Motivation is the reason for people's actions, desires, and needs. Motivation is also one's direction to behavior, or what causes a person to want to repeat a behavior.[1] A motive is what prompts the person to act in a certain way, or at least develop an inclination for specific behavior.[2]
According to Maehr and Meyer, "Motivation is a word that is part of the popular culture as few other psychological concepts are."[3]
Motivation theories can be classified on a number of bases:
- Natural vs. Rational: based on whether the underlying theory of human cognition is based on natural forces (drives, needs, desires) or some kind of rationality (instrumentality, meaningfulness, self-identity).
- Content vs. Process: based on whether the focus is on the content ("what" motivates) vs process ("how" motivation takes place).
Neuroscience
Motivation as a desire to perform an action is usually defined as having two parts, directional such as directed towards a positive stimulus or away from a negative one, as well as the activated "seeking phase" and consummatory "liking phase". This type of motivation has neurobiological roots in the basal ganglia, and mesolimbic dopaminergic pathways. Activated "seeking" behavior, such as locomotor activity, is influenced by dopaminergic drugs, and microdialysisexperiments reveal that dopamine is released during the anticipation of a reward.[4] The "wanting behavior" associated with a rewarding stimulus can be increased by microinjections of dopamine and dopaminergic drugs in the dorsorostral nucleus accumbens and posterior ventral palladium. Opioid injections in this area produce pleasure, however outside of these hedonic hotspots they create an increased desire.[5] Furthermore, depletion or inhibition of dopamine in neurons of the nucleus accumbens decreases appetitive but not consummatory behavior. Dopamine is further implicated in motivation as administration of amphetamine increased the break point in a progressive ratio self-reinforcement schedule. That is, subjects were willing to go to greater lengths (e.g. press a lever more times) to obtain a reward.[6]
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