Needs
A need is a condition within the person that is essential
and necessary for growth, well-being, and life. Needs
motivate behavior: arouses an action toward a goal,
giving purpose and direction to behavior.
Needs are different from goals: Needs are innate
necessities rather than acquired motives.
There are three categories of needs:
1. Deficiency-based biological needs: thirst, hunger and sex
2. Growth-oriented psychological needs: autonomy, competence, relatedness
3. Implicit or unconscious psychological needs: achievement, affiliation, power
4. Physiological needs
Thirst, hunger and sex are biological needs. Hull’s biologically based drive theory (see image) states
that physiological deprivations and deficits give rise to bodily need states that stimulate neural
structures, which in turn give rise to a psychological drive, which motivates the consummatory
behavior that results in drive reduction. Then, as time goes by, the physiological deprivations recur,
and the cyclical process repeats itself. In outlining the regulatory process for thirst, hunger and sex,
there are seven core regulatory processes:
1. Physiological needs
2. Psychological drive
3. Homeostasis (dominated motivational neuroscience & physiological needs for the last 50yr)
4. Negative feedback (signals satiety)
5. Multiple inputs and outputs
6. Intraorganismic influences (brain, endocrine system, organs)
7. Extra organismic influences (cognitive, environmental, social, cultural)
Thirst is the consciously experienced motivational state that readies the person to perform
behaviors necessary to replenish a water deficit. Its activation and satiety are rather straightforward,
biologically speaking. Water depletion inside (intracellular thirst) and outside (extracellular thirst) the
cells activate thirst. Water restoration satiates thirst, especially when ingested water hydrates the
cells. Drinking behavior is influenced further by extra organismic variables, such as a sweet taste,
addiction to alcohol and caffeine, and cultural prescription such as “drink 8 glasses per day”.
Hunger and eating involve a complex regulatory system of both short-term (glucostatic
hypothesis) and long-term (lipostatic hypothesis, including set-point theory; standard volume of fat
cells) regulation. According to the glucostatic hypothesis, glucose deficiency stimulates eating by
activating the lateral hypothalamus, whereas glucose excess inhibits eating by activating the
ventromedial hypothalamus. According to the lipostatic hypotheses, a shrunken stomach releases
hormones to stimulate the lateral hypothalamus to generate hunger and motivate eating, while
extended fat cells release hormones such as leptin to stimulate the ventromedial hypothalamus to
generate satiety and stop eating. Eating behavior is influenced by environmental incentives such as
the sight, smell and taste of food, presence of others, situational pressures such as a group norm,
and the effort to establish a cognitively regulated eating style. Dieting represents a person’s attempts
to supplant involuntary physiological controls for
eating with voluntary cognitive controls. Such a
cognitively regulating eating style has implications
associated with bingeing, restraint release, weight
gain and obesity. One key implication is to learn
hot potent and attention-getting biologically
based needs can be. Restraint-release: under
,stressful circumstances, dieters are very vulnerable for disinhibition of their cognitively regulated
eating behavior.
Too little food craving kcal overeating
Sexual motivation rises and falls in response to host of factors, including hormones, activation
of the subcortical brain’s reward centre, external stimulation, external cues (facial metrics), cognitive
scripts, sexual schemas, and evolutionary processes. Sexual motivation in men is relatively
straightforward because desire reflects physiological forces such a linear triphasic cycle (desire –
arousal – orgasm), a close correlation between erectile response and psychologically felt desire,
relatively homogeneous sexual scripts and stereotypical mating preferences and strategies. Sexual
motivation in women is more complex because women’s sexual response cycle is often not linear and
psychological desire is low, sexual scripts and schemas are heterogeneous and influenced
significantly by the hormone oxytocin. Oxytocin is released by events such as hugging and stimulation
of the reproductive areas and decreases fear, increases trust and promotes intimacy and bonding.
