The article examines the formation of the concept of motive in the theory of A.N. Leontiev in correlation with the ideas of K. Lewin, as well as with the distinction between external and internal motivation and the concept of the continuum of regulation in the modern theory of self-determination by E. Deci and R. Ryan. The distinction between external motivation, based on reward and punishment, and “natural teleology” in the works of K. Levin and (external) motive and interest in the early texts of A.N. is revealed. Leontyev. The relationship between motive, goal and meaning in the structure of motivation and regulation of activity is examined in detail. The concept of the quality of motivation is introduced as a measure of the consistency of motivation with deep needs and the personality as a whole, and the complementarity of the approaches of activity theory and self-determination theory to the problem of the quality of motivation is shown.
The relevance and vitality of any scientific theory, including the psychological theory of activity, are determined by the extent to which its content allows us to obtain answers to the questions that confront us today. Any theory was relevant at the time when it was created, providing an answer to the questions that existed at that time, but not every theory retained this relevance for a long time. Theories that relate to the living are able to provide answers to today's questions. Therefore, it is important to correlate any theory with the issues of today.
The subject of this article is the concept of motive. On the one hand, this is a very specific concept, on the other hand, it occupies a central place in the works not only of A.N. Leontiev, but also many of his followers who developed the activity theory. Previously, we have repeatedly turned to the analysis of the views of A.N. Leontiev on motivation (Leontiev D.A., 1992, 1993, 1999), focusing on such individual aspects as the nature of needs, multimotivation of activity and the functions of motive. Here, having briefly discussed the content of previous publications, we will continue this analysis, paying attention primarily to the origins of the distinction between internal and external motivation found in activity theory. We will also consider the relationship between motive, purpose and meaning and correlate the views of A.N. Leontiev with modern approaches, primarily with the theory of self-determination by E. Deci and R. Ryan.
Basic provisions of the activity theory of motivation
Our previous analysis was aimed at eliminating contradictions in the traditionally cited texts of A.N. Leontyev, due to the fact that the concept of “motive” in them carried an excessively large load, including many different aspects. In the 1940s, when it was first introduced as explanatory, this stretchability could hardly be avoided; the further development of this construct led to its inevitable differentiation, the emergence of new concepts and, at the expense of them, a narrowing of the semantic field of the actual concept of “motive”.
The starting point for our understanding of the general structure of motivation is A.G.’s scheme. Asmolov (1985), who identified three groups of variables and structures that are responsible for this area. The first is the general sources and driving forces of activity; E.Yu. Patyaeva (1983) aptly called them “motivational constants.” The second group is the factors for choosing the direction of activity in a specific situation here and now. The third group is secondary processes of “situational development of motivation” (Vilyunas, 1983; Patyaeva, 1983), which make it possible to understand why people complete what they started doing, and do not switch each time to more and more new temptations (for more details, see .: Leontyev D.A., 2004). Thus, the main question in the psychology of motivation is “Why do people do what they do?” (Deci, Flaste, 1995) breaks down into three more specific questions corresponding to these three areas: “Why do people do anything at all?”, “Why do people currently do what they do and not something else? » and “Why do people, once they start doing something, usually finish it?” The concept of motive is most often used to answer the second question.
Let's start with the main provisions of the theory of motivation by A.N. Leontiev, discussed in more detail in other publications.
- The source of human motivation is needs. A need is an objective need of the organism for something external - an object of need. Before meeting the object, the need generates only undirected search activity (see: Leontyev D.A., 1992).
- A meeting with an object - the objectification of a need - turns this object into a motive for purposeful activity. Needs develop through the development of their objects. It is precisely due to the fact that the objects of human needs are objects created and transformed by man that all human needs are qualitatively different from the sometimes similar needs of animals.
- A motive is “the result, that is, the object for which the activity is carried out” (Leontyev A.N., 2000, p. 432). It acts as “...that objective, what this need is (more precisely, a system of needs. - D.L.) is specified in given conditions and what the activity is directed towards as what motivates it” (Leontyev A.N., 1972, p. 292). A motive is a systemic quality acquired by an object, manifested in its ability to motivate and direct activity (Asmolov, 1982).
4. Human activity is multimotivated. This does not mean that one activity has several motives, but that one motive, as a rule, embodies several needs to varying degrees. Thanks to this, the meaning of the motive is complex and is determined by its connections with different needs (for more details, see: Leontyev D.A., 1993, 1999).
5. Motives perform the function of motivating and directing activity, as well as meaning formation - giving personal meaning to the activity itself and its components. In one place A.N. Leontiev (2000, p. 448) directly identifies the guiding and meaning-forming functions. On this basis, he distinguishes two categories of motives - meaning-forming motives, which carry out both motivation and meaning-formation, and “motive-stimuli”, which only motivate, but lack a meaning-forming function (Leontyev A.N., 1977, pp. 202-203).
Statement of the problem of qualitative differences in motivation: K. Levin and A.N. Leontyev
The distinction between “sense-forming motives” and “stimulus motives” is in many ways similar to the distinction, rooted in modern psychology, between two qualitatively different and based on different mechanisms types of motivation - internal motivation, conditioned by the process of activity itself, as it is, and external motivation, conditioned by benefit, which a subject can receive from the use of alienated products of this activity (money, marks, offsets and many other options). This breeding was introduced in the early 1970s. Edward Deci; The relationship between internal and external motivation began to be actively studied in the 1970-1980s. and remains relevant today (Gordeeva, 2006). Deci was able to most clearly formulate this distinction and illustrate the consequences of this distinction in many beautiful experiments (Deci and Flaste, 1995; Deci et al., 1999).
Kurt Lewin was the first to raise the question of qualitative motivational differences between natural interest and external pressures in 1931 in his monograph “The Psychological Situation of Reward and Punishment” (Lewin, 2001, pp. 165-205). He examined in detail the question of the mechanisms of the motivational effect of external pressures, forcing the child “to carry out an action or demonstrate behavior different from the one to which he is directly drawn at the moment” (Ibid., p. 165), and about the motivational effect of the opposite “situation” , in which the child’s behavior is controlled by a primary or derivative interest in the matter itself” (Ibid., p. 166). The subject of Levin's direct interest is the structure of the field and the direction of the vectors of conflicting forces in these situations. In a situation of immediate interest, the resulting vector is always directed towards the goal, which Lewin calls “natural teleology” (Ibid., p. 169). The promise of reward or the threat of punishment creates conflicts in the field of varying degrees of intensity and inevitability.
A comparative analysis of reward and punishment leads Lewin to the conclusion that both methods of influence are not very effective. “Along with punishment and reward, there is also a third opportunity to evoke the desired behavior - namely, to arouse interest and arouse a tendency towards this behavior” (Ibid., p. 202). When we try to force a child or an adult to do something based on carrots and sticks, the main vector of his movement turns out to be directed to the side. The more a person strives to get closer to an undesired, but reinforced object and begin to do what is required of him, the more the forces pushing in the opposite direction grow. Levin sees a fundamental solution to the problem of education in only one thing - in changing the motivation of objects through changing the contexts in which the action is included. “The inclusion of a task in another psychological area (for example, transferring an action from the area of “school assignments” to the area of “actions aimed at achieving a practical goal”) can radically change the meaning and, therefore, the motivation of this action itself” (Ibid., p. 204).
One can see direct continuity with this work of Lewin that took shape in the 1940s. ideas of A.N. Leontiev about the meaning of actions given by the holistic activity in which this action is included (Leontiev A.N., 2009). Even earlier, in 1936-1937, based on research materials in Kharkov, an article was written, “Psychological study of children’s interests in the Palace of Pioneers and Octobrists,” published for the first time in 2009 (Ibid., pp. 46-100), where in detail not only the relationship between what we call today internal and external motivation is studied, but also their interconnection and mutual transitions. This work turned out to be the missing evolutionary link in the development of A.N.’s ideas. Leontyev about motivation; it allows us to see the origins of the concept of motive in activity theory.
The subject of the study itself is formulated as the child’s relationship to the environment and activity, in which an attitude towards the task and other people arises. There is no term “personal meaning” here yet, but in fact it is the main subject of study. The theoretical task of the study concerns the factors of formation and dynamics of children's interests, and the criteria of interest are behavioral signs of involvement or disinvolvement in a particular activity. We are talking about October students, junior schoolchildren, specifically second-graders. It is characteristic that the work sets the task not of forming specific, given interests, but of finding general means and patterns that allow stimulating the natural process of generating an active, involved attitude towards various types of activities. Phenomenological analysis shows that interest in certain activities is due to their inclusion in the structure of relationships that are significant for the child, both objective-instrumental and social. It is shown that the attitude towards things changes in the process of activity and is associated with the place of this thing in the structure of activity, i.e. with the nature of its connection with the goal.
It was there that A.N. Leontyev uses the concept of “motive” for the first time, and in a very unexpected way, contrasting motive with interest. At the same time, he states the discrepancy between the motive and the goal, showing that the child’s actions with the object are given stability and involvement by something other than interest in the very content of the actions. By motive he understands only what is now called “external motive,” as opposed to internal. This is “the driving cause of activity external to the activity itself (i.e., the goals and means included in the activity)” (Leontyev A.N., 2009, p. 83). Younger schoolchildren (second graders) engage in activities that are interesting in themselves (its purpose lies in the process itself). But sometimes they engage in activities without interest in the process itself, when they have another motive. External motives do not necessarily come down to alienated stimuli such as grades and adult demands. This also includes, for example, making a gift for mom, which in itself is not a very exciting activity (Ibid., p. 84).
Further A.N. Leontyev analyzes motives as a transitional stage to the emergence of genuine interest in the activity itself as one becomes involved in it thanks to external motives. The reason for the gradual emergence of interest in activities that previously did not arouse it is A.N. Leontyev considers the establishment of a means-end connection between this activity and what is obviously interesting to the child (Ibid., pp. 87-88). In essence, we are talking about the fact that in the later works of A.N. Leontyev received the name personal meaning. At the end of the article A.N. Leontyev speaks of meaning and involvement in meaningful activity as a condition for changing the point of view on a thing and attitude towards it (Ibid., p. 96).
In this article, for the first time, the idea of meaning appears, directly associated with motive, which distinguishes this approach from other interpretations of meaning and brings it closer to Kurt Lewin’s field theory (Leontiev D.A., 1999). In the completed version, we find these ideas formulated several years later in the posthumously published works “Basic Processes of Mental Life” and “Methodological Notebooks” (Leontiev A.N., 1994), as well as in articles of the early 1940s, such as “ Theory of development of the child’s psyche”, etc. (Leontyev A.N., 2009). Here a detailed structure of activity already appears, as well as an idea of motive, covering both external and internal motivation: “The object of the activity is at the same time what motivates this activity, i.e. her motive. ... Responding to one or another need, the motive of activity is experienced by the subject in the form of desire, desire, etc. (or, conversely, in the form of the experience of disgust, etc.). These forms of experience are forms of reflection of the subject’s attitude to the motive, forms of experiencing the meaning of activity” (Leontiev A.N., 1994, pp. 48-49). And further: “(It is the discrepancy between the object and the motive that is the criterion for distinguishing an action from an activity; if the motive of a given process lies within itself, it is an activity, but if it lies outside this process itself, it is an action.) This is a conscious relationship of the subject of the action to its motive is the meaning of the action; the form of experiencing (awareness) of the meaning of an action is the consciousness of its purpose. (Therefore, an object that has meaning for me is an object that acts as an object of a possible purposeful action; an action that has meaning for me is, accordingly, an action that is possible in relation to one or another goal.) A change in the meaning of an action is always a change in its motivation” ( Ibid., p. 49).
