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Lecture 3: History: millennia of thinking about motivation

(8-26-22)

Philosophers and early psychologists:

Dr. Damert Deckers reviewed early formulations of motivation and noted that many ideas would reoccur over centuries of speculation and study appeared in early writing: sources of motivation, hedonism, instincts, unconscious motivation, drives, psychological needs, rewards and incentives.

  • And we begin with the Greeks, why?
    • Thomas Cahill (2003), Sailing The Wine Dark Sea: Why the Greeks matter.
    • In his “hinges of history” series, Professor Cahill argues that the discussions, arguments, texts of ancient Greece set the framework of intellectual questions for much of Western civilization. Consider this in the context of your text’s discussion of Thomas Kuhn’s arguments about paradigm shifts in the sciences (1962, 1970).
    • (By the way, both notions have been criticized as over generalizations. Kuhn’s thesis has been criticized as glossing over the slow accumulation of changes that lead to “revolution” of ideas [paradigm shift]. Notice this this is another version of the quantitative/qualitative view of development: is change continuous or stage like?)
  • The role of pleasure and pain in motivation has long been recognized. Hedonism, the pursuit of pleasure and avoidance of pain, was discussed by many early philosophers. For the early Greeks and Aristotle in particular this was more than momentary sensory pleasure, it was the pursuit of a “good life.” Both Aristotle and Plato devoted a great deal of attention to what would constitute a good life.
    • Plato (through his spokes figure Socrates) believed that individual should act so that pleasure would exceed pain. In contrast to how hedonism is often presented (sex, drugs, and rock and roll), he actually advocated a life of moderation, for he believed this would maximize pleasure and minimize pain.
    • Aristotle (384-322 BCE), a student of Plato, provided an early formulation of motivation. He described four different type of causes: efficient, final, formal, and material
      • efficient causes were triggers for behavior, the current situation and incentives (immediate or proximal causes); behaviorists and social learning theorists would speak of “cues” or discriminative stimuli”
      • final causes were the aim or goal of the behavior, the purpose the behavior serves for the individual
      • formal causes were the theoretical model that explained the behavior
      • material causes were the substance from which a thing comes; the brain is the material cause of behavior
    • Aristotle, anticipating Maslow, recognized that, “humans, as animals, must prioritize the struggle to survive physically–to get enough food and water and shelter not to die next week–before they can enjoy the life lived self-consciously, aiming at individual and collective happiness.” (Hall, 2019, p. 180).
    • Rene Descartes (1595 to 1650) “cogito, ergo sum” I think, therefore I am
      • dualism: mechanistic animals and sourful humans; mind and body
      • Antonio Damasio (1994) Descartes’ Error:Emotion, reason, and the human brain. The brain as the organ of mind. Emotion and feelings are not separate and apart from thinking and reason.
    • The role of environmental events came to the forefront in the writing of a number of early British philosophers. Thomas Hobbes (1640) discussed incentive motivation, the anticipation of events which, if approached, lead to pleasure of pain. John Lock (1690) recognized the conflict between small, immediate rewards and larger, delayed consequences. Jeremy Bentham (1789) saw us as the, “servants of pain and pleasure.”

Emergence of psychology as a field of clinical and later scientific study:

