Psychological Motives

Brief Introduction

            Psychological motives are personal in nature because none other than the individual experiencing these motives can understand them. Psychological motives are also known as psychological needs which are essential for mental health. Failure to fulfil psychological motives can lead to disturbance in psychological health consequently affecting behaviour.

Types of Psychological Motives

1.         Need for Achievement. 

2.         Curiosity & Exploration 

3.         Need for Affiliation. 

4.         Need for Power and Dominance. 

5.         Work as motive

6.         Risk Taking

7.         Aggression

8.         Autonomy

Types of Psychological Motives

1.         Need for Achievement (n-Ach)  – It is a psycho-social motive because the central premise of achievement is to perform better than others, to excel and to take challenging tasks to show one’s ability to other fellow human beings. It energizes and directs behaviour as well as Influences the perception of situations. This motive develops during the formative years of development by observing parents, teachers, and other role models. Person with higher n-Ach prefers challenging tasks and have stronger desire for feedback on their performance.

2.         Curiosity & Exploration – The idea of engaging in activities for pleasure without any motivational goal or objective comes within the purview of curiosity and exploration. The motive to seek novel experience and solve problems is the indicators of curiosity. The curiosity behaviour is found in animals too. The need for varied types of sensory stimulations is closely related to curiosity. Curiosity is powerful tool in overcoming monotonous behaviour. Children tend to have high level of curious behaviour.

3.         Need for Affiliation – Seeking the company of other human beings and wanting to be close to them both physically and psychologically is called affiliation. Human beings love to connect with other fellow beings to satisfy their interpersonal needs. Existence of various groups is testimony to this motive. People try desperately to get close to other people to seek their help and to become members of their group. This need is aroused in joyful, threatening or helpless situations. The individual high on this motive are found to have good interpersonal relations.

4.         Need for Power and Dominance – It is an ability to produce intended effects on the behaviour and emotions of others. The goals of power motives are to influence, control, persuade, lead, and charm others and to enhance one’s own reputation in the eyes of other people. David McClelland (1975) described four general ways of expression of the power motive.

(i)         People do things to gain feeling of power and strength from sources outside themselves

by reading stories about sports stars or attaching themselves to a popular figure.

(ii)        Power can also be felt from sources within us and may be expressed by building up the body and mastering urges and impulses.

(iii)       People do things as individuals to have an impact on others.

(iv)       People do things as members of organizations (political parties) to have an impact on others.

5.         Work as motive – People work for reward which may be tangible and/or intangible. Work provides rewards and incentives which motivates the individual to engage in further work and achieve goal. ‘Work’ is personal motive that drive an individual to engage in a fulfilling activity. Material possessions are the most prominent outcome of work motive. Aspirations, goals, sensory pleasure etc. are the objectives responsible for engaging in the work.

6.         Risk Taking – Risk taking is any consciously or non-consciously controlled behavior with a perceived uncertainty about its outcome (sciencedirect.com). This motive triggers a behaviour that is potentially dangerous but has components of adventure and excitement. It is a kind of adaptive motive found in humans and animals (wolves).

7.         Aggression – This motive is one of the basic instincts found in animals and human beings. The motive behind the behaviour of harming or intention of harming others is called aggression. Its an intentional motive to react aggressively during the frustrating, fearful and dangerous do or die situations. It can be manifested physically as well as verbally.  

8.         Autonomy – The ability to make decisions without any external influence. It is a intrinsic self governing motive that is related to free will and tends to regulate behaviour. Autonomy as a motive leads to self-deterministic behaviour. Autonomy is the moral right one possesses, or the capacity we have in order to think and make decisions for oneself providing some degree of control or power over the events that unfold within one's everyday life (Sensen, O, 2013).     

References:

1.         NCERT,  (2013). XI Psychology Text book.

2.         https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/ pii/S0166411508612959

3.         Sensen, O. (2013). Kant on Moral Autonomy. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781107004863.

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