MOTIVATION

Motivation is an abstract concept that describes the needs of living creatures to achieve objectives.

Motivation consists of the attempted satisfaction of a complex combination of emotional needs.

INTELLECTUAL NEEDS include the needs of individuals to understand the environment in which they live.

Individuals have a need to investigate, interpret and communicate in the world in which they exist. Although these intellectual needs are often associated with physical activity, they are clearly prompted by emotional rather than physical needs.

EXISTENTIAL NEEDS include subsistential or individual needs, territorial, and adversarial needs.

Although subsistential needs are closely associated with physical needs they are nevertheless emotionally controlled. Fear of danger or repugnance of the source of nourishment can suppress hunger. Insects are a nutritious potential source of food, but few humans choose to eat them, although they may readily eat fungus such as mushrooms. Territorial needs involve the needs of living creatures to occupy sufficient space necessary for their existence. Space may not only be physical, but may also psychological. People may require relatively little physical space in which to exist, but seek quiet and solitude in which to think. Living creatures all have adversarial motivation, which is closely connected with their need for self-preservation, whether it is cattle protecting themselves against predators, dogs fighting for bones, or humans hunting and fishing for food.

RELATIONAL NEEDS include the needs of individuals to relate and interact with others within their real and imagined environments.

Individuals have relational needs that include familial, societal, transactional, and spiritual needs. Throughout their lives individuals need to relate to others within their family, or towards others in a family-like way. They also need to interact with others within society, usually transact benefits and penalties, and usually hold spiritual beliefs. These beliefs are usually about abstract superlative forces such as good, evil, and deified creatures with imagined divine powers such as gods.

MOTIVATION

People need to satisfy their emotional needs. These are intellectual – thinking about what they are doing or want, existential – existing satisfactorily, and relational – relating to others around them.

COMPONENTS of MOTIVATION