considered external factors that determine an individual’s behavior:

• satisfaction of natural needs;
• achieving your goals;
• realizing your own desires;
• following your interests or hobbies.

The incentives that guide behavior are based on the functions of motives. Motivation provokes the commission of certain actions, gives psycho-emotional impulses or emotional impulses relevance.

The guiding function helps to choose the right path to solve a problem. Regulatory forces one to adhere to the mores, norms and rules prevailing in a social environment or social group. It gives legitimacy to internal motives.

Functions are similarly influenced by external stimuli. When guided by extrinsic motives, they activate other characteristics of the individual. Therefore, motivational functions in psychology are considered in a dual context.

Some are classified as biological, considered innate, and provide survival. Such functions of stimulating factors are aimed at satisfying basic physiological needs - satisfying hunger, thirst, sleep.

They are inherent in any biological organism, since they are dictated by nature. Maternal instinct is considered one of the most powerful motivating factors. The biological functions of motives include thermoregulatory, excretory, and the desire to avoid pain or discomfort.

People are characterized by secondary stimulating factors acquired during life, dictated by the prevailing external conditions and social environment. Interpretations of the functions of the motifs are given in the table.

The motif has selective functions and individual properties that change over time. In psychology this is called adaptive ability. Inducing factors and their functions are not the same in terms of their impact on the individual.

How are they determined?

Motives and goals reflect human needs, which force a person to look for ways to satisfy them.

Abraham Maslow, a famous American psychologist, presented the following basic needs that determine the goals and motives of an individual :

1. In the first place is a person’s concern for his physiological needs, food, sleep, sex, and maintaining health.
2. When satisfying primary needs, a person will be concerned with his safety and comfort , health prevention, home improvement, constancy and safety of the conditions in which he lives.
3. Being a social being, at the third stage a person will strive to establish interpersonal relationships , communication, friendship, joint activities, caring for another person, etc.
4. With the normalization of social needs, the individual will need to achieve a certain attitude towards himself in society , respect, recognition, career growth, and a high assessment of his own actions.
5. At the last stage spiritual needs , the process of cognition, creativity, self-expression, and personal development are revealed.

Accordingly, first of all, a person is inclined to satisfy physiological needs, and only after they are realized do spiritual needs arise.

Some needs are permanent ; a person will always strive to satisfy them. Others may occur periodically, and some may be fickle, short-lived, and after they are satisfied, the person forgets about them.

Also, a person may have several needs at the same time, which can cause a conflict of motives.

Levels and types of motivation

Without connection with the stimulus that ensures the development of the individual, the levels of motivation are transformed and the strength of influence changes. There are 2 main types of motivating factors: dictated by internal reasons or external circumstances.

The former do not allow you to give up when you fail, the latter are aimed at achieving public recognition. According to Freud, there are male and female types of motivation.

In a simplified version, the first is focused on saving existing reserves, the second is on finding additional resources and sources. Each psychological school offers its own interpretations of the types of motivation.

The following classification of levels of stimulating factors is popular:

• Perspective visualization. It involves creating a clear guideline, an image of the desired future.
• Stability of perspective. The individual seeks confidence that living conditions will remain unchanged in the foreseeable future. Both internal and external motivation are based on this.
• Activating perspective. When approaching a goal, an individual subconsciously intensifies the desire to reach it, and accordingly the level of motivation increases.
• Stagedness. Complex goals require step-by-step planning. The proximity of each subsequent intermediate point does not allow motivation to weaken.

S. Polukeev, based on an analysis of the works of L. Gumilev, proposed 9 levels of motivation. Each reflects the strength of the individual’s incentives, his psychological state, and the strength of his life’s aspirations.

Depending on the goals being achieved, tasks being solved or actions being performed, the level of motivation decreases or increases. The determining factors are considered to be the significance of the result, confidence in achieving the goal, and personal forecasts regarding the possibility of achieving what was planned.

The theory of principles of goal setting by E. Locke

The main idea of ​​the theory was that the quality and characteristics of a person’s life directly depend on the goals that he sets for himself, therefore goals should be drawn up taking into account the factors missing for happiness according to the following principles:

1. A specific task (the person must clearly understand what exactly needs to be done and how);
2. The goal should not be easily achievable or require no effort and time.
3. It is easier for a person to strive for results if the goal is set by him and is his own desire.
4. Feedback is necessary (without an outside perspective it is more difficult to assess your potential and results).
5. Willingness to use all resources to achieve results.

Basic human motives, examples

The main factors stimulating and determining the behavior of an individual include those aimed at biological survival. They are laid down by nature and cannot be changed by willpower.

Some of these motives are cyclical in nature - food intake, sleep and wakefulness phases. Obvious examples are obtaining food and extracting additional resources. The main motives stimulate the work activity of an individual and economic processes in social formations.

The accumulation of material assets, the production of basic household items and food products are aimed at satisfying natural human needs. This includes the production of heating products. The motivation for such activity is to increase life expectancy.

In psychology, a motive is an individual’s desire to satisfy his own basic needs. Such considerations force states to develop science, technology, and medicine. At the heart of complex economic and social processes lies a simple desire to satisfy the basic needs of all members of the social formation.

Many basic motives are not given importance in everyday life, but they act as the driving force of any activity. Such stimulating factors include the subconscious desire to avoid danger, dictated by the instinct of self-preservation.

