Even for psychologists not directly studying motivation, its understanding is critical in all branches of the discipline. Motivation is defined as the force that causes us to do things and think about things. It is the inner drive or force that causes a person to take action towards a specific end. It is termed a “driving force.” Hunger is a motivating force, which drives a person to it. As is thirst, and other primary inborn drives.
Motivation also comes from other reasons outside of psychological needs. There are social pressures that drive a person to do something. An example of this would be two reasons for going to church. A man might go to church in order to avoid public scrutiny. Another person, a child perhaps, might go to church to avoid being punished by his mother. In this example both child and the man are attending a church service but their motivation comes from different contexts.
There is also internal and external motivation. Internal motivation is driven by a benefit or pleasure a task provides and external motivation is motivation that goes after an outcome. An example of internal motivation would is desiring to watch a TV show because how it makes a person feel. External motivation would be wanting to win a gold medal by placing in the Olympics.
There are number competing theories that explain where motivation comes from and how it is used. These theories, while they may disagree on some points, are important in that they provide different lenses to view motivation with, and an understanding of them give a deeper understand as to what motivates us.
This essay will explore two theories of motivation and lay out how they operate. To show a stark comparison, I have chosen two theories that appear to in contradiction with each other in their explanations of motivation: Incentive theory and Escape-seeking dichotomy model.
Incentive theory is a model developed by behaviorists. It believes that people do things for a reward that they associate as an outcome of the action. A positive outcome is associated with a positive action and this is then repeated due to that. In incentive theory there are reinforces. An example could be used with drug use. Drug use in some way makes a user feel good by altering the chemical makeup of the brain and seeking this incentive is what motivates a user to continue to use a drug.
Escape-seeking dichotomy model seems to depart from incentive theory in that it seeks to avoid routine, while incentive theory is establishes routines based on known positive outcomes. Escape-seeking dichotomy has been used to explain tourist’s motivations to leave the comforts of their homes to travel to other countries. (Woo, 1)
Though these two theories seem to contradict each other, they are best viewed as noncompetitive as both models could influence a person. One could use the escapisrt-seeking dichotomy to explain why a person abruptly quit his job and quit his routines and moved to another country, and also if that person were a smoker use the incentive theory as a model to explain his/her smoking.
Works Cited
Foster, Joshua. "Motivation and Emotion."University of South Alabama Jan. 2013: n. pag. Joshua Foster. Web. 23 Mar. 2013.
Woo, Eunju . "A Comparative Study of Motivation across Different Festival Products." Scholar Works 92 (2011): 1-10. Print.
