Motive



motive [http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Motive_%28law%29]

Let him [the fiction writer] choose a motive, whether of character or of passion; carefully construct his plot so that every incident is an illustration of the motive, and every property employed shall bear to it a near relation of congruity or contrast;— and allow neither himself in the narrative nor any character in the course of the dialogue, to utter one sentence that is not part and parcel of the business of the story. . . . And as the root of the whole matter, let him bear in mind that his novel is not a transcript of life, to be judged by its exactitude; but a simplification of some side or point of life, to stand or fall by its significant simplicity. — ROB= LOUIS STEVENSON, A Humble Remonstrance.

MOTIVES

No person performs an act without a reason which seems good to him, but it may be necessary to explain the motive to others before they can understand his mental attitude. There must be a reason before there can be an impulse to act, although to others this reason may seem to be absurdly inadequate. A drunken man slapping at the atmosphere may seem to be doing a silly thing unless we know that he sees a green cow in a terrific combat with a pink mouse and that he is trying to drive the infuriated animals apart. So far as his befogged intellect is concerned, he has a good reason. To the bystander there is no reason, therefore the action is absurd. In story action must either be explained or self explanatory if it is not to be absurd. The action of a man opening a gate that he may pass through is self motived. If he climbs over the fence beside the open gate, the action must be motived if it is not to appear absurd. We must know that he has sworn never to pass through that gate again and seeks to compromise with his conscience by climbing over the fence.

If, in a story, we see the beautiful teenage Beatrice and the much older Algernon wrapped in each other's embrace, we can understand that love or lust probably motives the action. If her father enters and kicks Algernon out, we can share his feeling of anger and understand the action. If, however, the suitor is apparently in every way desirable and yet is ejected, we must know the reason ; must be informed as to the motive, which may be that the parents of the young people are enemies or that the man really is a drug fiend.

Either reason is sufficient to motive the action and either might motivate the story. The young man is a drug fiend. Out of the depths of his love he seeks to overcome the slavery to narcotics. Now 'when we see his sufferings, we feel for him more than merely pity for a fellow-being in pain. We sympathize with his efforts and hope to see him win the mastery of himself, appreciating the terrible price he pays for his freedom from habit. We are sorry for his physical and mental sufferings, but through motivation we are given a stronger reason for sympathy. We want to see him win for the sake of his own happiness and for the sake of the happiness of the girl.

Motivation, it then appears, is giving a reason for action that the action, through the reason, may become important. This must not be confounded with punch, which gives interest to action through the idea behind the reason. Motivation gives interest to action through making it understandable and therefore appreciated. Punch gives interest through the idea.

Every action must be motived to show its connection with the plot, and so must be related to plot. We see a man setting fire to a stately mansion. The fire, and not the man, is important. We need a fire. We cannot merely have one. We must explain or motive it. We have no person in the cast who has any reason for setting fire to the house. The only reason we have for wanting the fire is to give the protagonist an opportunity to save the girl and so motive her interest and motivate the subsequent story. We use a fire instead of a runaway horse, and to have a fire we need to start it just as we must show the horse is a runaway. A lunatic incendiary is better than an overheated flue because he is an animate instead of an inanimate explanation and therefore more interesting. Therefore we motive the action of the incendiary by making him a lunatic and so gain a fire which permits the rescue of Muriel, the mill owner's beautiful daughter, by John, the young and handsome employee. The love, in turn, motivates the story.

Perhaps we have already motived the love and wish it to be supposed by the father that John set fire to the house when he was dismissed from the mill because his love for Mtaiel was discovered. To have a clear understanding of the circumstances we cannot merely say that the house catches fire and that John is under suspicion. We must show first that the fire occurs and then that John is suspected unjustly. In a fiction story we might let the origin of the fire remain in doubt until the next to the last paragraph, and have John under a cloud until the lunatic confesses that he set the fire because the mill owner struck him with a whip when he was caught trespassing. it generally gives a greater interest to plot if we know that John is innocent. It is important that the motiving be given clearly in action as the story progresses and not held in reserve until the denouement. If the lunatic sets the fire, we must be shown. If the antagonist, who may be the mill foreman, sets the fire in the hope of throwing the blame on John and getting the girl for himself, then we must see the foreman that we may understand his action when John is led away by the constable.