  • Sigmund S. Freud (1856-1938): understanding behavior, treating (some) emotional/behavioral problems
    • Sigmund Freud
      • “Extending the methods of Breuer, Janet, Benedikt, and others, Freud was developing a socially acceptable way for doctors to spend time with patients and engage their predicaments.” (Kramer, 2006, p. 52) He listened to his patients (and sometimes talked to them) and tried to understand how their ailments came to be and could be helpfully addressed.
    • Two basic motivations: Libido and Thanatos; role of unconscious motivation; drive reduction
  • James McKeen Cattell (1860-1944): predicting behavior
    • Factor analysis; surface and latent traits; crystalized and fluid intelligence, ergs and sentiments
    • Common language analysis (basis of current Five Factor model of personality)
  • Edward L. Thorndike (1874-1949): understanding learning
    • Cats and uzzle boxes, reward, The Law of Effect
  • Clark L. Hull (1884-1952): understanding behavior
    • Drive theory, conditioning, reinforcement
  • John B. Watson (1878-1958): predicting and controlling behavior
    • Behaviorism and Pavlovian (classical) conditioning
  • Edward C. Tolman (1886-1959): understanding learning
    • A cognitive behaviorism, mental maps, learning without behaving
    • Observational learning (imitation, modeling) made mental events legitimate variables for behaviorally oriented psychologists, this opened the way for the social learning models of Rutter and Bandura and the cognitive therapies (Albert Ellis, Aaron Beck) currently in sway.
  • Henry A. Murray (1893-1988): understanding and predicting motivation
    • The projective hypothesis, TAT (Thematic Aperception Test), needs
  • Konrad Lorenz (1903-1989): understanding the origins and context of behavior
    • Instincts, species specific behavior, imprinting and critical periods of learning
    • ethology
  • Burrhus Frederic Skinner (1904-1990): understanding learning (performance)
    • Stimulus control and contingencies of reinforcement, a two factor learning theory (respondent and operant behavior), redefining mental events in behavioral terms, e.g., mental imagery: “seeing in the absence of the thing seen”
  • John M. Bowlby (1907-1990): understanding the role of first relationships
    • Attachment, internal working models
  • Abraham Maslow (1908-1970): understanding human potential
    • A hierarchy of needs, positive motivation, self-actualization
  • Albert Bandura (1925-2021): understanding imitation and the learning of behavior
    • Modeling, a three-factor learning theory, self-efficacy, the complexity of influences
  • many names not on my list: Darwin, Levin, Rotter, Pavlov, Luria, Vygotsky, McClelland, Atkinson, Walters, Beck, Wolpe, Ellis, Mischel, Timbergan, Buss

Broad themes:

  • Gollwitzer and Oettingen (2015) note that, while evolutionary theory, psychoanalytic theory, behavioral psychology, and physiological psychology would consider motivation to be the primary cause of people’s thoughts, feelings, and actions, they argue that this is not true of the psychology of motivation, “motivation is just one cause among others, and the focus is on analyzing aspects of thoughts, feelings, and actions conducive to a motivational analysis” (p. 936). They suggest that the field has moved from mechanistic models to cognitive models (attribution theory) to self-regulation models, “that characterize the human as a flexible strategist when it comes to translating motivation into action.”
  • Gollwitzer and Oettingen review changes in the concept of motivation with regard to two central issues:
    • Basic human needs: they suggest a movement from elaborate nosologies (systems of naming with little organization) to more organized theoretical models reflecting (often) perceptual and cognitive processing
    • Action control: they suggest there has been a shift in psychological theories from viewing humans as passive responders to stimuli (drive models, S-R models) to active cognitive processing of information in the services of goals, values, interests
  • Still, we might wonder: Why so many theories?
    • The blind men and the elephant
      • but is this a good metaphor regarding motivation?
        • motivation is a concept, not a thing; and “intervening variable” in Dr. Reese’s words
      • different ways of construing and defining a concept will vary in their:
        • Focus
        • Comprehensiveness/complexity
        • Predictive power
        • Utility
  • The worlds of motivation:
    • Biology: evolutionary theory, neurobiology, primatology
    • Sociology: norms, mores, laws
    • Anthropology: culture, resources, climate
    • Psychology: theories of motivation, theories of personality, theories of learning
    • Education: understand and promoting learning, moral and social development
    • Clinical practice: medicine, psychotherapy, sports psychology, self-help
    • Economics: theories of consumer behavior, “conscious capitalism”
    • Business: management practices, motivational speakers, advertisement
  • Into the 21st century: more focused inquiry
    • mini theories
      • cognitive models
      • emotional models
      • evolutionary models
      • neuropsychological models
    • the future?

The Dynamic Lattice

The Dynamic Lattice, from Cattell, 1 964, p. 1 87.

(From Cattell, 1 964, p. 1 87.)

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