Motivation Essay

1622 Words4 Pages

Motivation is a common term used in everyday life. According to Kendra Cherry, motivation is ‘the process that initiates, guides and maintains goal-oriented behaviours’ (Cherry, 2013). Motivation may affect our behaviour, choices and attitudes. How a person approaches a situation or their decision to act upon a situation is also known as motivation (Wong, 2000). There are many theories which explain different areas of motivation; instinct, incentive, drive, humanistic and arousal. The existence of these theories of motivation will be discussed throughout this essay. How different elements of these theories can be applied to social care settings will also be explored. The instinct theory of motivation explores the idea that every person is born with an innate understanding of how to survive (Nevid, 2013). This theory investigates the biological approach to motivation (Sincero, 2014). Research supports that some of our actions and behaviours are driven by this innate understanding (Nevid, 2013). For example, in the animal world, mating and migrating are not learned; they are an innate behaviour (cherry, 2013). A theorist who supported this theory was Sigmund Freud, who believed that human behaviour is driven by certain instincts such as sexual and aggressive instincts (Nevid, 2013). He also suggested that humans can be unaware or unable to understand why they behave in a certain way, where their natural innate instincts are the reason for the motivation (Melucci, 2004). However, this is not always a good thing. People may express various types of behaviour as a result of instincts such as aggression (Sincero, 2014). An example of how this theory could be applied to a social care setting could be seen within the relationship between... ... middle of paper ... ... to be met. Some people’s needs may be higher than other, yet we all seek to fulfil them. As evident from this essay, there are many different views and approaches to motivation. The five theories I have discussed throughout this essay, are some of the most commonly used theories today. Every person experiences motivation on a daily basis, whether it is trying to be motivated to go to work, or motivated to walk to the shop, all motivation is similar. In psychology today, there are modern theories of motivation that are specific to certain areas of life such as learning in a school setting or in a social care setting etc. From this, we can see how useful these theories of motivation are and how they are constantly being expanded on. Motivation is a complex term used on a daily basis and is a very important factor to consider, in particular with a social care setting.

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