In a word, every action and the result of every action must be explained to the reader, either by inference or by statement of fact.

But motivation means something more than this. It means that each action and sequence of action must be shown to have some definite and positive bearing upon the plot; that each action and happening more important than mere by-play must in a definite and positive way advance the story toward the climax.

If the insane man had not set fire to the mansion there could not have been set in motion the chain of events that eventually led Muriel into John's arms. The action had at the moment no seeming bearing on the story. It was the wanton act of an irresponsible person. but John, passing. sees the blaze and comes to the aid of the family. Muriel, from an upper window, calls for assistance. John rescues her. Love is born. To take the other suggested development, the house is afire. John is accused of having set the blaze. Until now Muriel's love for him may have been a vagrant, fleeting passion. The unjustness of the charge rouses her to a sense of fair play. She becomes John's defender, and what was little more than a flirtation is fanned into true and permanent love. The fire has motivated the story through precipitating a crisis.

It should be understood that motivating action does not mean that from a given action there can arise but one result. At all stages in the progress of evolving a plot we can, through a change in motivation, change the action of the story. We have shown that the fire and rescue give birth to love or that the fire and unjust accusation serve to strengthen love. By drawing Muriel's character differently it might be shown that she, in common with her father, believes in John's guilt and turns from him. John is forced to serve a jail sentence and emerges an enemy to society. Now the fire and the consequences motivate a new plot in which revenge upon Society and not the winning of Muriel is the objective. At each fresh development there arises the opportunity to accept a new motivation, provided that the new action is in harmony with what has previously occurred. It is this which makes possible new twists to old stories. No start requires one certain and inevitable end. If the motivation is clear, the story may move in any direction that promises to give novelty.

Each action must be clearly explained, each motive clearly understood if interest is to be retained. Nothing can happen "just because, " or it will be illogical and unacceptable. The motive must not only be explained, but it must be such a motive as will be accepted by an audience as reasonable and logical.

Base motives are the underlying reasons why people do what they do. Often interpreted as relational to Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic theory and unconscious or subconscious motive theories, base motives explain actions and their underlying thoughts and memories, both repressed and conscious.

Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs has also been seen as an attributing factor to the understanding of personal base motives. This theory helps explain what humans need and in what order they seek these needs. Some believe knowing this hierarchy can help explain any action a human may take.

The base motive definition has since evolved into understanding or deducing calculated, willful, deliberate hidden or covert personal agenda. Base motives are seen as a conscious and cognizant approach at intentionally hiding ones' ambitions. An entity, be it an individual, city-state or country can and will mislead, disinform and misguide other entities intentionally; albeit, this can be considered strategy, diplomacy and manipulation to the benefit of predetermined actors in any given theater.

Still, some consider base motives to sway between Sigmund Freud's unconscious model and Abraham Maslow's much more conscious model. Base motives are accepted scientifically as fact.

Intrinsic motivation
Intrinsic motivation is evident when people engage in an activity for its own sake, without some obvious external incentive present. A hobby is a typical example.

Intrinsic motivation has been intensely studied by educational psychologists since the 1970s, and numerous studies have found it to be associated with high educational achievement and enjoyment by students.

There is currently no "grand unified theory" to explain the origin or elements of intrinsic motivation. Most explanations combine elements of Bernard Weiner's attribution theory, Bandura's work on self-efficacy and other studies relating to locus of control and goal orientation. Thus it is thought that students are more likely to experience intrinsic motivation if they:


 * Attribute their educational results to internal factors that they can control (eg. the amount of effort they put in, not 'fixed ability').
 * Believe they can be effective agents in reaching desired goals (eg. the results are not determined by dumb luck.)
 * Are motivated towards deep 'mastery' of a topic, instead of just rote-learning 'performance' to get good grades.