It was from the initial distinction between motive and interest that A.N.’s later cultivation grew. Leontiev of incentive motives that only stimulate genuine interest, but are not associated with it, and meaning-forming motives that have personal meaning for the subject and in turn give meaning to the action. At the same time, the opposition between these two types of motives turned out to be overly sharpened. A special analysis of motivational functions (Leontiev D.A., 1993, 1999) led to the conclusion that the incentive and meaning-forming functions of a motive are inseparable and that motivation is provided exclusively through the mechanism of meaning-formation. “Motives-stimuli” are not without meaning and meaning-forming power, but their specificity is that they are connected with needs by artificial, alienated connections. The rupture of these connections also leads to the disappearance of motivation.
Nevertheless, clear parallels can be seen between the distinction between two classes of motives in activity theory and in self-determination theory. It is interesting that the authors of the theory of self-determination gradually came to realize the inadequacy of the binary opposition of internal and external motivation and to introduce a model of the motivational continuum that describes the spectrum of different qualitative forms of motivation for the same behavior - from internal motivation based on organic interest, “natural teleology” , to externally controlled motivation based on “carrots and sticks” and amotivation (Gordeeva, 2010; Deci, Ryan, 2008).
In the theory of activity, as in the theory of self-determination, there is a distinction between motives for activity (behavior) that are organically related to the nature of the activity itself, the process of which arouses interest and other positive emotions (meaning-forming, or internal, motives), and motives that encourage activity only in the strength of their acquired connections with something directly significant for the subject (stimulus motives, or external motives). Any activity can be performed not for its own sake, and any motive can come into subordination to other, extraneous needs. “A student may study in order to gain the favor of his parents, but he can also fight for their favor in order to gain permission to study. Thus, we have two different relationships between ends and means, rather than two fundamentally different types of motivation” (Nuttin, 1984, p. 71). The difference lies in the nature of the connection between the subject’s activities and his real needs. When this connection is artificial, external, motives are perceived as stimuli, and activity is perceived as devoid of independent meaning, having it only thanks to the motive-stimulus. In its pure form, however, this is relatively rare. The general meaning of a specific activity is a fusion of its partial meanings, each of which reflects its relationship to any one of the needs of the subject related to this activity directly or indirectly, in a necessary way, situationally, associatively or in some other way. Therefore, activity prompted entirely by “external” motives is just as rare as activity in which they are completely absent.
It is advisable to describe these differences in terms of the quality of motivation. The quality of motivation for activity is a characteristic of the extent to which this motivation is consistent with deep needs and the personality as a whole. Intrinsic motivation is motivation that comes directly from them. External motivation is motivation that is not initially associated with them; its connection with them is established through the construction of a certain structure of activity, in which motives and goals acquire an indirect, sometimes alienated meaning. This connection can, as the personality develops, be internalized and give rise to fairly deep formed personal values, coordinated with the needs and structure of the personality - in this case we will be dealing with autonomous motivation (in terms of the theory of self-determination), or with interest (in terms of the early works of A. N. Leontyev). Activity theory and self-determination theory differ in how they describe and explain these differences. The theory of self-determination offers a much clearer description of the qualitative continuum of forms of motivation, and the theory of activity provides a better theoretical explanation of motivational dynamics. In particular, the key concept in the theory of A.N. Leontiev, which explains the qualitative differences in motivation, is the concept of meaning, which is absent in the theory of self-determination. In the next section we will consider in more detail the place of the concepts of meaning and semantic connections in the activity model of motivation.
Motive, purpose and meaning: semantic connections as the basis of motivation mechanisms
The motive “launches” human activity, determining what exactly the subject needs at the moment, but he cannot give it a specific direction other than through the formation or acceptance of a goal, which determines the direction of actions leading to the realization of the motive. “A goal is a result presented in advance, towards which my action strives” (Leontyev A.N., 2000, p. 434). The motive “defines the zone of goals” (Ibid., p. 441), and within this zone a specific goal is set, obviously associated with the motive.
Motive and goal are two different qualities that the subject of purposeful activity can acquire. They are often confused because in simple cases they often coincide: in this case, the final result of an activity coincides with its subject, turning out to be both its motive and goal, but for different reasons. It is a motive because it materializes needs, and a goal because it is in it that we see the final desired result of our activity, which serves as a criterion for assessing whether we are moving correctly or not, approaching the goal or deviating from it.
A motive is what gives rise to a given activity, without which it would not exist, and it may not be recognized or may be perceived distortedly. A goal is the final result of actions anticipated in a subjective image. The goal is always present in the mind. It sets the direction of action accepted and sanctioned by the individual, regardless of how deeply it is motivated, whether it is connected with internal or external, deep or superficial motives. Moreover, a goal can be offered to the subject as a possibility, considered and rejected; This cannot happen with motive. Marx famously said: “The worst architect differs from the best bee from the very beginning in that before he builds a cell of wax, he has already built it in his head” (Marx, 1960, p. 189). Although the bee builds very perfect structures, it has no goal, no image.
And vice versa, behind any active goal there is a motive of activity, which explains why the subject accepted a given goal for fulfillment, be it a goal created by himself or given from the outside. Motive connects a given specific action with needs and personal values. The question of goal is the question of what exactly the subject wants to achieve, the question of motive is the question “why?”
The subject can act straightforwardly, doing only what he directly wants, directly realizing his desires. In this situation (and, in fact, all animals are in it), the question of purpose does not arise at all. Where I do what I directly need, from which I directly receive pleasure and for the sake of which, in fact, I am doing it, the goal simply coincides with the motive. The problem of purpose, which is different from motive, arises when the subject does something that is not directly aimed at satisfying his needs, but will ultimately lead to a useful result. The goal always directs us to the future, and goal orientation, as opposed to impulsive desires, is impossible without consciousness, without the ability to imagine the future, without time ABOUT th prospects. Realizing the goal, the future result, we also realize the connection of this result with what we need in the future: any goal has meaning.
Teleology, i.e. goal orientation qualitatively transforms human activity in comparison with the causally determined behavior of animals. Although causality persists and occupies a large place in human activity, it is not the only and universal causal explanation. “A person’s life can be of two kinds: unconscious and conscious. By the first I mean a life that is governed by reasons, by the second a life that is governed by a purpose. A life governed by causes can fairly be called unconscious; this is because, although consciousness here participates in human activity, it does so only as an aid: it does not determine where this activity can be directed, and also what it should be in terms of its qualities. Causes external to man and independent of him belong to the determination of all this. Within the boundaries already established by these reasons, consciousness fulfills its service role: it indicates the methods of this or that activity, its easiest paths, what is possible and impossible to accomplish from what the reasons force a person to do. Life governed by a goal can rightly be called conscious, because consciousness is the dominant, determining principle here. It is up to him to choose where the complex chain of human actions should be directed; and also - the arrangement of them all according to a plan that best suits what has been achieved ... "(Rozanov, 1994, p. 21).
Purpose and motive are not identical, but they can coincide. When what the subject consciously strives to achieve (goal) is what really motivates him (motive), they coincide and overlap each other. But the motive may not coincide with the goal, with the content of the activity. For example, study is often motivated not by cognitive motives, but by completely different ones - career, conformist, self-affirmation, etc. As a rule, different motives are combined in different proportions, and it is a certain combination of them that turns out to be optimal.
A discrepancy between the goal and the motive occurs in cases when the subject does not do what he wants immediately, but he cannot get it directly, but does something auxiliary in order to ultimately get what he wants. Human activity is structured this way, whether we like it or not. The purpose of the action, as a rule, is at odds with what satisfies the need. As a result of the formation of jointly distributed activities, as well as specialization and division of labor, a complex chain of semantic connections arises. K. Marx gave this a precise psychological description: “For himself, the worker does not produce the silk that he weaves, not the gold that he extracts from the mine, not the palace that he builds. For himself, he produces wages... The meaning of twelve-hour work for him is not that he weaves, spins, drills, etc., but that this is a way of earning money, which gives him the opportunity to eat, go to a tavern , sleep” (Marx, Engels, 1957, p. 432). Marx describes, of course, alienated meaning, but if there were no this semantic connection, i.e. connection between the goal and motivation, then the person would not work. Even an alienated semantic connection connects in a certain way what a person does with what he needs.
The above is well illustrated by a parable, often retold in philosophical and psychological literature. A wanderer walked along the road past a large construction site. He stopped a worker who was pulling a wheelbarrow full of bricks and asked him: “What are you doing?” “I’m carrying bricks,” the worker answered. He stopped the second one, who was driving the same car, and asked him: “What are you doing?” “I feed my family,” answered the second. He stopped the third and asked: “What are you doing?” “I’m building a cathedral,” answered the third. If at the level of behavior, as behaviorists would say, all three people did exactly the same thing, then they had different semantic contexts in which they inserted their actions, different meanings, motivations, and the activity itself. The meaning of work operations was determined for each of them by the breadth of the context in which they perceived their own actions. For the first there was no context, he only did what he was doing now, the meaning of his actions did not go beyond this specific situation. “I’m carrying bricks” - that’s what I do. The person does not think about the broader context of his actions. His actions are not correlated not only with the actions of other people, but also with other fragments of his own life. For the second, the context is connected with his family, for the third - with a certain cultural task, to which he was aware of his involvement.
The classic definition characterizes meaning as expressing “the relationship of the motive of activity to the immediate goal of action” (Leontyev A.N., 1977, p. 278). Two clarifications need to be made to this definition. Firstly, the meaning is not just expresses it's the attitude he and there is it's an attitude. Secondly, in this formulation we are not talking about any sense, but about a specific sense of action, or the sense of purpose. Speaking about the meaning of an action, we ask about its motive, i.e. about why it is being done. The relation of means to ends is the meaning of the means. And the meaning of a motive, or, what is the same, the meaning of activity as a whole, is the relationship of the motive to what is larger and more stable than the motive, to a need or personal value. The meaning always associates less with b ABOUT greater, the particular with the general. When talking about the meaning of life, we relate life to something that is greater than individual life, to something that will not end with its completion.
Conclusion: the quality of motivation in the approaches of activity theory and self-determination theory
This article traces the line of development in the theory of activity of ideas about the qualitative differentiation of forms of motivation for activity, depending on the extent to which this motivation is consistent with deep needs and with the personality as a whole. The origins of this differentiation are found in some of the works of K. Levin and in the works of A.N. Leontiev 1930s. Its full version is presented in the later ideas of A.N. Leontyev about the types and functions of motives.