So, the sexual arousal of women starts with emotional intimacy, not sexual desire. For both men and
woman, sexual orientation is not so much a personal choice as it is a downstream developmental
outcome of genetics and hormonal exposure in the prenatal environment.
Attractiveness: health, youth and fertility. Men should have a moderately slim waist-hip
ratio. Women should be slim. Facial features: big eyes and a small nose are associated with youth
and friendliness. Prominent cheekbones, full eyebrows and facial hare are associated with power,
status and competence. A big smile and high eyebrows are associated with positive emotions. Men
find youth and physical attractiveness important, where women find status and money more
important when looking for a partner.
5. Extrinsic motivation
Quasi-needs are situationally induced wants and desires that are not actually full-blown
needs in the same sense that physiological, psychological and implicit needs are (e.g. umbrella or
money). Extrinsic motivation arises from an environmentally created reason to initiate an action.
External events such as money generate extrinsic motivation to the extent that they establish a
“means to an end” contingency in the persons mind, in which the means is in the behavior (going to
work), and the end is in some attractive consequence (money). It is not that people develop a desire
to engage in behaviors such as working; instead, people want to do whatever it is that the
environment will reward them for doing. The reason they engage in the behavior is to get the
reward; hence, the motivation is environmentally created (by the presence of the reward).
The study of extrinsic motivation revolves around three central concepts:
1. An incentive is an environmental event that attracts or repels a person toward or away from
a particular course of action. They always precede behavior.
2. Consequences involve reinforcers or punishers. A positive reinforcer is any environmental
event that increases the possibility of that behavior in the future. A punisher is any
environmental event that decreases the possibility of that behavior in the future.
▪ The difference between incentives and consequences are (1) when each occurs and
(2) how each motivates behavior. Incentives precede behavior and attract or repel
action; consequences follow behavior and increase or decrease the strength of that
behavior.
3. A reward is any offering from one person given to another person in exchange for his/her
service or achievement. Rewards sometimes produce the sought-after service or
achievement, but other times they do not.
▪ The difference between a reward and a positive reinforcer is that all positive
reinforcers are rewards, but not all rewards are positive reinforcers (because they do
not all ensure that behavior increases.
▪ All rewards trigger (environmental stimuli) dopamine-release BAS positive
feelings. Incentives, consequences and rewards that are expected and tangible
, (tastbaar) typically undermine motivation by inadvertently producing the three
hidden costs of: (1) undermining intrinsic motivation, (2) interfering with the quality
and process of learning and (3) interfering with the capacity for autonomous self-
regulation. However, only when the reward is tangible (not verbal) and expected.
▪ A punisher is an environmental stimulus that decreases the chances of unwanted
behavior, whereas negative reinforces makes you want to escape from or avoid the
reprimand before it occurs. So, punishers decrease undesirable, negative reinforcers
increase escape and avoidance behavior. Punishing is a popular but ineffective
strategy. It comes with many unwanted side effects like negative emotions and a
disturbed relationship. So, what does work? Prevention, encouraging positive
behavior, ignoring undesired behavior and focussing on the positive.
External regulation does not only work negative and counteractive. When rewards are verbal and
unexpected, they have a positive effect. Also, rewards can be introduced in naturally uninteresting
tasks because extrinsic rewards do not have an effect on tasks that people weren’t intrinsically
motived for in the first place. Four reasons to not use extrinsic motivation, despite a boring task:
1. Extrinsic motivation still undermines the quality of performance and interferes with the
process of learning
2. Using rewards distracts attention away from asking the hard question of why the person is
being asked to do an uninteresting task in the first place
3. There are better ways to encourage participation than extrinsic bribery
4. Extrinsic motivators still undermine the individual’s long-term capacity for autonomous self-
regulation
Intrinsic motivation is the inherent propensity to seek out novelty and challenge, to extend and
exercise one’s capacities, to explore and to learn. It is a natural inclination toward exploration,
spontaneous interest and environmental mastery that emerges from innate strivings for personal
growth and from experiences of psychological need satisfaction. When intrinsically motivated,
people show strong task engagement, act creatively, learn an process information deeply and
conceptually, function well and experience greater vitality and well-being.