Note that the idea of reward for achievement is absent from this model of intrinsic motivation, since rewards are an extrinsic factor.

In knowledge-sharing communities and organizations, people often cite altruistic reasons for their participation, including contributing to a common good, a moral obligation to the group, mentorship or 'giving back'. This model of intrinsic motivation has emerged from three decades of research by hundreds of educationalists and is still evolving. (See also Goal Theory.)

Roland Tarleton did some work on moving closer to the "grand unified theory". His research discovered that Intrinsic Motivation in the work situation can be measured in terms of 10 scales, and the basic logic derives from a synthesis of the best known need and process approaches to explaining what motivation is fundamentally all about. Its development can be traced from 3 main areas of research:


 * Adler, Maslow and Herzberg’s work on self-actualisation;
 * Lewin, Vroom and Porter & Lawler’s theories surrounding level of aspiration;
 * Murray, McClelland & Atkinson, Weiner, Rosenberg and Rotter’s work relating to achievement motivation

Extrinsic motivation
Traditionally, extrinsic motivation has been used to motivate employees:
 * Tangible rewards such as payments, promotion (rank) (or punishments).
 * Intangible rewards such as praise or public commendation.

Within economies transitioning from assembly lines to service industries, the importance of intrinsic motivation rises:
 * The further jobs move away from pure assembly lines, the harder it becomes to measure individual productivity. This effect is most pronounced for knowledge workers and amplified in teamwork. A lack of objective or universally accepted criteria for measuring individual productivity may make individual rewards arbitrary.
 * Since by definition intrinsic motivation does not rely on financial incentives, it is cheap in terms of dollars but expensive in the fact that the inherent rewards of the activity must be internalized before they can be experienced as intrinsically motivating.

However, intrinsic motivation is no panacea for employee motivation. Problems include:
 * For many commercially viable activities it may not be possible to find any or enough intrinsically motivated people.
 * Intrinsically motivated employees need to eat, too. Other forms of compensation remain necessary.
 * Intrinsic motivation is easily destroyed. For instance, additional extrinsic motivation is known to have a negative impact on intrinsic motivation in many cases, perceived injustice in awarding such external incentives even more so. (See also work by Edward Deci and Bruno Frey who discusses crowding theory and Teresa M. Amabile on the effects on creativity.)

Telic and Paratelic motivational modes
Psychologist Michael Apter's studies of motivation led him to describe what he called the "telic" (from Greek telos or "goal") and "paratelic" motivational modes, or states. In the telic state, a person is motivated primarily by a particular goal or objective--such as earning payment for work done. In the paratelic mode, a person is motivated primarily by the activity itself--intrinsic motivation.

Punishment
Punishment, when referred in general, is an unfavorable condition introduced into the environment to eliminate undesirable behavior. This is used as one of the measures of Behavior Modification. Action resulting in punishment will demotivate repetition of action. Also the matter of cren is evident.

Aggression
Aggression is generally used in the civil service area where units are devoted to maintaining law and order. In some environments officers are grounded by their superiors in order to perform better and to stay out of illegal activities.

Stress
Stress works in a strange way to motivate, like reverse psychology. When under stress and difficult situations, a person feels pressured. This may trigger feelings of under-achieving, which results in a reverse mindset, to strive to achieve. This is almost sub-conscious. The net amount motivation under stress may motivate a person to work harder in order to "compensate" for his feelings.

Psychologists differentiate between this constructive form of stress, called eustress, and the unhelpful state of distress.

Secondary goals
These important biological needs tend to generate more powerful emotions and thus more powerful motivation than secondary goals. This is described in models like Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs. A distinction can also be made between direct and indirect motivation: In direct motivation, the action satisfies the need, in indirect motivation, the action satisfies an intermediate goal, which can in turn lead to the satisfaction of a need. In work environments, money is typically viewed as a powerful indirect motivation, whereas job satisfaction and a pleasant social environment are more direct motivations. However, this example highlights well that an indirect motivational factor (money) towards an important goal (having food, clothes etc.) may well be more powerful than the direct motivation provided by an enjoyable workplace.