The search for shelter, the desire to protect oneself, to create the most favorable conditions for life are considered the main and fundamental motives. The main behavioral stimuli are individual psychological characteristics that have a strong influence on a person’s actions in different situations.

They are socially conditioned or have a personal innate nature. Motivation can be functional and serve the purposes of cultural development of the individual. Such incentives force people to buy expensive tickets to a concert, theater, or contemporary art exhibition.

Theory of motivation: features of the content direction

The emphasis in this direction of motivation for a person is on the analysis of human needs and methods of their systematization. The influence of internal emotional-volitional impulses on the formation of personality behavioral characteristics is studied. These principles of the theory of motivation were adhered to by Maslow, Herzberg, McClelland, and Alderfer.

1. Maslow's theory. The most important thing in this theory of motivation for any person is that needs are formed into groups, between which a strict hierarchy is observed. This theory of human motivation can be illustrated using a pyramid, at the base of which are basic physiological needs, and the top of the pyramid is the achievement of self-actualization.
2. Alderfer's ERG theory. According to this theory of human motivation, all needs can be classified into one of 3 groups (existence, connections and growth). The difference between this theory of human motivation from Maslow's theory is that Maslow recognized only a unidirectional movement from lower to higher needs;
3. McClelland's theory. If you study this theory of motivation, you can see that throughout life a person can acquire the needs of achievement, participation and dominance, and one of them has a strong influence on his character and behavior;
4. Herzberg's theory. This theory examines the influence of material and intangible factors on the development of personality and its activities. This theory of human motivation is widely used by managers of firms and enterprises to optimize the work of employees;

What is the subordination of motives?

This is a key concept in the formation and development of personality. The first signs of subordination of motives appear at an early age. Various stimulating factors lose equal importance and form a system of personal values ​​and life guidelines.

This structure is called an individual motivational scheme. Dominant and secondary motivations constitute a hierarchy in which there is a difference in levels and strength of influence.

Subordinate motives of adolescence include:

• self-affirmation;
• desire to achieve sports success;
• the emergence of moral qualities;
• behavioral assessment.

To prevent ethical deformation of the individual, subordinate motives are built into a hierarchical system by educational means. The most difficult moment during the period of an individual’s psychological formation is the choice between personal and social values.

The subordination of motives is formed in the struggle of these factors to create a reasonable compromise. It starts in preschool age. The result of this step-by-step process is considered to be motivational readiness, which is closely related to the concepts of cognitive interest and initiative.

Student motivation

Unfortunately, manifestations of independent motivation for learning among schoolchildren and students are rare. Therefore, it is necessary to help students form it in such a way as to ensure and support productive learning activities for the entire period of study. There are a sufficient number of effective methods today. Let's look at some of them.

• an entertaining situation implies the introduction into the learning process of interesting examples or experiences, unusual facts, paradoxical analogies to revive the attention of students;
• cognitive debate is based on involving students in a discussion, which arouses their interest and helps increase their level of attention;
• the use of emotional experiences in the learning process. Presentation of material with facts of a large-scale nature;
• the process of comparing science and life situations involves giving examples of the influence of scientific facts on the way of life of mankind;
• creating successful situations can be used for students with learning difficulties. Learning difficulties are more easily accepted with joyful experiences.

The problem of the struggle of motives

At the same time and in parallel, the individual is under the influence of numerous multidirectional stimulating factors. This is the most important concept of volitional activity. The struggle of motives is aimed at determining the dominant and dominant stimulus.

Its logical outcome is the formation of a mature personality, understanding of life priorities, and the ability to make decisions independently. Some motives have ambivalent meaning. Example: is it worth accepting the help of an unpleasant or a priori unfriendly person?

Such dilemmas that haunt an individual throughout his life constitute the essence of the struggle of motives. A typical example is a choice between positive but incompatible goals. Making a decision often requires willpower. It is not recommended to make difficult life choices under the influence of emotions.

Motive in psychology is also a constant struggle of multidirectional stimuli and motivations. A clear definition of value guidelines helps you make error-free choices. Psychologists recommend drawing up a personal motivational scheme to ease internal struggles.

How to correctly determine motive and motivation?

Personal psychophysiological stimuli regulate the behavior of an individual and serve as the basis of a person’s mental sphere. Motivation is the driving force that organizes motivating factors and combines them into a coherent system.

A well-built hierarchy makes it easier to achieve goals and increases efficiency. To correctly determine your own motives, dividing them into dominant and secondary ones, deep introspection is required. In psychology, this is considered a fundamental factor in the formation of a harmonious personality.

How to motivate yourself to succeed?

There are several ways to increase your own motivation:

1. Monitor your dopamine levels. To do this, balance your diet - your diet should include vegetables and fruits, and quality fish. It is also important to follow a daily routine and get proper rest;
2. Use staff motivation techniques: reward yourself for achievements. For example, do something nice if you have completed your own plan. Did you study English every day? Great, treat yourself to some delicious food!
3. Determine your leading motive. Think about what is your main motive? Maybe recognition is important to you? Or are you seeking power? Do you dream of “wiping the nose” of someone? Use this to achieve success. Remember, there are no good and bad motivations, there are those that work and those that don’t!

Using these simple tips, you will forget about laziness and discover a source of energy within yourself. Want to learn even more techniques to improve your personal effectiveness? Read the “Coaching” section.