Another theoretical understanding of the qualitative differences in motivation is presented in the theory of self-determination by E. Deci and R. Ryan, in terms of the internalization of motivational regulation and the motivational continuum, which traces the dynamics of “growing” into motives that are initially rooted in external requirements that are irrelevant to the needs of the subject. The theory of self-determination offers a much clearer description of the qualitative continuum of forms of motivation, and the theory of activity provides a better theoretical explanation of motivational dynamics. The key is the concept of personal meaning, connecting goals with motives and motives with needs and personal values. The quality of motivation seems to be a pressing scientific and applied problem, in relation to which productive interaction between activity theory and leading foreign approaches is possible.
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To quote the article:
Leontyev D.A. The concept of motive in A.N. Leontiev and the problem of quality of motivation. // Bulletin of Moscow University. Episode 14. Psychology. - 2016.- No. 2 - p.3-18
The relevance and vitality of any scientific theory, including the psychological theory of activity, are determined by the extent to which its content allows us to obtain answers to the questions that confront us today. Any theory was relevant at the time when it was created, providing an answer to the questions that existed at that time, but not every theory retained this relevance for a long time. Theories that relate to the living are able to provide answers to today's questions. Therefore, it is important to correlate any theory with the issues of today.
The subject of this article is the concept of motive. On the one hand, this is a very specific concept, on the other hand, it occupies a central place in the works not only of A.N. Leontiev, but also many of his followers who developed the activity theory. Previously, we have repeatedly turned to the analysis of the views of A.N. Leontiev on motivation (Leontiev D.A., 1992, 1993, 1999), focusing on such individual aspects as the nature of needs, multimotivation of activity and the functions of motive. Here, having briefly discussed the content of previous publications, we will continue this analysis, paying attention primarily to the origins of the distinction between internal and external motivation found in activity theory. We will also consider the relationship between motive, purpose and meaning and correlate the views of A.N. Leontiev with modern approaches, primarily with the theory of self-determination by E. Deci and R. Ryan.
Basic provisions of the activity theory of motivation
Our previous analysis was aimed at eliminating contradictions in the traditionally cited texts of A.N. Leontyev, due to the fact that the concept of “motive” in them carried an excessively large load, including many different aspects. In the 1940s, when it was first introduced as explanatory, this stretchability could hardly be avoided; the further development of this construct led to its inevitable differentiation, the emergence of new concepts and, at the expense of them, a narrowing of the semantic field of the actual concept of “motive”.
The starting point for our understanding of the general structure of motivation is A.G.’s scheme. Asmolov (1985), who identified three groups of variables and structures that are responsible for this area. The first is the general sources and driving forces of activity; E.Yu. Patyaeva (1983) aptly called them “motivational constants.” The second group is the factors for choosing the direction of activity in a specific situation here and now. The third group is secondary processes of “situational development of motivation” (Vilyunas, 1983; Patyaeva, 1983), which make it possible to understand why people complete what they started doing, and do not switch each time to more and more new temptations (for more details, see .: Leontyev D.A., 2004). Thus, the main question in the psychology of motivation is “Why do people do what they do?” (Deci, Flaste, 1995) breaks down into three more specific questions corresponding to these three areas: “Why do people do anything at all?”, “Why do people currently do what they do and not something else? » and “Why do people, once they start doing something, usually finish it?” The concept of motive is most often used to answer the second question.
Let's start with the main provisions of the theory of motivation by A.N. Leontiev, discussed in more detail in other publications.
- The source of human motivation is needs. A need is an objective need of the organism for something external - an object of need. Before meeting the object, the need generates only undirected search activity (see: Leontyev D.A., 1992).
- A meeting with an object - the objectification of a need - turns this object into a motive for purposeful activity. Needs develop through the development of their objects. It is precisely due to the fact that the objects of human needs are objects created and transformed by man that all human needs are qualitatively different from the sometimes similar needs of animals.
- A motive is “the result, that is, the object for which the activity is carried out” (Leontyev A.N., 2000, p. 432). It acts as “...that objective, what this need is (more precisely, a system of needs. - D.L.) is specified in given conditions and what the activity is directed towards as what motivates it” (Leontyev A.N., 1972, p. 292). A motive is a systemic quality acquired by an object, manifested in its ability to motivate and direct activity (Asmolov, 1982).
4. Human activity is multimotivated. This does not mean that one activity has several motives, but that one motive, as a rule, embodies several needs to varying degrees. Thanks to this, the meaning of the motive is complex and is determined by its connections with different needs (for more details, see: Leontyev D.A., 1993, 1999).
5. Motives perform the function of motivating and directing activity, as well as meaning formation - giving personal meaning to the activity itself and its components. In one place A.N. Leontiev (2000, p. 448) directly identifies the guiding and meaning-forming functions. On this basis, he distinguishes two categories of motives - meaning-forming motives, which carry out both motivation and meaning-formation, and “motive-stimuli”, which only motivate, but lack a meaning-forming function (Leontyev A.N., 1977, pp. 202-203).
Statement of the problem of qualitative differences in motivation: K. Levin and A.N. Leontyev
The distinction between “sense-forming motives” and “stimulus motives” is in many ways similar to the distinction, rooted in modern psychology, between two qualitatively different and based on different mechanisms types of motivation - internal motivation, conditioned by the process of activity itself, as it is, and external motivation, conditioned by benefit, which a subject can receive from the use of alienated products of this activity (money, marks, offsets and many other options). This breeding was introduced in the early 1970s. Edward Deci; The relationship between internal and external motivation began to be actively studied in the 1970-1980s. and remains relevant today (Gordeeva, 2006). Deci was able to most clearly formulate this distinction and illustrate the consequences of this distinction in many beautiful experiments (Deci and Flaste, 1995; Deci et al., 1999).
Kurt Lewin was the first to raise the question of qualitative motivational differences between natural interest and external pressures in 1931 in his monograph “The Psychological Situation of Reward and Punishment” (Lewin, 2001, pp. 165-205). He examined in detail the question of the mechanisms of the motivational effect of external pressures, forcing the child “to carry out an action or demonstrate behavior different from the one to which he is directly drawn at the moment” (Ibid., p. 165), and about the motivational effect of the opposite “situation” , in which the child’s behavior is controlled by a primary or derivative interest in the matter itself” (Ibid., p. 166). The subject of Levin's direct interest is the structure of the field and the direction of the vectors of conflicting forces in these situations. In a situation of immediate interest, the resulting vector is always directed towards the goal, which Lewin calls “natural teleology” (Ibid., p. 169). The promise of reward or the threat of punishment creates conflicts in the field of varying degrees of intensity and inevitability.
A comparative analysis of reward and punishment leads Lewin to the conclusion that both methods of influence are not very effective. “Along with punishment and reward, there is also a third opportunity to evoke the desired behavior - namely, to arouse interest and arouse a tendency towards this behavior” (Ibid., p. 202). When we try to force a child or an adult to do something based on carrots and sticks, the main vector of his movement turns out to be directed to the side. The more a person strives to get closer to an undesired, but reinforced object and begin to do what is required of him, the more the forces pushing in the opposite direction grow. Levin sees a fundamental solution to the problem of education in only one thing - in changing the motivation of objects through changing the contexts in which the action is included. “The inclusion of a task in another psychological area (for example, transferring an action from the area of “school assignments” to the area of “actions aimed at achieving a practical goal”) can radically change the meaning and, therefore, the motivation of this action itself” (Ibid., p. 204).
One can see direct continuity with this work of Lewin that took shape in the 1940s. ideas of A.N. Leontiev about the meaning of actions given by the holistic activity in which this action is included (Leontiev A.N., 2009). Even earlier, in 1936-1937, based on research materials in Kharkov, an article was written, “Psychological study of children’s interests in the Palace of Pioneers and Octobrists,” published for the first time in 2009 (Ibid., pp. 46-100), where in detail not only the relationship between what we call today internal and external motivation is studied, but also their interconnection and mutual transitions. This work turned out to be the missing evolutionary link in the development of A.N.’s ideas. Leontyev about motivation; it allows us to see the origins of the concept of motive in activity theory.
The subject of the study itself is formulated as the child’s relationship to the environment and activity, in which an attitude towards the task and other people arises. There is no term “personal meaning” here yet, but in fact it is the main subject of study. The theoretical task of the study concerns the factors of formation and dynamics of children's interests, and the criteria of interest are behavioral signs of involvement or disinvolvement in a particular activity. We are talking about October students, junior schoolchildren, specifically second-graders. It is characteristic that the work sets the task not of forming specific, given interests, but of finding general means and patterns that allow stimulating the natural process of generating an active, involved attitude towards various types of activities. Phenomenological analysis shows that interest in certain activities is due to their inclusion in the structure of relationships that are significant for the child, both objective-instrumental and social. It is shown that the attitude towards things changes in the process of activity and is associated with the place of this thing in the structure of activity, i.e. with the nature of its connection with the goal.
It was there that A.N. Leontyev uses the concept of “motive” for the first time, and in a very unexpected way, contrasting motive with interest. At the same time, he states the discrepancy between the motive and the goal, showing that the child’s actions with the object are given stability and involvement by something other than interest in the very content of the actions. By motive he understands only what is now called “external motive,” as opposed to internal. This is “the driving cause of activity external to the activity itself (i.e., the goals and means included in the activity)” (Leontyev A.N., 2009, p. 83). Younger schoolchildren (second graders) engage in activities that are interesting in themselves (its purpose lies in the process itself). But sometimes they engage in activities without interest in the process itself, when they have another motive. External motives do not necessarily come down to alienated stimuli such as grades and adult demands. This also includes, for example, making a gift for mom, which in itself is not a very exciting activity (Ibid., p. 84).
Further A.N. Leontyev analyzes motives as a transitional stage to the emergence of genuine interest in the activity itself as one becomes involved in it thanks to external motives. The reason for the gradual emergence of interest in activities that previously did not arouse it is A.N. Leontyev considers the establishment of a means-end connection between this activity and what is obviously interesting to the child (Ibid., pp. 87-88). In essence, we are talking about the fact that in the later works of A.N. Leontyev received the name personal meaning. At the end of the article A.N. Leontyev speaks of meaning and involvement in meaningful activity as a condition for changing the point of view on a thing and attitude towards it (Ibid., p. 96).