Coercion
The most obvious form of motivation is coercion, where the avoidance of pain or other negative consequences has an immediate effect. When such coercion is permanent, it is considered slavery. While coercion is considered morally reprehensible in many philosophies, it is widely practiced on prisoners, students in mandatory schooling, and in the form of conscription. Critics of modern capitalism charge that without social safety networks, wage slavery is inevitable. However, many capitalists such as Ayn Rand have been very vocal against coercion. Successful coercion sometimes can take priority over other types of motivation. Self-coercion is rarely substantially negative (typically only negative in the sense that it avoids a positive, such as undergoing an expensive dinner or a period of relaxation), however it is interesting in that it illustrates how lower levels of motivation may be sometimes tweaked to satisfy higher ones.

Self control
The self-control of motivation is increasingly understood as a subset of emotional intelligence; a person may be highly intelligent according to a more conservative definition (as measured by many intelligence tests), yet unmotivated to dedicate this intelligence to certain tasks. Yale School of Management professor Victor Vroom's "expectancy theory" provides an account of when people will decide whether to exert self control to pursue a particular goal. Self control is often contrasted with automatic processes of stimulus-response, as in the methodological behaviorist's paradigm of JB Watson.

Drives and desires can be described as a deficiency or need that activates behaviour that is aimed at a goal or an incentive. These are thought to originate within the individual and may not require external stimuli to encourage the behaviour. Basic drives could be sparked by deficiencies such as hunger, which motivates a person to seek food; whereas more subtle drives might be the desire for praise and approval, which motivates a person to behave in a manner pleasing to others.

By contrast, the role of extrinsic rewards and stimuli can be seen in the example of training animals by giving them treats when they perform a trick correctly. The treat motivates the animals to perform the trick consistently, even later when the treat is removed from the process.

Maslow's theory
Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of human needs theory is the most widely discussed theory of motivation.

The theory can be summarized as thus:
 * Human beings have wants and desires which influence their behaviour; only unsatisfied needs can influence behavior, satisfied needs cannot.
 * Since needs are many, they are arranged in order of importance, from the basic to the complex.
 * The person advances to the next level of needs only after the lower level need is at least minimally satisfied.
 * The further the progress up the hierarchy, the more individuality, humanness and psychological health a person will show.

The needs, listed from basic (lowest, earliest) to most complex (highest, latest) are as follows:
 * Physiological
 * Safety and security
 * Social
 * Self esteem
 * Self actualization

Herzberg’s two factor theory
Frederick Herzberg's two factor theory, concludes that certain factors in the workplace result in job satisfaction, while others do not, but if absent lead to dissatisfaction.

He distinguished between:
 * Motivators; (e.g. challenging work, recognition, responsibility) which give positive satisfaction, and
 * Hygiene factors; (e.g. status, job security, salary and fringe benefits) which do not motivate if present, but if absent will result in demotivation.

The name Hygiene factors is used because, like hygiene, the presence will not make you healthier, but absence can cause health deterioration.

The theory is sometimes called the "Motivator-Hygiene Theory."

From a practical point of view (vs academic) Herzberg's two factor theory has proven more powerful than Maslow since its concepts are simpler to understand. Steve Bicknell did considerable research into Employee Engagement Data, in particular the analysis of verbatim comments over 50 companies found there was a common theme between low hygiene - high motivator and low Employee Engagement. Employees consistently recorded low scores against management/leadership - Employees were optimisitic about success but happy to complain about leadership since their hygiene factors had not been addressed. Message - sort the hygiene, then drive the motivation.

Alderfer’s ERG theory
Created by Clayton Alderfer, Maslow's hierarchy of needs was expanded, leading to his ERG theory (existence, relatedness and growth). Physiological and safety, the lower order needs, are placed in the existence category, Love and self esteem needs in the relatedness category. The growth category contained the self actualization and self esteem needs.

