Motivation – Unit 8
Video
Hamster
Instinct/Evolutionary Theory
Influenced by Charles Darwin
Lists of behaviors that are instincts
Weakness is that it just lists and does
not explain motivation for these
behaviors
Drive Reduction Theory
 Human motivation is influenced by the combination
of needs and drives - biological
 Homeostasis
 Body seeks to maintain a stable internal state
 Body creates a drive if any of its needs are unmet
 Does not explain some behaviors as curiosity or risk
taking
Does not account for external incentives
Incentive Theory
 Recognizes that humans are not only pushed into
action by an internal drive, but also motivated by
the pull of an incentive
 Push of a drive (hunger) + pull of an incentive (smell
of the cookie) = eat the cookie
 Explains non-biological motivations such as
achievement, adventure, and affiliation
 Not all behavior can be explained by incentives altruistic
Arousal Theory
 Individual is motivated by the desire to remain at a
personally determined optimal level of arousal
 Optimal level of arousal
 level of excitement preferred by the person
 Differs from person to person
 Increased arousal levels result in improved performance
Yerkes-Dodson Law
 Explains relationship between the level of arousal and
performance
 On simple tasks – performance is better if arousal levels
are somewhat higher
 On difficult tasks – performance is better if arousal levels
are slightly lower
Yerkes-Dodson Law
Yerkes-Dodson Law
Hierarchy of Needs
 Abraham Maslow
 5 needs
 Physiological/biological
 Safety
 Belonging and love
 Esteem
 Self-actulaization
Hierarchy of Needs
 Effectively demonstrates how basic biological and safety
needs often have to be met before individuals are
motivated towards high level needs
 Questions
 Not all proceed sequentially through the levels
 Self-actualization has been proven difficult to measure
 Sky diving vs safety