In this article, for the first time, the idea of meaning appears, directly associated with motive, which distinguishes this approach from other interpretations of meaning and brings it closer to Kurt Lewin’s field theory (Leontiev D.A., 1999). In the completed version, we find these ideas formulated several years later in the posthumously published works “Basic Processes of Mental Life” and “Methodological Notebooks” (Leontiev A.N., 1994), as well as in articles of the early 1940s, such as “ Theory of development of the child’s psyche”, etc. (Leontyev A.N., 2009). Here a detailed structure of activity already appears, as well as an idea of motive, covering both external and internal motivation: “The object of the activity is at the same time what motivates this activity, i.e. her motive. ... Responding to one or another need, the motive of activity is experienced by the subject in the form of desire, desire, etc. (or, conversely, in the form of the experience of disgust, etc.). These forms of experience are forms of reflection of the subject’s attitude to the motive, forms of experiencing the meaning of activity” (Leontiev A.N., 1994, pp. 48-49). And further: “(It is the discrepancy between the object and the motive that is the criterion for distinguishing an action from an activity; if the motive of a given process lies within itself, it is an activity, but if it lies outside this process itself, it is an action.) This is a conscious relationship of the subject of the action to its motive is the meaning of the action; the form of experiencing (awareness) of the meaning of an action is the consciousness of its purpose. (Therefore, an object that has meaning for me is an object that acts as an object of a possible purposeful action; an action that has meaning for me is, accordingly, an action that is possible in relation to one or another goal.) A change in the meaning of an action is always a change in its motivation” ( Ibid., p. 49).
It was from the initial distinction between motive and interest that A.N.’s later cultivation grew. Leontiev of incentive motives that only stimulate genuine interest, but are not associated with it, and meaning-forming motives that have personal meaning for the subject and in turn give meaning to the action. At the same time, the opposition between these two types of motives turned out to be overly sharpened. A special analysis of motivational functions (Leontiev D.A., 1993, 1999) led to the conclusion that the incentive and meaning-forming functions of a motive are inseparable and that motivation is provided exclusively through the mechanism of meaning-formation. “Motives-stimuli” are not without meaning and meaning-forming power, but their specificity is that they are connected with needs by artificial, alienated connections. The rupture of these connections also leads to the disappearance of motivation.
Nevertheless, clear parallels can be seen between the distinction between two classes of motives in activity theory and in self-determination theory. It is interesting that the authors of the theory of self-determination gradually came to realize the inadequacy of the binary opposition of internal and external motivation and to introduce a model of the motivational continuum that describes the spectrum of different qualitative forms of motivation for the same behavior - from internal motivation based on organic interest, “natural teleology” , to externally controlled motivation based on “carrots and sticks” and amotivation (Gordeeva, 2010; Deci, Ryan, 2008).
In the theory of activity, as in the theory of self-determination, there is a distinction between motives for activity (behavior) that are organically related to the nature of the activity itself, the process of which arouses interest and other positive emotions (meaning-forming, or internal, motives), and motives that encourage activity only in the strength of their acquired connections with something directly significant for the subject (stimulus motives, or external motives). Any activity can be performed not for its own sake, and any motive can come into subordination to other, extraneous needs. “A student may study in order to gain the favor of his parents, but he can also fight for their favor in order to gain permission to study. Thus, we have two different relationships between ends and means, rather than two fundamentally different types of motivation” (Nuttin, 1984, p. 71). The difference lies in the nature of the connection between the subject’s activities and his real needs. When this connection is artificial, external, motives are perceived as stimuli, and activity is perceived as devoid of independent meaning, having it only thanks to the motive-stimulus. In its pure form, however, this is relatively rare. The general meaning of a specific activity is a fusion of its partial meanings, each of which reflects its relationship to any one of the needs of the subject related to this activity directly or indirectly, in a necessary way, situationally, associatively or in some other way. Therefore, activity prompted entirely by “external” motives is just as rare as activity in which they are completely absent.
It is advisable to describe these differences in terms of the quality of motivation. The quality of motivation for activity is a characteristic of the extent to which this motivation is consistent with deep needs and the personality as a whole. Intrinsic motivation is motivation that comes directly from them. External motivation is motivation that is not initially associated with them; its connection with them is established through the construction of a certain structure of activity, in which motives and goals acquire an indirect, sometimes alienated meaning. This connection can, as the personality develops, be internalized and give rise to fairly deep formed personal values, coordinated with the needs and structure of the personality - in this case we will be dealing with autonomous motivation (in terms of the theory of self-determination), or with interest (in terms of the early works of A. N. Leontyev). Activity theory and self-determination theory differ in how they describe and explain these differences. The theory of self-determination offers a much clearer description of the qualitative continuum of forms of motivation, and the theory of activity provides a better theoretical explanation of motivational dynamics. In particular, the key concept in the theory of A.N. Leontiev, which explains the qualitative differences in motivation, is the concept of meaning, which is absent in the theory of self-determination. In the next section we will consider in more detail the place of the concepts of meaning and semantic connections in the activity model of motivation.
Motive, purpose and meaning: semantic connections as the basis of motivation mechanisms
The motive “launches” human activity, determining what exactly the subject needs at the moment, but he cannot give it a specific direction other than through the formation or acceptance of a goal, which determines the direction of actions leading to the realization of the motive. “A goal is a result presented in advance, towards which my action strives” (Leontyev A.N., 2000, p. 434). The motive “defines the zone of goals” (Ibid., p. 441), and within this zone a specific goal is set, obviously associated with the motive.
Motive and goal are two different qualities that the subject of purposeful activity can acquire. They are often confused because in simple cases they often coincide: in this case, the final result of an activity coincides with its subject, turning out to be both its motive and goal, but for different reasons. It is a motive because it materializes needs, and a goal because it is in it that we see the final desired result of our activity, which serves as a criterion for assessing whether we are moving correctly or not, approaching the goal or deviating from it.
A motive is what gives rise to a given activity, without which it would not exist, and it may not be recognized or may be perceived distortedly. A goal is the final result of actions anticipated in a subjective image. The goal is always present in the mind. It sets the direction of action accepted and sanctioned by the individual, regardless of how deeply it is motivated, whether it is connected with internal or external, deep or superficial motives. Moreover, a goal can be offered to the subject as a possibility, considered and rejected; This cannot happen with motive. Marx famously said: “The worst architect differs from the best bee from the very beginning in that before he builds a cell of wax, he has already built it in his head” (Marx, 1960, p. 189). Although the bee builds very perfect structures, it has no goal, no image.
And vice versa, behind any active goal there is a motive of activity, which explains why the subject accepted a given goal for fulfillment, be it a goal created by himself or given from the outside. Motive connects a given specific action with needs and personal values. The question of goal is the question of what exactly the subject wants to achieve, the question of motive is the question “why?”
The subject can act straightforwardly, doing only what he directly wants, directly realizing his desires. In this situation (and, in fact, all animals are in it), the question of purpose does not arise at all. Where I do what I directly need, from which I directly receive pleasure and for the sake of which, in fact, I am doing it, the goal simply coincides with the motive. The problem of purpose, which is different from motive, arises when the subject does something that is not directly aimed at satisfying his needs, but will ultimately lead to a useful result. The goal always directs us to the future, and goal orientation, as opposed to impulsive desires, is impossible without consciousness, without the ability to imagine the future, without time ABOUT th prospects. Realizing the goal, the future result, we also realize the connection of this result with what we need in the future: any goal has meaning.
Teleology, i.e. goal orientation qualitatively transforms human activity in comparison with the causally determined behavior of animals. Although causality persists and occupies a large place in human activity, it is not the only and universal causal explanation. “A person’s life can be of two kinds: unconscious and conscious. By the first I mean a life that is governed by reasons, by the second a life that is governed by a purpose. A life governed by causes can fairly be called unconscious; this is because, although consciousness here participates in human activity, it does so only as an aid: it does not determine where this activity can be directed, and also what it should be in terms of its qualities. Causes external to man and independent of him belong to the determination of all this. Within the boundaries already established by these reasons, consciousness fulfills its service role: it indicates the methods of this or that activity, its easiest paths, what is possible and impossible to accomplish from what the reasons force a person to do. Life governed by a goal can rightly be called conscious, because consciousness is the dominant, determining principle here. It is up to him to choose where the complex chain of human actions should be directed; and also - the arrangement of them all according to a plan that best suits what has been achieved ... "(Rozanov, 1994, p. 21).
Purpose and motive are not identical, but they can coincide. When what the subject consciously strives to achieve (goal) is what really motivates him (motive), they coincide and overlap each other. But the motive may not coincide with the goal, with the content of the activity. For example, study is often motivated not by cognitive motives, but by completely different ones - career, conformist, self-affirmation, etc. As a rule, different motives are combined in different proportions, and it is a certain combination of them that turns out to be optimal.
A discrepancy between the goal and the motive occurs in cases when the subject does not do what he wants immediately, but he cannot get it directly, but does something auxiliary in order to ultimately get what he wants. Human activity is structured this way, whether we like it or not. The purpose of the action, as a rule, is at odds with what satisfies the need. As a result of the formation of jointly distributed activities, as well as specialization and division of labor, a complex chain of semantic connections arises. K. Marx gave this a precise psychological description: “For himself, the worker does not produce the silk that he weaves, not the gold that he extracts from the mine, not the palace that he builds. For himself, he produces wages... The meaning of twelve-hour work for him is not that he weaves, spins, drills, etc., but that this is a way of earning money, which gives him the opportunity to eat, go to a tavern , sleep” (Marx, Engels, 1957, p. 432). Marx describes, of course, alienated meaning, but if there were no this semantic connection, i.e. connection between the goal and motivation, then the person would not work. Even an alienated semantic connection connects in a certain way what a person does with what he needs.
The above is well illustrated by a parable, often retold in philosophical and psychological literature. A wanderer walked along the road past a large construction site. He stopped a worker who was pulling a wheelbarrow full of bricks and asked him: “What are you doing?” “I’m carrying bricks,” the worker answered. He stopped the second one, who was driving the same car, and asked him: “What are you doing?” “I feed my family,” answered the second. He stopped the third and asked: “What are you doing?” “I’m building a cathedral,” answered the third. If at the level of behavior, as behaviorists would say, all three people did exactly the same thing, then they had different semantic contexts in which they inserted their actions, different meanings, motivations, and the activity itself. The meaning of work operations was determined for each of them by the breadth of the context in which they perceived their own actions. For the first there was no context, he only did what he was doing now, the meaning of his actions did not go beyond this specific situation. “I’m carrying bricks” - that’s what I do. The person does not think about the broader context of his actions. His actions are not correlated not only with the actions of other people, but also with other fragments of his own life. For the second, the context is connected with his family, for the third - with a certain cultural task, to which he was aware of his involvement.
The classic definition characterizes meaning as expressing “the relationship of the motive of activity to the immediate goal of action” (Leontyev A.N., 1977, p. 278). Two clarifications need to be made to this definition. Firstly, the meaning is not just expresses it's the attitude he and there is it's an attitude. Secondly, in this formulation we are not talking about any sense, but about a specific sense of action, or the sense of purpose. Speaking about the meaning of an action, we ask about its motive, i.e. about why it is being done. The relation of means to ends is the meaning of the means. And the meaning of a motive, or, what is the same, the meaning of activity as a whole, is the relationship of the motive to what is larger and more stable than the motive, to a need or personal value. The meaning always associates less with b ABOUT greater, the particular with the general. When talking about the meaning of life, we relate life to something that is greater than individual life, to something that will not end with its completion.