Cognitive dissonance
Suggested by Leon Festinger, this occurs when an individual experiences some degree of mental discomfort resulting from an incompatibility between two cognitions. For example, a consumer may seek to reassure himself or herself regarding a purchase, feeling that another decision may have been, in retrospect, preferable.

Another example of cognitive dissonance is when a belief and a behavior are in conflict. A person may believe smoking is bad for one's health and yet continues to smoke.

Self-determination theory
Self-determination theory, developed by Edward Deci and Richard Ryan, focuses on the importance of intrinsic motivation in driving human behavior. Like Maslow's hierarchical theory and others that built on it, SDT posits a natural tendency toward growth and development. Unlike these other theories, however, SDT does not include any sort of "autopilot" for achievement, but instead requires active encouragement from the environment. The primary factors that encourage motivation and development are autonomy, competence feedback, and relatedness.

McClelland's achievement motivation theory
David McClelland’s achievement motivation theory envisages that a person has need for three things but people differ in degree in which the various needs influence their behavior: Need for achievement, Need for power, and Need for affiliation

Goal-setting theory
Goal-setting theory is based on the notion that individuals sometimes have a drive to reach a clearly defined end state. Often, this end state is a reward in itself. A goal's efficiency is affected by three features; proximity, difficulty and specificity. An ideal goal should present a situation where the time between the initiation of behavior and the end state is close in time. This explains why some children are more motivated to learn how to ride a bike than mastering algebra. A goal should be moderate, not too hard or too easy to complete. In both cases, most people are not optimally motivated, as many want a challenge (which assumes some kind of insecurity of success). At the same time people want to feel that there is a substantial probability that they will succeed. Specificity concerns the description of the goal. The goal should be objectively defined and intelligible for the individual. A classic example of a poorly specified goal is to get the highest possible grade. Most children have no idea how much effort they need to reach that goal. For further reading, see Locke and Latham (2002).

Controlling motivation
The control of motivation is only understood to a limited extent. There are many different approaches of motivation training, but many of these are considered pseudoscientific by critics. To understand how to control motivation it is first necessary to understand why many people lack motivation.

Early programming
Modern imaging has provided solid empirical support for the psychological theory that emotional programming is largely defined in childhood. Harold Chugani, Medical Director of the PET Clinic at the Children's Hospital of Michigan and professor of pediatrics, neurology and radiology at Wayne State University School of Medicine, has found that children's brains are much more capable of consuming new information (linked to emotions) than those of adults. Brain activity in cortical regions is about twice as high in children as in adults from the third to the ninth year of life. After that period, it declines constantly to the low levels of adulthood. Brain volume, on the other hand, is already at about 95% of adult levels in the ninth year of life.

Organization
Besides the very direct approaches to motivation, beginning in early life, there are solutions which are more abstract but perhaps nevertheless more practical for self-motivation. Virtually every motivation guidebook includes at least one chapter about the proper organization of one's tasks and goals. It is usually suggested that it is critical to maintain a list of tasks, with a distinction between those which are completed and those which are not, thereby moving some of the required motivation for their completion from the tasks themselves into a "meta-task", namely the processing of the tasks in the task list, which can become a routine. The viewing of the list of completed tasks may also be considered motivating, as it can create a satisfying sense of accomplishment.

Most electronic to-do lists have this basic functionality, although the distinction between completed and non-completed tasks is not always clear (completed tasks are sometimes simply deleted, instead of kept in a separate list).

Other forms of information organization may also be motivational, such as the use of mind maps to organize one's ideas, and thereby "train" the neural network that is the human brain to focus on the given task. Simpler forms of idea notation such as simple bullet-point style lists may also be sufficient, or even more useful to less visually oriented persons.