Extrinsic aspirations: being slim for good looks illbeing
Intrinsic aspirations: personal growth, community participation wellbeing
Hedonic treadmill: being rich, famous or powerful requires increasingly bigger thrills
People who won the lottery were a little bit more satisfies with their life (not significant).
They took less pleasure in tiny mundane events. Paralyzed victims in the past year were less satisfied
with life, they were idealizing their past.
Cognitive evaluation theory proves a way to predict in advance the motivational effects of any
extrinsic event. The theory explains how an extrinsic event affects extrinsic and intrinsic motivations,
as mediated by the extrinsic event’s effect on the psychological needs for competence and
autonomy. When an extrinsic event is presented in a relatively controlling way, it increases extrinsic
motivation but decreases intrinsic motivation. When an extrinsic event is presented in a relatively
informational way, it increases intrinsic motivation because of its favourable effect on competence.
Hence, whether an extrinsic event is motivationally constructive of destructive depends on the
relative salience of its controlling and informational aspects.
▪ Praise functions as an extrinsic factor and has a very informative function. The motivational
function of praise depends on how it is given.
▪ Interpersonal competition decreases intrinsic motivation because it is only about winning.
The motivational moral is that intrinsic motivation blossoms when people feel autonomous
and competent. The external factor (like praise or competition) has to be presented in a way
that is non-controlling and informational.
, According to self-determination theory, autonomous (intrinsic) motivation to change behavior is an
important predictor for successful goal adaption and behavior change. There are four types of
extrinsic motivation exist and can be arranged along a continuum of no autonomy to full autonomy:
1. External regulation: behaviors are performed to obtain a reward, to avoid a punisher or to
satisfy some eternal demand. To get to or a avoid a consequence.
2. Introjected regulation: the person acts the was if he was carrying other people’s rules and
commands inside his head to such an extent that the introjected voice generates self-
administered rewards and punishments. Because I should.
3. Identified regulation: the person has identified with the personal importance of an externally
prescribed way of thinking or behaving and has thus accepted it as his/her own wat of
thinking or behaving. Because it is important.
4. Integrated regulation: involves the self-examination necessary to bring new ways of thinking
and behaving into congruence with the pre-existing ways of thinking and behaving. Because
it reflects my values
5. Intrinsic motivation: I simply love doing this
A focus on the different types of intrinsic motivation puts a spotlight on the phenomenon of
internalisation, which is the process through which an individual transforms an eternally prescribed
regulation, behavior or value in an internally endorsed one. The effort to arrange the different types
of extrinsic motivation along a continuum is important because the more autonomous or self-
determined the extrinsic motivation is, the greater is the persons social development, personal
adjustment and psychological well-being.
People with intrinsic motivation will experience few difficulties when they want to quit their bad
habit. The problem is: most people don’t engage in these behaviors for health purposes but for fun.
Motivation is rarely stable and depends on context, skill and perspective of future benefit. Trivial
pursuit: to attain the overall goal, you should engage in many apparently uninteresting activities. You
have to make those activities more pleasurable. We should not care so much about extrinsic
motivation but about a-motivation. Amotivation means “without motivation”. It is a state of
motivational apathy in which people possess little or no reason (motive) to invest the energy and
effort that is necessary to accomplish something. It consists of four aspects: maladaptive ability
beliefs, maladaptive effort beliefs, low value placed on task and unappealing task characteristics.
Amotivation is the worst form om motivation because it predicts poor functioning.
There is a practical problem of motivating others during uninteresting activities. People
typically offer rewards so to reframe the uninteresting activity away from something not worth doing
into something that is suddenly worth doing. Because this approach is associated with poor
functioning and unintended side effects, researchers have explored for ways to promote more
autonomous types of extrinsic motivation: (1) providing an explanatory rationale to explain why the
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