These days you can’t enter a gym or coffee shop or workplace cafeteria without being exposed to several insipid motivational posters featuring quotes like this. The previous section on anger discussed how that emotion can motivate someone to respond to a threat in a specific way via dedicated brain pathways, but we’re talking here about more long-term motivation, the kind that’s more a “drive” than a reaction.
What is motivation? We know when we aren’t motivated—many assignments have been ruined by the procrastinating of the person responsible. Procrastination is motivation to do the wrong thing (I should know, I had to disconnect my wifi to finish this book). Broadly, motivation can be described as the “energy” required for a person to remain interested in and/or working towards a project, goal or outcome. An early theory of motivation comes from Sigmund Freud himself. Freud’s hedonic principle, sometimes called the “pleasure principle,” argues that living beings are compelled to seek out and pursue things that give pleasure, and avoid things that cause pain and discomfort.14 That this happens is hard to deny, as studies into animal learning have shown. Put a rat in a box and give it a button, it’ll press it eventually out of sheer curiosity. If pressing the button results in a tasty food being supplied, the rat will quickly start pressing the button often because it’s associated doing this with a tasty reward. It’s not a stretch to say it’s suddenly very motivated to press the button.
This very reliable process is known as operant condition, meaning a certain type of reward increases or decreases the specific behavior associated with it. This occurs in humans too. If a child is given a new toy when they clean their room, they’re far more likely to want to do it again. It also works with adults, too; you just need to vary the reward. As a result, the unpleasant task of cleaning a room is now associated with a positive outcome, so there’s motivation to do it.
This may all seem to support Freud’s hedonic principle, but when have humans and their irksome brains ever been so simple? There are plenty of everyday examples to demonstrate there’s more to motivation than simple pleasure-seeking or displeasure-avoiding. People are constantly doing things that provide no immediate or obvious physical pleasure.
Take going to the gym. While it is true that intense physical activity can produce euphoria or feelings of well-being,§ this doesn’t happen every time, and it still takes grueling effort to get to that point, so there’s no obvious physical pleasure to be had from exercise (I say this as someone who’s yet to experience so much as a satisfying sneeze from going to the gym). And yet, people still do it. Whatever their motivation, it is clearly something beyond immediate physical pleasure.
There are other examples. People who regularly give to charity, surrendering their own money for the benefit of strangers they’ll never encounter. People who constantly suck up to a deeply unpleasant boss in the vague hope of getting a promotion. People reading books they don’t really enjoy but persevering regardless because they want to learn something. None of these things involve immediate pleasure; some actually involve unpleasant experiences, so according to Freud they would be avoided. But they aren’t.
This suggests Freud’s ideas are too simplistic,? so a more complex approach is needed. You could substitute “immediate pleasure” with “needs.” In 1943, Abraham Maslow devised his “hierarchy of needs,” arguing that there were certain things that all humans needed in order to function, and so are motivated to obtain them.15
Maslow’s hierarchy is often presented as a stepped pyramid. At the lowest level are biological requirements such as food, drink, air (someone without air is undeniably very motivated to find some). Then there’s safety, including shelter, personal security, financial security, things that stop you from coming to physical harm. Next is “belonging”; humans are social creatures and need approval, support and affection (or at least interaction) from others. Solitary confinement in prisons is considered a serious punishment for a reason.
Then there’s “esteem,” the need to be not just acknowledged or liked but actually respected by others, and by yourself. People have morals that they value and stick to, and hope others will respect them for. Behavior and actions that can lead to this are therefore a source of motivation. Finally, there’s “self-actualization,” the desire (and therefore motivation) to reach one’s potential. You feel you could be the best painter in the world? Then you will be motivated to become the best painter in the world. Although, since art is subjective, you technically may already be the best painter in the world. Well done, if so.
The idea is that a person would be motivated to meet all the needs of the first level, then the second level, then the third and so on, in order to satisfy all needs and drives and be the best possible person. It’s a nice idea, but the brain isn’t that neat and organized. Many people don’t follow Maslow’s hierarchy; some are motivated to give the last of their money to help strangers in need, or actively put themselves in harm’s way to save an animal in danger (unless it’s a wasp), despite the fact that an animal has no means of respecting or rewarding them for their heroics (especially if it’s a wasp, which will probably sting them and do an evil wasp laugh).
There’s also sex. Sex is a very powerful motivator. For proof of this, see anything ever. Maslow states that sex is at the bottom of the hierarchy of needs, as it’s a primitive, powerful biological drive. But people can live without any sex at all. They might resent doing so, but it’s entirely possible. Also, why do people want sex? A primitive urge for pleasure and/or reproduction, or the desire to be close and intimate with someone? Or maybe it’s because others view sexual prowess as an achievement and deserving of respect? Sex is all over the hierarchy.
Recent research into the workings of the brain provide another approach to understanding motivation. Many scientists draw distinctions between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Are we being motivated by external factors, or internal ones? External motivations are derived from others. Someone pays you to help them move; that’s an external motivation. You won’t enjoy it, it’s tedious and involves heavy lifting, but you get rewarded financially and so you do it. It could also be more subtle. Say everyone starts wearing yellow cowboy hats for “fashion,” and you want to be trendy, so you buy and wear a yellow cowboy hat. You may have no fondness for yellow cowboy hats, you may think they look stupid, but others have decided otherwise, and so you want one. This is an extrinsic motivation.