Drugs
Some authors, especially in the transhumanist movement, have suggested the use of "smart drugs", also known as nootropics, as "motivation-enhancers". The effects of many of these drugs on the brain are not well understood, and their legal status often makes open experimentation difficult. It is a fact that some of history's most productive artists have also been drug users, although it is not clear whether this correlation is also of a causative nature, or if so, which is the direction of causation. Converging neurobiological evidence also supports the idea that addictive drugs such as cocaine, nicotine, alcohol, and heroin act on brain systems underlying motivation for natural rewards, such as the mesolimbic dopamine system. Normally, these brain systems serve to guide us toward fitness-enhancing rewards (food, water, sex, etc.), but they can be co-opted by repeated use of drugs of abuse, causing addicts to excessively pursue drug rewards. Therefore, drugs can hijack brain systems underlying other motivations, causing the almost singular pursuit of drugs characteristic of addiction.

Education
Motivation is of particular interest to Educational psychologists because of the crucial role it plays in student learning. However, the specific kind of motivation that is studied in the specialized setting of education differs qualitatively from the more general forms of motivation studied by psychologists in other fields.

Motivation in education can have several effects on how students learn and their behavior towards subject matter (Ormrod, 2003). It can:
 * 1) Direct behavior toward particular goals
 * 2) Lead to increased effort and energy
 * 3) Increase initiation of, and persistence in, activities
 * 4) Enhance cognitive processing
 * 5) Determine what consequences are reinforcing
 * 6) Lead to improved performance.

Because students are not always internally motivated, they sometimes need situated motivation, which is found in environmental conditions that the teacher creates.

There are two kinds of motivation:
 * Intrinsic motivation occurs when people are internally motivated to do something because it either brings them pleasure, they think it is important, or they feel that what they are learning is morally significant.
 * Extrinsic motivation comes into play when a student is compelled to do something or act a certain way because of factors external to him or her (like money or good grades).

Note also that there is already questioning and expansion about this dichotomy on motivation, e.g., Self-Determination Theory.

Business
At lower levels of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, such as Physiological needs, money is a motivator, however it tends to have a motivating effect on staff that lasts only for a short period (in accordance with Herzberg's two-factor model of motivation). At higher levels of the hierarchy, praise, respect, recognition, empowerment and a sense of belonging are far more powerful motivators than money, as both Abraham Maslow and Douglas McGregor's Theory X and theory Y have demonstrated vividly. NOTE: THAT HERZBERG, MAYO, MASLOW ETC... ARE MOTIVATION THEORIES HOWEVER MCGREGOR IS A MOTIVATION OF LEADERSHIP.

Maslow has money at the lowest level of the hierarchy and shows other needs are better motivators to staff. McGregor places money in his Theory X category and feels it is a poor motivator. Praise and recognition are placed in the Theory Y category and are considered stronger motivators than money.


 * Motivated employees always look for better ways to do a job.
 * Motivated employees are more quality oriented.
 * Motivated workers are more productive.

Scientific management
Scientific management is a philosophy and set of methods that stresses the scientific study and organization of work at an operational level for improving efficiency. It is associated with Frederick Winslow Taylor, who is called the “father of Scientific Management.”

Scientific Management has contributed the following techniques that are used even today:
 * Scientific method of doing work
 * Planning tasks
 * Standardization
 * Specialization and division of labour

David McClelland believed that workers could be motivated by the mere need for money--that is, economic gains in the form of higher wages. Some criticized Mcclelland's approach, arguing that he dehumanized workers by treating them as mere factors of production. In reality, workers need a sense of job security, social fulfillment, and a challenging job as well as good pay.

Human relations model
Elton Mayo found out that the social contacts a worker has at the workplace are very important and that boredom and repetitiveness of tasks lead to reduced motivation. Mayo believed that workers could be motivated by acknowledging their social needs and making them feel important. As a result, employees were given freedom to make decisions on the job and greater attention was paid to informal work groups. Mayo named the model the Hawthorne effect. The problem with his model is undue reliance on social contacts at work situations for motivating employees.