Theories of motivation

In today's media space, the mysterious word "motivation" is increasingly found. No, in general it is clear that this is, roughly speaking, what pushes and motivates us to action. But not everything is as simple as it seems. There are certain theories of motivation that explain what it is and where it comes from, this The most motivation, arises.

So, psychologists divide human behavior into 2 stages - the motive and the action itself. Thus, motive or motivation is what causes us to take certain actions. To make it easier to understand where this initial stimulus to action comes from, so-called motivation theories were developed.

Questions of the emergence of motives of human actions were of interest to ancient philosophers. The first psychological theories of motivation arose in close relationship with rational and irrational teachings. Thus, rational teaching explained human behavior from the point of view of choice and decision-making, and Irrational - with the help of the principle of automaton and reflex. It is worth noting that the irrational current was more related to animals, and rational flow to humans, since it was believed that humans have nothing to do with animals. The next impetus for the development of the theory of motivation was the development of the evolutionary doctrine of Darwin. Henceforth, the needs ceased to be regarded as exclusively the needs of the organism, more inherent in animals. Thus, it is possible to single out 2 psychological theories of motivation:

The first is behavioral, or behavioral, theory. It is believed that this approach is hopelessly outdated and has sunk into oblivion. In a nutshell, it can be described as a stimulus-reaction. There is a certain incentive, in the event of which a clear reaction can be traced. It is quite logical, although in the study of large groups of people gives misfires. So, different people can react to the same stimulus in different ways.

The second is closely related to Maslow's theory of needs, with its famous pyramid. Any activity serves to satisfy the needs of a certain level. At the very first level - physical needs, 2 - the need for security, 3 - the need for belonging to the group, 4 - the need for maorazvitiya, 5 - the need for self-realization.

Unlike the first two, the third branch, namely, the cognitive theory of motivation, pays more attention to the process of cognition, acquisition, assimilation of information and how this all affects human behavior. Cognitive theory explains how a person perceives and interprets data obtained from the outside. Either way, external information acts on every person. When a certain piece of information is received, cognitive processes are launched . First, thanks to the attention is sorting, selection of information and its memorization. Almost immediately, categorization begins to work with attention, that is, a mechanism for recognizing what has caught attention. Finally, the third stage is attribution, that is, understanding what the person is doing. But this understanding depends on what we know about the outside world.