What drives a person: the opinion of psychologists

2024 Author: Miguel Ramacey | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 06:11

What drives a person? What makes us act in a certain way? What makes us feel alive? These are feelings, this is the leading force that determines our aspirations. However, the question of what drives a person, reason or love, is still open. The modern world requires the individual to "turn on" the head. But what is the most important of this? What moves a person forward?

Influence of the Mind

We live in an era of technological progress that hardens people, dulls the senses and challenges the notion that man is driven by desire. The theory of human behavior motivation is taught as a separate course at institutes and is being studied by the scientific community. But there is no consensus on what drives a person. Reason is defined by two concepts - fear and pride. It is these components that provoke and motivate a person to action. Events in life, whether good or bad, a person perceives as inhibiting or provoking urges to act in the future. In turn, pride can be defined as the desire to beahead, to achieve more than others, to prove that you are worth something and can be higher than others. Here, both failures and disappointments can serve as an inciting signal to act only in order to amuse one's pride. Any society functions in accordance with any rules or foundations. However, pride, being the best motivation, often forces us to act contrary to the established rules of behavior. It turns out that in such situations, the action itself is important.

What does love mean?

And if reason is a rational motivation, then feelings are an irrational motivation of behavior for an individual, these are dangerous desires that drive a person. People like to justify their actions with the words “I want it so much,” “I love it so much,” and so on. Yielding to such impulses, many act thoughtlessly, impulsively, while not often do not even try to think about the consequences, succumbing to momentary emotions. Often you may encounter the fact that, satisfying your little joys or acting in a certain situation the way you want, the actions of an individual absolutely defy logic, and for others, such actions may simply be inexplicable. It can concern any sphere of life: travel, choice of partners, hobbies, professions, and so on. You can do architecture all your life, and then quit everything and go to sing in a restaurant just because you have dreamed about it for a long time. No one will understand, but we want it so much, we like it, and so on. Many believe that it is love that drives a person.

What is the result?

It turns out that both criteria occupy an important place in the life of every person. Thanks to both love and reason, a person can balance his whole life. Often a person is driven by an idea. Scientists have long proved that a person receives the real joy and feeling of “flow” first of all by doing what he likes, what he likes, but according to reason and logic. The actions that we perform “on emotions” dictate inexplicable desires to us, which we strive to carry out contrary to accepted norms, principles and logic.

Reason or love?

Voluntarily, not a single person will act all his life only based on what his mind dictates. And for someone, the betrayal of their heartfelt feelings and love is akin to a crime and is possible only under violent influence from outside. An example is marriage at the insistence of parents, without love. Both ancient thinkers and modern philosophers adhere to the position, the essence of which is that the mind will never win feelings and love. And here we are not talking about physical attractions, but about the most sincere deep love that comes from the heart. Reason, motivation do not make any sense when there is love in a person's life, which occupies all thoughts, which tears from the inside, for which one wants to move mountains. When thoughts do not give rest either day or night, then what kind of mind can we talk about? Philosophers of all times and peoples have been interested in this question. Consider the most significant theories.

What did Plato write about?

For Platothe driving force behind not only the development of a particular individual, but society as a whole, was the desire for knowledge, research, and truth. True pleasure is not following feelings, only wisdom determines all actions, and only thanks to it you can get real pleasure. Plato wrote that there is no alternative in terms of the power of joy than the joy of knowledge. It can be concluded that Plato gave preference to reason, moral duty, service to society, rather than feelings and emotions.

Freud's Theory

Sigmund Freud adhered to a different point of view, he believed that the force that makes a person act is nothing more than the sexual desires of people. And this motivational force does not let a person go from birth to death. Sexual desires that are not even half realized lead to aggressive behavior. What drives a person according to Freud? He believed that most people act only on the basis of their "lower" instincts and their actions are not subject to either reason or logic. Freud attached great importance to the sexual life of a person, considering it the main one.

Followers of the philosopher's theory to this day urge everyone around to take care of their sex life, because this can avoid manifestations of aggression, neurosis, he alth problems and even trouble in communicating with people. However, this theory has long been under the shadow of doubt, because long-term observations tell us that libido is not yet the ultimate truth. Sigmund Freud's theory was that the guiding instinct andthe motivating force is the libido instinct. The theory is still popular today. For example, many psychotherapists develop their own methods based on Freud's theory to identify problems in the behavior of spouses, for example. In order to give them the correct “diagnosis”, the psychotherapist first asks questions about intimate life, believing that marriage can be saved only by restoring the sexual life of partners. In many cases, these techniques work. But not everyone agrees with this. In particular, the famous Australian psychotherapist Alfred Langle. And to the question of what drives a person, Lenglet answered that, first of all, these are sensations and feelings.

Motivation from the negative

Often a person is driven by instincts, namely negative situations, various troubles, inconveniences, difficulties, which not so much encourage as force to act. The simplest example, which is familiar to everyone, is the fear of children to bring a bad mark from school for unfinished homework or bad behavior. Not only the fear of a bad grade works here, but also condemnation from teachers, fear of parental control and subsequent punishment. However, negative motivation is most often short-term and not designed for a long time. For example, for schoolchildren, this motivation ends exactly at the moment when the punishment is canceled. The incentive to act immediately disappears. Negative motivation is caused by the following factors: verbal, material or physical punishment, restrictions on freedom or other deprivations that aresocial character. With age, a person’s resistance to negative motivation also grows, while for children and adolescents who are directly dependent on their parents or other people, a condescending attitude to negativity is quite difficult.

What motivates self-development?

What forces drive a person in his activities? The first and most important thing that motivates us to take care of ourselves and develop is the desire to realize ourselves in life, which, to one degree or another, is inherent in every person. Here we are talking about the fact that a person must constantly learn, learn something new. Someone attends courses, improves their qualifications, learns something new throughout their lives. According to Maslow's theory, the best source of motivation is a passionate desire to prove to oneself and others one's compactness in professional matters, as well as the full realization of oneself in certain areas of life. The scientist believed that the main motivating force is the movement towards the knowledge of something new.

At the same time, the fear of uncertainty can slow down this motivation. A person's greatest joy comes from his own new achievements, preferably with a positive outcome. As for failures, mistakes, criticism, active motivation is inhibited here, which can affect a person’s future activities. The example of other successful and talented people also encourages action, which can even be compared with the inner satisfaction of one's achievements. This is due not only to the achievement of goals, fame, but also recognition fromside of other people. Only the anticipation of new victories, especially after a series of successful results, encourages a person to do impossible things.

Basics of Motivation

In this theory, we are not talking about factors that are directly related to a particular activity. They are defined as motivation that influences the external content, rather than the execution process. This includes a sense of responsibility to other people, and it doesn’t matter at all whether they are relatives, colleagues or anyone else. It is also impossible not to mention the desire to be recognized, to receive approval from others. Nowhere without self-improvement, motivation to get a certain status and social position. And even the most banal motive is the desire to avoid unpleasant consequences and the fear of getting a negative result because of their own actions and deeds.

Extrinsic motivation

As for external motivation, here we are not talking about the content of the activity, this factor does not cause any interest. First of all, it is external attractiveness, here we are talking about material we alth, recognition, social status, and so on. It turns out that in external motivation, the evaluation of activities, behavior, actions by other people is of great importance. In this case, it is most important for a person to hear and realize that his activity has weight among others. Fame and recognition is what everyone yearns for.

What is the conclusion?

Effective activity is possible only ifif it is based on several motivational aspects at once. The more motives a person is driven by, the more effective his activity will be. Therefore, our desire for self-development includes each of the listed theories in one quantity or another.