Instinct theory of motivation

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Instinct theory of motivation

The instinct theory of motivation states that all organisms have innate biological systems that help them survive and that these systems are the only drive for their behavior. Instinct is the pattern of behavior that is the result of this innate biological system (e.g., the sucking reflex in newborn babies that helps them seek out a nipple and obtain nourishment).

What are instincts?

Instincts are inherent tendencies to engage spontaneously in a particular pattern of behavior. For example this can be a dog shaking with his body after he gets wet or a bird who migrates before the winter season. An ethologist named Konrad Lorenz was able to demonstrate the power of instincts when he proved that he could get new born geese to imprint on him. He made sure that the first thing the geese saw was himself, knowing that geese will imprint on the first moving thing they see. In most cases the geese would attach to their mothers, in this case they attached, with the power of instinct, to Konrad Lorenz. For behavior to be classified as instinctive it must occur naturally and automatically in all organisms of a species and thus is not learned by experience.

History

When the instinct theory of motivation was incorporated into the new scientific psychology of the late nineteenth century, it had already existed for multiple centuries. The oldest instinct theory said that a creature's essential nature was already established at birth and that its actions would largely be decided by that nature. Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution through natural selection led to great controversy in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It brought up speculation that humans were evolved from earlier forms and were therefore more closely related to other animals than had been believed, humans might have instincts, or inherited behaviors, that other animals were observed to have. The first person to introduce the term "instinct" to psychology in the 1870's was Wilhelm Wundt.

In 1908, William McDougall, one of the main early instinct theorists, suggested that instinctive behavior was composed of three essential elements: perception, behavior, and emotion. He first outlined 12 different instinct behaviors, among them hunger, escape and sex, which he later expanded to 17, with additional instinct behaviors, such as laughter, sleep and comfort. His theory of instinct driven behavior was termed as hormic psychology.

Psychiatrist Sigmund Freud used a broad view of motivation and suggested that human behavior was driven by two key forces: the life (Eros) and death (Thanatos) instincts. The life instinct, sometimes referred to as sexual instincts, has the aim to construct unity and deal with the primary aim of survival, pleasure and reproduction and includes sexual motivation, but it also includes thirst, hunger and pain avoidance. The death instinct has the aim of destroying unity and comprises aggressive motivation. The concept of the death instincts was initially described in Beyond the Pleasure Principle, in which Freud proposed that “the goal of all life is death”.

In Freud's psychoanalytic theory he describes the Id, Ego and Superego. The Id is the unconscious part of the mind, that seeks pleasure. Most basic and primal human instincts can be found within this part. The Ego (which is also part of the unconsciousness) scans the environment to know what the reality is, in order to satisfy the Id. The Superego is the conscience of the mind, it knows what is wrong and what is right and it can inhibit the Id's instincts.

Psychologist William James identified a number of instincts that he believed were essential for survival. These included fear, anger, love, shame, cleanliness, and more. He also distinguished between behavior of humans and behavior of animals, where animals act through their instincts and humans through reason. This doesn’t mean that humans do not have instincts, but that these instincts, termed by James as impulses, inhibit one another, which allows for reasoning, and that human behavior is influenced by experience. Consequently, many researchers made their own lists of human instincts; by the 1920´s, more than two thousand had been suggested.

As research became more rigorous and terms were better defined, instinct as an explanation for human behavior became less common. Abraham Maslow argued that humans no longer have instincts because we have the ability to override them in certain situations. He felt that what is called instinct is often imprecisely defined, and really amounts to strong drives. For Maslow, an instinct is something which cannot be overridden, and therefore while the term may have applied to humans in the past, it no longer does.

Limitations of the instinct theory of motivation

• The theory claims that everybody has similar motivations, because all humans have similar biological programs and instincts. However, this is not the case when we take a look at humans. For example, according to the instinct theory of motivation, all mothers provide for their children. According to evidence, however, there are a number of mothers that don’t provide for their children properly.
• The theory does not describe the cause of the motivation or the mechanism that lies underneath it. Just labeling something as an instinct does not explain why some behaviors appear in certain instances but not in others.This is the case since you can’t really do experimental research about instincts. Instincts are not easily measured. You can't know if someone’s action is instinctual or not, because you can’t get into someone else’s mind.
• When there is a categorization of the instinct theories of motivation, other motivational theories are going to be left out, and it is difficult to determine which theories of motivation are instinctual and which are not.
• The level of motivation could differ from person to person.
• The same problem as with any other motivational theory also comes up, the instinct theory of motivation is not the only explanation why people do certain things. There are many other reasons why someone might become motivated.

Alternative theories for motivation

Neurobiological explanation for motivation

The current model for explaining motivation using neurobiology states that both salience and valence are attached to a given stimulus. When these aspects are put together they can appear as an instinctive drive. These mechanisms mostly depend on the amygdala, nucleus accumbens and the prefrontal cortex. With dopamine being an important link between these different brain regions.

But motivation depends on more than just this single brain structure. Berridge for instance, was able to demonstrate that influencing an animal's experience, while receiving brain stimulation to evoke an increase in motivation, influenced the amount of motivated behavior. The amount could be changed in more ways than would have been possible with only using brain stimulation.

The hierarchy of structures that are involved in motivation have a hierarchical structure. The forebrain is responsible for the higher motivational functions, and the brainstem is responsible for the lower functions such as autonomic changes, emotional responses and locomotion. But this hierarchical structure caused some problems, namely the complexity of the limbic system's re-entrant loops in the forebrain. This caused Berridge to theorise that a non-hierarchical structure might be better suited for explaining these circuits involved in motivated behavior.

The drive reduction theory and the arousal theory of motivation

Around the 1940's and 1950's, Clark L. Hull came up with the drive reduction theory of motivation. This theory states that all motivation to engage in certain behaviors is a result of humans trying to maintain their homeostasis. For example, when someone is hungry that’s a drive that causes internal tension, which humans want to reduce. Not all drives are biological, also called primary drives. Some drives are secondary, like earning money.

However, this theory does not provide an explanation for the fact that people also engage in behaviors that produce internal tensions, like cliff jumping. An example of a theory trying to explain this kind of behavior is the arousal theory of motivation. According to this theory, organisms try to find a balance in their level of arousal. It cannot be too high or too low, so organisms either increase or decrease their arousal level when necessary.

The incentive theory of motivation

The incentive theory of motivation is based on the drive theories of Clark Hull. This theory proposes that people are pulled towards behaviors that lead to rewards and pushed away from actions that might lead to negative consequences. Our actions are a result of outside incentives instead of an internal drive. An incentive is an object or an event present in the environment that motivates an individual to perform a specific action in the absence of any physiological need. The reward must be given after the performance of an action or a behavior in order to elicit the repeated performance of the same behavior. The results are the most effective when the rewards are given immediately after the performance. External cues are the main factors for motivation, but the incentive theory supports the indirect role of intrinsic motivation. The attractiveness of a goal varies with changes in the motivational state associated with it. Physiological need are not necessary, but their presence could make the external stimuli more attractive.{

Instinct theory of motivation

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