Conclusion: the quality of motivation in the approaches of activity theory and self-determination theory
This article traces the line of development in the theory of activity of ideas about the qualitative differentiation of forms of motivation for activity, depending on the extent to which this motivation is consistent with deep needs and with the personality as a whole. The origins of this differentiation are found in some of the works of K. Levin and in the works of A.N. Leontiev 1930s. Its full version is presented in the later ideas of A.N. Leontyev about the types and functions of motives.
Another theoretical understanding of the qualitative differences in motivation is presented in the theory of self-determination by E. Deci and R. Ryan, in terms of the internalization of motivational regulation and the motivational continuum, which traces the dynamics of “growing” into motives that are initially rooted in external requirements that are irrelevant to the needs of the subject. The theory of self-determination offers a much clearer description of the qualitative continuum of forms of motivation, and the theory of activity provides a better theoretical explanation of motivational dynamics. The key is the concept of personal meaning, connecting goals with motives and motives with needs and personal values. The quality of motivation seems to be a pressing scientific and applied problem, in relation to which productive interaction between activity theory and leading foreign approaches is possible.
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En
Leontiev D.A. (2016). A.N. Leontiev’s concept of motive and the issue of the quality of motivation. Moscow University Psychology Bulletin. Series 14. Psychology, 2, 3-18
Ru
Leontyev D.A. The concept of motive in A.N. Leontiev and the problem of quality of motivation. // Bulletin of Moscow University. Episode 14. Psychology. - 2016.- No. 2 - p.3-18
Keywords / Keywords
Abstract
The paper analyzes the emergence of the concept of motive in Alexey N. Leontiev's early writings and its correspondence to Kurt Lewin's ideas and to the distinction of intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation and the concept of the continuum of regulation in the present day self-determination theory of E. Deci and R. Ryan. The distinctions of extrinsic motivation based on reward and punishment versus “natural teleology” in K. Lewin’s works and of (extrinsic) motive versus interest in early A. N. Leontiev’s texts are explained. The relationships between motive, goal, and personal meaning in the structure of activity regulation are analyzed. The author introduces the concept of quality of motivation referring to the degree of correspondence between motivation and one’s needs and authentic Self at large; the complementarity of activity theory approach and self-determination theory as regards the quality of motivation issue is highlighted.
annotation
The article examines the formation of the concept of motive in the theory of A.N. Leontiev in correlation with the ideas of K. Lewin, as well as with the distinction between external and internal motivation and the concept of the continuum of regulation in the modern theory of self-determination by E. Deci and R. Ryan. The distinction between external motivation, based on reward and punishment, and “natural teleology” in the works of K. Levin and (external) motive and interest in the early texts of A.N. is revealed. Leontyev. The relationship between motive, goal and meaning in the structure of motivation and regulation of activity is examined in detail. The concept of the quality of motivation is introduced as a measure of the consistency of motivation with deep needs and the personality as a whole, and the complementarity of the approaches of activity theory and self-determination theory to the problem of the quality of motivation is shown.
In modern psychology, the term “motive” (“motivating factor”) refers to completely different phenomena, such as instinctive impulses, biological drives, interests, desires, life goals and ideals. A.N. Leontyev believed that the motives of activity are determined by the needs of the individual. In the need state of the subject, an object that is capable of satisfying the need is not rigidly fixed. Before its first satisfaction, the need “does not know” its object; it must still be discovered. Only as a result of such detection does the need acquire objectivity, and the perceived (imagined, conceivable) object acquires the motivating and directing activity of the function, giving it the status of a motive.
Unlike the needs of animals, the development of which depends on expanding the range of natural objects they consume, human needs are generated by the development of production. In other words, consumption is mediated by the need for an object, its perception or mental representation. In this reflected form, the object acts as an ideal, internally stimulating motive. Thus, the psychological analysis of needs inevitably transforms into an analysis of motives.
The genetic basis for human activity is the discrepancy between motives and goals. Their coincidence is secondary: the result of the goal acquiring an independent incentive force or the result of the awareness of motives, turning them into goal motives. Unlike goals, motives are not actually recognized by the subject: at the moment of performing certain actions, we usually are not aware of the motives that motivate them. Despite the fact that it is not difficult for us to give their motivation, this motivation does not always contain an indication of the actual motive. When motives are not realized, that is, when a person is not aware of what prompts him to perform certain actions, they find their mental reflection in a special form - in the form of the emotional coloring of actions.
A.N. Leontyev identified two main functions of motives: motivation and meaning formation. Some motives, motivating activity, give it personal meaning. Others, playing the role of motivating factors - sometimes acutely emotional, affective - are deprived of a meaning-forming function; such motives of A.N. Leontyev called them motives-incentives. The distribution of the functions of meaning formation and motivation between the motives of the same activity allows us to understand the main relationships characterizing the motivational sphere of the individual - hierarchy of motives .
For many years, scientists have not given up hope of explaining human behavior. The result of this interest are numerous theories of motivation, the number of which numbers more than a dozen. Currently, this problem has not lost its relevance, quite the contrary. This is due to the growing demands of practice: in the field of production, issues of activating and managing human behavior, problems of optimizing the use of human resources are becoming increasingly important and pressing. However, motivation research is far from conclusively addressing all questions.
The most popular and widely used is the theory of the American psychologist, one of the founders of humanistic psychology, A. Maslow. He distinguished not individual motives, but entire groups. These groups are ordered in a value hierarchy according to their role in the development of the individual. At the same time, the needs of high and higher levels are interpreted as no less instinctive (innate) than lower needs. Until the need is satisfied, it activates and influences activity. Activity is not so much “pushed from within” as it is attracted from without by the possibility of satisfaction. The main idea of A. Maslow’s classification is the principle of relative priority of actualization of motives, which states that before the needs of higher levels are activated and begin to determine behavior, the needs of the lower level must be satisfied.
A. Maslow’s hierarchical model of motivation consists of five levels:
1) physiological needs - hunger, thirst, sexuality, etc.;
2) security needs;
3) needs for social connections;
4) self-esteem needs;
5) self-actualization needs.
The hierarchy of needs begins with physiological needs. Next come the needs for security and the need for social connections, then the needs for self-esteem and, finally, self-actualization. Self-actualization can become a motive for behavior only when all other needs are satisfied. In case of conflict between the needs of different hierarchical levels, the lower need wins.
Of all the motives, A. Maslow's main interest is focused on the needs of self-actualization. The researcher writes: “Even when all these needs are satisfied, we can still often expect that if the individual does not do what he is intended for, then new dissatisfaction and anxiety will soon arise. To be in harmony with oneself, a musician must create music, an artist must draw, a poet must write poetry. A person must be what he can be. This need can be called self-actualization. It means a person’s desire for self-fulfillment, namely his desire to become what he can be.”
G. Murray, the creator of the famous thematic apperception test (TAT), tried to systematize various theoretical approaches and concepts in the study of motivation. From his point of view, the central concepts that correlate with each other should be considered the need on the part of the individual and the pressure from the situation. Murray identified various bases for classifying needs. Firstly, primary needs are distinguished - for water, food, sexual release, avoidance of cold, etc. - and secondary (psychogenic) needs: humiliation, achievement, affiliation, aggression, independence, opposition, respect, protection, dominance, attracting attention to oneself , avoidance of harm, avoidance of failure, patronage, order, play, rejection, comprehension, sexual relations, seeking help (dependence), understanding. G. Murray also added to them the needs of acquisition, avoidance of blame, cognition, creation, learning, recognition, preservation.
Primary needs, in contrast to secondary ones, are based on organic processes and arise either cyclically (food) or due to the need for regulation (avoiding cold).
Secondly, needs are divided into positive (search) and negative (avoidance), into explicit and latent. Explicit needs are freely and objectively expressed in external behavior, latent needs are manifested either in play actions (semi-objectivized) or in fantasy (subjectivized). In certain situations, individual needs can be combined to motivate behavior: conflict with each other, obey one another, etc.
Pressure is defined by the scientist as follows: “... a certain impact exerted on the subject by an object or situation and usually perceived by him as a transient set of stimuli that takes the form of a threat or benefit to the body. When determining pressure, it makes sense to distinguish between: 1) alpha pressure, which is the actual pressure that can be established by scientific methods, and 2) beta pressure, which is the subject’s interpretation of the phenomena he perceives.” Need and pressure correspond to each other in content; their interaction is called a theme, which Murray presents as a genuine unit of analysis of human activity.
In the concept of motivation D. McClelland three main groups of needs are considered: for power, for success, for belonging. For the first time, the need for power as such is introduced into the system of incentives for human activity. It is seen as synthetic and derived from the needs for esteem and self-expression. The need for success (or achievement motivation) is the second basic need of the individual. The author was one of the first to show that it is common for a person not only to “want something,” but also to determine for himself the level of mastery of the object of his desire - to develop his own “bar” of achievement; Thus, the need for success itself (and through it, for recognition from others) is common to everyone, but the extent of its development is different. McClelland believed that human achievements and, ultimately, the prosperity and power of a particular country depend on the degree of development of this need.
In "expectancy theory" V. Vrooma An important place in the organization of human behavior is given to the individual’s assessment of the likelihood of a certain event. When revealing the structure of motivation and the process of behavior itself, this theory pays special attention to three main relationships. First, there are expectations regarding the relationship between labor inputs and outputs. If a person feels that there is a direct connection between them, then motivation increases, and vice versa. Secondly, these are expectations regarding the relationship between results and rewards, that is, the expectation of a certain reward or incentive in response to the level of results achieved. If there is a direct connection between them and a person clearly sees this, then his motivation increases. Thirdly, this is the subjective valence of the expected reward or encouragement. Valence refers to the perceived value of satisfaction or dissatisfaction resulting from a particular reward.
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The change and development of needs occurs through the change and development of objects that meet them and in which they are “objectified” and specified. The presence of a need is a necessary prerequisite for any activity, but the need itself is not yet capable of giving the activity a certain direction. The presence of a person’s need for music creates a corresponding selectivity in him, but still does not say anything about what a person will do to satisfy this need. Maybe he will remember the announced concert and this will direct his actions, or maybe the sounds of broadcast music will reach him - and he will simply remain at the radio or TV. But it may also happen that the object of need is not presented to the subject in any way: neither in the field of his perception, nor in the mental plane, in the imagination; then no directed activities that meet this need cannot arise in him. What is the only stimulant of directed activity is not the need itself, but the object that meets this need. The object of need - material or ideal, sensually perceived or given only in imagination, in the mental plane - we call motive of activity.
Motives of activity carry within themselves the actual substantive characteristics of needs. Nothing can be said about needs other than in the language of motives. We can even judge their dynamics (the degree of their tension, the degree of saturation, extinction) only by the forces (“vectors” or “valences”) of the motives. Kurt Lewin was the first to follow this path in the study of human needs and discovered the motivating power of objects in psychology.
