Behaviour and Motivation — Page 180, Lesson 285

I want to walk you through the relationship between behaviour and motivation, starting with a key insight: a single behavioural pattern can be governed by several, perhaps conflicting, motives. For example, you might refuse part of a meal because you're full — a biological drive — but that behaviour could be modified by a desire not to offend the hostess who prepared it. So the same outward action can be driven by multiple motives pulling in different directions. We normally associate motivation with goal-directed behaviour — the desire to achieve a specific goal or aspiration. A pilot might have an ambition to become a Check Captain, and they channel their efforts toward that goal, which then reflects on their behavioural patterns both at work and away from it. Technically, this drive is called achievement motivation. But there are infinitely more motives: power over others, competitiveness, gaining a reward, mastering a skill, self-edification — the list goes on. Most people possess many drives, and which one dominates depends on the situation. But the strength of any particular drive varies with each individual, so the total combination of motive strength represents something of a personal signature — it's unique to you. Now, extreme achievement motivation can produce spectacular results, but along the way there may be many casualties. The ultimate example is a commander who is determined to land at the destination airport regardless of weather conditions — that single-minded drive overrides good judgment. There's an added danger: if an individual is driven by extreme achievement motivation but meets an obstruction that prevents them from achieving the objective normally, a whole range of emotions gets released — anger, frustration, stress, and so on. This is known as the aggressive impulse. Finally, it's important to point out that any case of excessive motivation may lead to stress in an individual, which normally has an adverse effect on performance. Now let's move to the Model of Human Needs. In 1943, Maslow attempted to qualify motivation as the satisfaction of human needs that exist in a hierarchical form — that's Figure 9.1 on your screen. At the base of the hierarchy are the needs that must be satisfied first. From there, the hierarchy rises to those needs related to the ego. Once a lower level of needs is satisfied, the needs of the next higher level assume priority. Self-fulfillment is the final stage of the motivational drive. So the idea is that you can't focus on higher-level growth needs until your basic needs are met.