So, psychological analysis of needs must be transformed into an analysis of motives. This transformation, however, encounters a serious difficulty: it requires a decisive abandonment of subjectivist concepts of motivation and that confusion of concepts relating to different levels and different “mechanisms” of regulation of activity, which is so often allowed in the doctrine of motives.
Although the study of motives began in psychology relatively recently (the first special monograph “Motives and Behavior” by P. Young was published in 1936, and the first review by Maurer only in 1952), currently there is a huge amount of work on the problem of motives. They, however, are almost impossible to systematize - the meanings in which the term “motive” is used in them are so different. It seems that now the concept of motive has turned into a big bag in which a wide variety of things are folded. Among the motives or motivating factors are, for example, appetite, drives, impulses, habits and skills, desires, emotions, interests, goals, or more specific motives such as electric shock, feelings of pleasure, ambition, salary, ideals.
From the point of view of the doctrine of objectivity motives of human activity, from the category of motives, first of all, one should exclude subjective experiences, which are a reflection of those “supraorganic” needs that are correlated with motives. These experiences (desires, desires, aspirations) are not motives for the same reasons that they are not sensations of hunger or thirst: by themselves they are not capable of causing directed activity. One can, however, talk about subject desires, aspirations, etc., but with this we only postpone the analysis; after all, further disclosure of what the object of a given desire or aspiration is is nothing more than an indication of the corresponding motive.
Refusing to consider subjective experiences of this kind as motives for activity, of course, does not at all mean denying their real function in the regulation of activity. They perform the same function of subjective needs and their dynamics that interoceptive sensations perform at elementary psychological levels - the function of selective activation of systems that implement the subject’s activities.
To an even lesser extent, factors such as the tendency to reproduce firmly formed behavioral stereotypes, the tendency to complete a started action, etc. can be considered motives. In the mechanics, so to speak, of activity, there are, of course, many “dynamic forces”, some of which have adaptive significance , and partly arising due to the structure of the organs themselves, through which activities are carried out. However, these forces can be called motives with no more justification than, for example, the inertia of body movement, the action of which leads to the fact that a running person collides with an obstacle that unexpectedly appears in his path.
A special place is occupied by hedonistic concepts, according to which human activity is subject to the principle of “maximizing positive and minimizing negative emotions,” that is, aimed at achieving experiences of pleasure, enjoyment and avoiding experiences of suffering. For these concepts, emotions are the motives of activity. Sometimes emotions are given decisive importance, but more often they are included, along with other factors, among the so-called “motivational variables”.
Analysis and criticism of hedonic concepts of motivation pose perhaps the greatest difficulties. After all, a person really strives to live in happiness and avoid suffering. So the challenge is not to deny it, but to understand correctly what it means. And to do this, you need to turn to the nature of the emotional experiences themselves, consider their place and their function in human activity.
The sphere of affective, and in the broad sense of the word, processes covers various types of internal regulation of activity, differing from each other both in the level of their occurrence, and in the conditions that cause them, and in the role they perform. Here we will have in mind only those transient, “situational” affective states that are usually called emotions themselves (as opposed, on the one hand, to affects, and on the other hand, to objective feelings).
Emotions act as internal signals. They are internal in the sense that they themselves do not carry information about external objects, about their connections and relationships, about those objective situations in which the subject’s activity takes place. The peculiarity of emotions is that they directly reflect the relationship between motives and the implementation of activities that correspond to these motives. At the same time, we are not talking about reflection of these relationships, but rather about their direct reflection, about experience. Figuratively speaking, emotions follow the actualization of the motive and before the rational assessment of the adequacy of the subject’s activity. Thus, in the most general form, the function of emotions can be characterized as an indication plus or minus authorization of completed, ongoing or upcoming activity. This idea has been repeatedly expressed in various forms by researchers of emotions, in particular, very clearly, by P.K. Anokhin. We, however, will not dwell on various hypotheses that in one way or another express the fact of the dependence of emotions on the relationship (contradiction or agreement) between “being and ought.” We only note that the difficulties that are discovered are explained mainly by the fact that emotions are considered, firstly, without a sufficiently clear differentiation of them into various subclasses (affects and passions, emotions and feelings themselves), differing from each other both genetically and both functionally and, secondly, out of connection with the structure and level of the activity that they regulate.
Unlike affects, emotions have an ideational character and, as noted by Claparède, are “moved to the beginning,” that is, they are capable of regulating activity in accordance with anticipated circumstances. Like all ideational phenomena, emotions can be generalized and communicated; A person has not only an individual emotional experience, but also an emotional experience that he has learned in the processes of communication of emotions.
The most important feature of emotions is that they are relevant specifically to the activity, and not to the processes included in it, for example, individual acts, actions. Therefore, one and the same action, moving from one activity to another, can, as is known, acquire different and even opposite emotional connotations. This means that the function of positive or negative authorization inherent in emotions does not relate to the implementation of individual acts, but to the correlation of the achieved effects with the direction given to the activity by the motive. In itself, the successful execution of one or another action does not necessarily lead to a positive emotion; it can also give rise to a difficult emotional experience, acutely signaling that from the side of the person’s motivational sphere, the success achieved turns into defeat.
Mismatch, correction, authorization take place at any level of activity, in relation to any units that form it, starting with the simplest adaptive movements. Therefore, the main question is what exactly and how exactly the executive act, individual actions, the direction of activity, and perhaps the direction of a person’s entire life are sanctioned.
Emotions perform a very important function in motivating activity - and we will return to this issue - but emotions themselves are not motives. Once upon a time J. St. Mill spoke with great psychological insight about the "cunning strategy of happiness": to experience emotions. pleasure, happiness, one must strive not to experience them, but to achieve goals that give rise to these experiences.
The subordination of activity to the search for pleasure is at best a psychological illusion. Human activity is by no means modeled on the behavior of rats with electrodes inserted into the brain’s “pleasure centers,” which, if taught how to turn on a current that irritates these centers, endlessly indulge in this activity, increasing (according to Olds) the frequency of this kind of “self-irritation” up to several thousand per hour. You can easily pick up similar behaviors in humans: masturbation, smoking opium, self-immersion in an autistic daydream. They, however, rather testify to the possibility of distortion of activity than to the nature of motives - the motives of real, self-affirming human life; they come into conflict, conflict with these real motives.
Motivation for human activity is a very complex process that requires special psychological analysis. First of all, it is necessary to introduce some further distinctions. One of them is the distinction between motives and goals. Carrying out activities prompted and directed by a motive, a person sets goals for himself, the achievement of which leads to the satisfaction of a need that has received its substantive content in the motive of this activity. Thus, blowing is distinguished from conscious goals and intentions; Motives “stand behind goals” and encourage one to achieve goals. In the case where goals are not directly given in the situation, they encourage goal setting. They, however, do not give rise to goals - just as needs do not give rise to their objects. What at the level of adaptive activity appears in the form of selectivity in relation to influencing objects, at its higher levels is expressed in selectivity in relation to the foreseeable results of possible actions, represented (conscious) by the subject, i.e. goals. In the event that goal setting is impossible under existing objective conditions and not a single link in the subject’s activity adequate to the motive can be realized, then this motive remains potential - existing in the form of readiness, in the form of an attitude.
Genetically, the initial and characteristic of human activity is the discrepancy between motives and goals. On the contrary, their coincidence is a secondary phenomenon - either the result of the goal acquiring an independent motivating force, or the result of the awareness of motives, turning them into goal motives. In contrast to goals, which are always, of course, conscious, motives, as a rule, are not actually recognized by the subject: when we perform certain actions - external, practical or verbal, mental, then we usually are not aware of the motives that they are encouraged. True, we can always give their motivation; but motivation is an explanation of the basis for an action, which does not always contain an indication of its actual motive. Widely known hypnotic experiments with delayed execution of an internal action can serve as a clear demonstration of this: with complete amnesia of the fact of suggestion, the subject nevertheless explains his action - the way he would explain a similar action if it were performed by another person.
Motives, however, are not “separated” from consciousness. Even when the motives are not recognized by the subject, that is, when he is not aware of what prompts him to carry out this or that activity, they, figuratively speaking, enter his consciousness, but only in a special way. They give conscious reflection a subjective coloring, which expresses the meaning of what is reflected for the subject himself, his, as we say, personal meaning.
Thus, in addition to its main function - the function of motivation, motives also have a second function - the function meaning formation.
Isolating this second function of motives is decisively important for understanding the internal structure of individual consciousness and precisely how consciousness personalities; therefore, we still have to return to its analysis more than once. Here, having in mind only the task of characterizing the motives themselves, we will limit ourselves to a simple statement of the fact that both of these functions of motives can be distributed between different motives of the same activity. This is possible due to the fact that human activity is multimotivated, that is, regulated simultaneously by two or even several motives. After all, a person in his activity objectively implements a whole system of relationships: to the objective world, to the people around him, to society and, finally, to himself. Some of these relationships also appear subjective to him. For example, in his work activity a person not only enters into a relationship with the product of labor, with society, but also with specific people. His work activity is socially motivated, but it is also controlled by such a motive as, say, material reward for the work performed. Both of these motives coexist, but do they appear psychologically the same for the subject? It is well known that this is not so, that they lie, as it were, on different psychological planes. Under socialism, the meaning of work for a person is created by social motives; As for reward, this motive rather acts as an incentive, stimulation. Thus, some motives, motivating activity, at the same time give it personal meaning; we will call them leading or meaning-forming. Other motives coexisting with them play the role of additional motivating factors - positive or negative - sometimes very powerful; we will call them incentive motives.
This distribution of the functions of meaning formation and motivation between the motives of the same activity has its basis in special relationships that generally characterize the motivational sphere of a person. This is the essence of the relationship hierarchy motives, which is by no means built on the scale of their motivation. It is these hierarchical relationships that are reproduced by the distribution of functions between meaning-forming motives and motive-stimuli of a single multi-motivated activity. Thus, the distinction between both types of motives is relative. In one hierarchical structure, a given motive can perform only a meaning-forming function, in another - the function of additional stimulation; Moreover, meaning-forming motives always occupy a relatively higher place in the general hierarchy of motives than incentive motives.
In her memoirs about imprisonment in the Shlisselburg fortress, Vera Figner talks about how the prison authorities introduced physical, but completely unproductive, forced labor for political prisoners. Although coercive measures were, of course, a motive capable of inducing prisoners to carry it out, but due to the place that this motive occupied in the hierarchical structure of their motivational sphere, it could not fulfill the role of a meaning-forming motive; such work remained meaningless for them and therefore increasingly unbearable. The prisoners found a purely psychological way out: they included this meaningless activity in the context of the main motive - to continue the fight against the autocracy. Now the unnecessary carrying of earth has subjectively turned for them into a means of maintaining their physical and moral strength for this struggle.
Studying the motives of activity requires penetration into their hierarchy, into the internal structure of a person’s motivational sphere, because this determines their psychological “valence.” Therefore, no classification of human motives abstracted from the structure of the motivational sphere is possible; it inevitably turns into a meaningless list: political and moral ideals, interest in getting impressions from sports and entertainment, desire for a better life, need for money, feelings of gratitude, love, etc., habits and traditions, imitation of fashion, manners or patterns of behavior.
We examined the problem of the relationship of motives to needs and to activity; It remains for us to consider the last problem - the problem of awareness of motives. As has already been said, while it is necessary to be aware of the goals of one’s actions, a person may not be aware of their motives. This psychological fact requires, first of all, the elimination of its false interpretation.
The existence of unconscious motives does not at all require that they be classified as “unconscious”, as it is understood by psychoanalysts. They do not express any special principle hidden in the depths of a person that interferes with the management of his activities. Unconscious motives have the same source and the same determination as any mental reflection: being, human activity in the real world.
The unconscious is not separate from the conscious, and they are not opposed to each other; these are just different levels mental reflection characteristic of man, which are present in any complex activity, which was understood by many objective researchers and was very clearly expressed by I. P. Pavlov. “We know very well,” he wrote, “to what extent the mental mental life is variegatedly composed of the conscious and the unconscious.”
The absolutization of the unconscious is only the flip side of the absolutization of consciousness as supposedly the only psychological reality and the only subject of psychology, which some authors surprisingly still insist on. Refusal of this absolutization radically changes the approach to the problem: the starting point for its solution becomes not the question of what the role of the unconscious is in conscious life, but the question of the conditions that give rise to a person’s mental reflection in the form of consciousness, awareness and the function of consciousness. From this point of view, the problem of awareness of the motives of activity should also be considered.
As already mentioned, usually the motives of activity are not actually recognized. This is a psychological fact. Acting under the influence of one or another impulse, a person is aware of the goals of his actions; at the moment when he acts, the goal is necessarily “present in his consciousness” and, in the famous expression of Marx, determines his actions as a law.
The situation is different with awareness of the motives of actions, the reason for which they are performed. Motives carry substantive content that must be perceived by the subject in one way or another. At the human level, this content is reflected, refracted in the system of linguistic meanings, that is, it is recognized. Nothing decisively distinguishes the reflection of this content from a person’s reflection of other objects in the world around him. The object that encourages action and the object that acts in the same situation, for example, as an obstacle, are “equal” in terms of the possibilities of their reflection and cognition. What distinguishes them from each other is not the degree of clarity and completeness of their perception or the level of their generality, but their function and place in the structure of activity.
The latter is revealed primarily objectively - in behavior itself, especially in alternative life situations. But there are also specific subjective forms in which objects are reflected precisely from the side of their motivation. These are experiences that we describe in terms of desire, desire, aspiration, etc. However, in themselves they do not reflect any objective content; they only relate to this or that object, they only subjectively “color” it. The goal that appears before me is perceived by me in its objective meaning, that is, I understand its conditionality, imagine the means of achieving it and the more distant results to which it leads; at the same time, I experience a desire, a desire to act in the direction of a given goal, or, conversely, negative experiences that prevent this. In both cases, they act as internal signals through which the dynamics of activity are regulated. What, however, is hidden behind these signals, what do they reflect? Directly, for the subject himself, they seem to only “mark” objects, and their awareness is only the awareness of their presence, and not at all the awareness of what generates them. This creates the impression that they arise endogenously and that they are the forces driving behavior - its true motives.
Even in the case when, in this description of the dynamic aspect of activity, such concepts as “the driving force of things” or “field vectors” are used, this in itself does not at all exclude the recognition that objects of the external world are only “manifestations” of internal mental forces, driving the subject. The possibility of a simple reversal of terms arises, and this possibility cannot be avoided if one remains within the framework of the analysis of the relationship between the present object or the present situation, on the one hand, and the present state of the subject, on the other. In reality, such a relationship is always included in a broader system that defines it. This is a system of social relations in nature, into which a person enters into the world around him and which is revealed to him in his activity not only as a world of material objects - natural and objects of material culture, but also as a world of ideal objects - objects of spiritual culture and inseparable from this - as the world of human relations. Penetration into this wide world, into its objective connections, gives rise to motives that encourage a person to act.
A person’s experience of an acute desire to achieve the goal opening before him, which subjectively distinguishes it as a strong positive “field vector,” in itself does not say anything about what the meaning-forming motive driving him is. Perhaps the motive is precisely this goal, but this is a special case; Usually the motive does not coincide with the goal, it lies behind it. Therefore, its detection constitutes a special task: the task of recognizing the motive.
Since we are talking about the awareness of meaning-forming motives, this task can be described in another way, namely, as the task of understanding the personal meaning (namely personal meaning, not objective meaning!), which certain actions and their goals have for a person .
The tasks of understanding motives are generated by the need to find oneself in the system of life relationships and therefore arise only at a certain stage of personal development - when true self-awareness is formed. Therefore, such a task simply does not exist for children.
When a child has the desire to go to school, to become a schoolchild, then, of course, he knows what they do at school and why he needs to study. But the leading motive behind this desire is hidden from him, although he does not find it difficult to explain and motivate, often simply repeating what he has heard. This motive can only be clarified through special research. You can, say, study how older preschoolers play “to school,” taking advantage of the fact that role-playing reveals the meaning that the play actions he performs have for the child. Another example of a study of the motives of learning in children who have already crossed the threshold of school can be the study of L. I. Bozhovich, based on an analysis of the reactions of first-graders to different types of activities, which can have either a “school” character or a playful character, so to speak, preschool , for the prospect of extending recess time, for canceling a lesson, etc.
Later, at the stage of formation of the consciousness of one’s “I,” the work of identifying meaning-forming motives is carried out by the subject himself. He has to follow the same path as objective research, with the difference, however, that he can do without analyzing his external reactions to certain events: the connection of events with motives, their personal meaning is directly signaled by the thoughts that arise in him. emotional experiences.
A day with many actions successfully carried out by a person, which during execution seemed adequate to him, nevertheless can leave him with an unpleasant, sometimes even heavy, emotional aftertaste. Against the background of ongoing life with its current tasks, this sediment barely stands out. But at the moment when a person looks back at himself and mentally goes over the events of the day again, an intensifying emotional signal will unmistakably indicate to him which of them gave rise to this sediment. And it may turn out, for example, that this is the success of his comrade in achieving a common goal, which was prepared by him himself - the goal for the sole sake of which, as he thought, he acted. It turned out that this was not entirely true, that perhaps the main thing for him was personal advancement, his career. This thought puts him face to face with the “task of meaning”, with the task of realizing his motives, or more precisely, their actual internal relationship.
A certain amount of internal work is needed to solve this problem and, perhaps, to reject what has suddenly become exposed, because “it’s a disaster if you don’t protect yourself in the beginning, don’t sweep yourself up and don’t stop at the right time.” Pirogov wrote this, Herzen spoke about this soulfully, and the whole life of L.N. Tolstoy is a great example of such internal work.
It is in this regard that attempts have been made in psychology to measure, so to speak, the emotional balance of human life. Apparently, the oldest work in this direction, cited by Mechnikov, belongs to Kovalevsky, who even proposed a special unit for measuring pleasure, which he called “gustia”. Such attempts are being made by some modern psychologists. - Note auto
General concept of Motive
Motive (according to the dictionary) -1) An incentive to activity related to the satisfaction of a need, a set of internal and external conditions that cause the subject’s activity and determine its direction (motivation)
An object, material or ideal, that motivates or determines the choice of direction of activity for the sake of which it is carried out.
The perceived reason underlying the choice of activity.
In foreign psychology a number of features of the nature and functions of motives in the regulation of the subject's behavior are highlighted: the incentive and directive function of the motive, the determination of human behavior by unconscious motives, the hierarchy of motives, the desire for balance and tension as mechanisms of the dynamics of motives (psychoanalysis, behaviorism) The lack of these studies is separation from human activity and his consciousness.
In domestic psychology The realization of needs during search activity and thereby the transformation of its objects into motives—objects of needs—is considered as a general mechanism for the emergence of motives. Hence the central pattern - the development of the motive occurs through a change and expansion of the circle of activities that transform objective activity. In humans, the source of development of motives is the limitless process of spiritual production of material and spiritual values. A person's values, interests and ideals can acquire motivating power and become real motives. These motives acquire the function of meaning formation - they impart personal meaning to the reflected reality in consciousness. The function of meaning formation is associated with controlling the direction of an individual’s activity. . The control function is not carried out directly, but through the mechanism of emotions; emotions evaluate the meaning of ongoing events; if this meaning does not correspond, motives change the general direction of the individual’s activity. The study of the sphere of motivation and semantics is the central problem of personality psychology.
A motive is born in the act of objectifying a need and is defined as an object of need, or an objectified need. Following the objectification of activity, the type of behavior also changes, it becomes purposeful. A typical sign of a motive is a set of actions around one motive (object). Very often it happens the other way around, one action is prompted by many motives. .According to their role, motives can be:
Main, leading .– the main motive in the case of field motivation.
Secondary (motives - incentives ) – additionally stimulate activity in case of field motivation.
Conscious motives – they have big goals that guide their activities over long periods of life. These are motives and goals; a mature personality has them. These include interests, desires, beliefs.
Unconscious motives. – there are more of them than conscious ones. They manifest themselves in consciousness in the form of emotions and personal meanings. These include: attraction, hypnotic suggestion, attitudes, frustration states. Suggestion is an unconscious need; it is a stage in the formation of behavioral motives. Attitude – readiness to perceive others from a certain angle without objective analysis.
Motives form a hierarchical structure: it can be in the form of a pyramid with one or several vertices and with a narrow or wide foundation. This structure defines and characterizes personality
Basic criteria for the concept of motive in human activity.
1. Motives are formed in the process of individual development as relatively stable evaluative dispositions.
2 People differ in individual manifestations (character and strength) of certain motives. Different people may have different hierarchies of motives.
3. A person’s behavior at a certain point in time is motivated not by any or all of his possible motives, but by that of the highest motives in the hierarchy (i.e., the strongest), which, under given conditions, is most closely related to the prospect of achieving the corresponding goal state or, on the contrary, the achievement of which is called into question. Such a motive is activated and becomes effective. (At the same time, other motives that are subordinate to it or are in conflict with it can be activated.
4. The motive remains effective, i.e., participates in motivating behavior, until either the target state of the corresponding “individual-environment” relationship is achieved, or the individual approaches it, as far as the conditions of the situation allow, or the target state ceases threateningly move away, or the changed conditions of the situation will not make the other motive more pressing, as a result of which the latter is activated and becomes dominant. The action, like the motive, is often interrupted before the desired state is achieved or breaks up into parts scattered over time; in the latter case, it usually resumes after a certain time.
5.: motivation explains the purposefulness of action..
6 Motivation is certainly not a single process that uniformly permeates a behavioral act from beginning to end. Rather, it consists of heterogeneous processes that perform the function of self-regulation at individual phases of a behavioral act, primarily before and after performing an action.
7. The activity is motivated, that is, it is aimed at achieving the goal of the motive, but it should not be confused with motivation. Activity consists of individual functional components - perception, thinking, learning, reproduction of knowledge, speech or motor activity, and they have their own accumulated stock of capabilities (skills, skills, knowledge) accumulated during life, which the psychology of motivation does not deal with, taking them for granted. How and in what direction various functional abilities will be used depends on motivation. Motivation also explains the choice between different possible actions, between different options of perception and possible contents of thinking, in addition, it explains the intensity and persistence in carrying out the chosen action and achieving its results.
The motive of human activity is naturally connected with the goal. But the motive can be separated from the goal and move6 1) to the activity itself, for example, a person does something out of love for art.. 2) to one of the results of the activity, that is, a by-product becomes the goal of the activity.
Motives (according to Leonyev)
The change and development of needs occurs through the change and development of objects that meet them and in which they are “objectified” and specified. The presence of a need is a necessary prerequisite for any activity, but the need in itself is not yet capable of imparting activity certain direction. That which is the only motivator directed activity is not a need in itself, but an object that meets this need. The object of need - material or ideal, sensually perceived or given only in imagination, in the mental plane - we call motive of activity.(...)
From the point of view of the doctrine of objectivity motives of human activity from the category of motives, first of all, one should exclude subjective experiences, which are a reflection of those “superorganic” needs that are correlated with motives. These experiences (desires, desires, aspirations) are not motives for the same reasons that they are not sensations of hunger or thirst: by themselves they are not capable of causing directed activity. One can, however, talk about subject desires, aspirations, etc. A special place is occupied by hedonistic concepts, according to which human activity is subject to the principle of “maximizing positive and minimizing negative emotions,” i.e., aimed at achieving experiences, pleasure, enjoyment and avoiding experiences of suffering...
Emotions act as internal signals. They are internal in the sense that they themselves do not carry information about external objects, about their connections and relationships, about those objective situations in which the subject’s activity takes place. The peculiarity of emotions is that they directly reflect the relationship between motives and the implementation of activities that correspond to these motives. Figuratively speaking, emotions follow behind actualization of motive and before rational assessment of the adequacy of the subject’s activities.
Thus, in the most general form, the function of emotion can be characterized as an indication of plus or minus authorization of a completed, ongoing or upcoming activity.
Like all ideational phenomena, emotions can be generalized and communicated; A person has not only an individual emotional experience, but also an emotional experience that he has learned in the processes of communication of emotions.
The most important feature of emotions is that they are relevant activities, and not the processes included in its composition, for example, individual acts, actions. Therefore, one and the same action, moving from one activity to another, can, as is known, acquire different and even opposite emotional connotations. This means that the function of positive or negative authorization inherent in emotions does not relate to the implementation of individual acts, but to the correlation of the achieved effects with the direction that is given to the activity by its motive. In itself, the successful execution of one or another action does not necessarily lead to a positive emotion; it can also give rise to a difficult emotional experience, acutely signaling that, from the side of the person’s motivational sphere, the success achieved turns into defeat.
Unlike goals, which are always, of course, conscious, motives, as a rule, are not actually recognized by the subject: when we perform certain actions - external, practical or verbal, mental - then we usually are not aware of the motives, which motivate them. Motives, however, are not “separated” from consciousness. Even when the motives are not recognized by the subject, that is, when he is not aware of what prompts him to carry out this or that activity, they, figuratively speaking, enter his consciousness, but only in a special way. They give conscious reflection a subjective coloring, which expresses the meaning of what is reflected for the subject himself, his, as we say, personal meaning.
Thus, in addition to its main function - the function motives, motives also have a second function - function meaning formation. (...).
The situation is different with awareness of the motives of actions, the reason for which they are performed. Motives carry substantive content that must be perceived by the subject in one way or another. At the level of a person, this content is reflected, i.e., recognized. The object that encourages action, and the object that acts in the same situation, for example, as an obstacle, are “equal” in relation to the possibilities of their reflection and cognition. What distinguishes them from each other is not the degree of clarity and completeness of their perception or the level of their generality, but their functions and place in the structure of activity. . The goal that appears before me is perceived by me in its objective meaning, i.e. I understand its conditionality, I imagine the means of achieving it and the long-term results to which it leads; at the same time, I experience a desire, a desire to act in the direction of a given goal, or, conversely, negative experiences that prevent this. In both cases they act as internal signals, through which the dynamics of activity are regulated.
Examples of functions:
Meaning-forming- forms an attitude towards the subject Example: a book is heavy and needs to be given to a classmate, but the person does not want to go to college, and will go to give the book. Or I'm very thirsty and will go far to get water
Signal.– coincidence of motive and motivation, example: I want a chocolate bar and I get it. At the same time, the signaling function, through pleasure, correctly indicates the object of need, helps to make the right choice, and understand what exactly you want.
Encouraging: encourages activity. Example: I’m hungry, I need to go to the refrigerator.
20. Motivational sphere of a person. General characteristics and structure.
Motivation (according to the dictionary) - it consists of motivations that cause human activity and determine its direction. Conscious and unconscious factors that encourage an individual to perform certain actions and determine its direction and goals.
Motivating factors in their manifestation can be divided into 3 groups:
1 manifestation of needs and instincts as sources of human activity
2. direction of activity, i.e. the manifestation of motives as reasons determining the choice of direction of activity.
3. manifestation of emotions, experiences, attitudes. as sources regulating the dynamics of behavior
The following types of motivation are distinguished:
External and internal .: Internal encourages a person to act in order to improve his state of confidence and independence, in contrast to an external goal in relation to him.
Achievement motivation . – associated with the individual’s need to receive pleasure and avoid displeasure. Researched by McClelland. Achievement motivation is aimed at a certain final result obtained thanks to a person’s own abilities, namely: achieving success or avoiding failure. Achievement motivation is thus inherently goal-oriented. It pushes a person towards the “natural” result of a series of related actions. A clear sequence of a series of actions performed one after another is assumed. The following motivational variables were introduced that influence the formation of achievement motivation: 1. Assessment of the subjective probability of success..2. attractiveness of self-esteem, attractiveness of success or failure in a given activity. 3. Individual preferences - assigning responsibility for success or failure to oneself, another, or a situation. Research has shown that the main forms of behavior aimed at achieving or not success are formed from 3 to 13 years old under the influence of parents or the environment.
Motivation – a rational explanation by the subject of the reasons for an action by indicating socially acceptable circumstances that prompted the choice of this action. Sometimes motivation appears as an excuse, and sometimes it disguises real motives.
Motivational sphere of personality.
B.F. Lomov understands the motivational sphere of a person as “the entire set of her motives that are formed and developed during her life.” In general, this system is dynamic and changes depending on many circumstances. Motives differ in varying degrees of stability, some - dominant, core - are firmly preserved for a long time, sometimes throughout life; it is in them, according to B.F. Lomov, the orientation of the personality is manifested. Their change occurs with significant changes in the living conditions of the individual and his relations with society. Other motives are less stable, more variable, episodic, changeable, and more dependent on the situation.
The development of the motivational sphere of the individual in the process of its formation occurs through differentiation, integration, transformation, suppression, struggle of conflicting motives, mutual strengthening or weakening of motives. Dominant and subordinate motives can change places.
The motivational sphere of the individual is closely related to the individual’s relationships with other people. It depends not only on direct contacts of a person with specific people, but also on indirect ones, as well as on spheres of social life related to public consciousness. B.F. Lomov emphasizes the huge role in the formation and development of the motivational sphere of the individual: the education system, propaganda, etc. The motivational sphere of the individual in public institutions is not only a reflection of his own individual needs, the objective basis of the struggle of motives experienced by the individual is the real contradictions that arise in society. "
The close connection between a person’s value orientations and his motivational sphere is noted by researchers of this problem. According to B.F. Porshneva, the basis of personality lies in the function of choice. Choice involves preference for one motive over all others. But there must be a reason for this, and such a reason is value, “for value is the only measure of comparison of motives.” In addition, the ability to generate emotions has value, for example, in the case when a particular choice contradicts it. And this means, according to F.E. Vasilyuk that value should be subsumed under the category of motive.
L.S. Kravchenko is trying to trace the evolution in the course of personality development, which consists in their change not only in content, but also in their motivating function, in their place and role in the structure of life. At first, values exist only in the form of the emotional consequences of their behavioral violation or, on the contrary, affirmation (the first feelings of guilt and pride). Then the values take the form of “known” motives, then motives that form meaning and actually operate. At the same time, value at each new stage of its development is enriched with a new motivational quality, without losing the previous ones.
A value can perform the functions of a motive, that is, form meaning, guide and motivate real behavior, but it does not follow from this that, within the framework of psychology, value can be reduced to the category of motive. Motive - as the immediate reason for committing an action - is more situational, individual and diverse compared to value orientations. The existing system of value orientations is the highest level of regulation in relation to needs, interests and motives of behavior.
The motivational sphere of the individual is not a simple hierarchy of needs and motives, but a hierarchy of activities carried out by a person, their motives and conditions, goals and means, plans and results, norms of control and evaluation. According to a number of scientists, self-actualization as a process of self-development of the individual, constant internal movement of the subject in the subject of his activity, originates in the lower levels of the incentive hierarchy. As the goals become more complex, the means of objective development become more complex and improved, the nature of the subject’s inclusion in the system of social interactions becomes more complex and expanded, without which this movement is impossible. This is the main productive line of personality development. At the same time, a subordinate line of maintaining the life activity and social existence of the individual develops; it is defined as a consumer line. This includes: meeting the needs of life support and self-preservation, obtaining the necessary conditions of comfort and guarantees of safety, moments of self-esteem, status and influence, as the basis for the existence and development of an individual in society. At the same time, the motives of life support, comfort and social status correspond to the first levels of the hierarchy, and the motives of general activity, creative activity and social usefulness are based on a series of self-actualization. Thus, from these groups of motives the most generalized motivational formations are formed - functional tendencies, one of which can be defined as a tendency to maintain the life activity and social existence of an individual - a consumer tendency. So, the motivational structure of a person is represented in the cerebral cortex by a separate nerve formation. It has a complex structure and dual nature. On the one hand, there are biological needs, on the other – social ones. The combination of these two levels constitutes, in fact, the motivational sphere of a person. The structure of human motivation has a complex system, which is characterized by hierarchical subordination, multimotivated nature, multivalence of motives in relation to needs and interchangeability. It develops under the influence of both internal and external factors. And in general, the motivational sphere of an individual determines the general orientation of the personality.
Motivation and activity.
In modern psychology, there are several theories of the connection between motivation and activity:
1) Causal attribution theory: it refers to the subject’s interpretation of the interpersonal perception of the causes and motives of other people’s behavior and the development on this basis of the ability to predict future behavior. Experimental studies have shown that a) a person explains his behavior differently from the way he explains the behavior of other people. b) a person is inclined to explain the unsuccessful results of his activities by external factors, and successful ones - by internal ones.
2) theory of achieving success and avoiding failure. The quality of work is best when the level of motivation is average, and tends to deteriorate when it is too low or too high. This theory consists of a) failure avoidance motive. b) the motive for achieving success. c) locus of control. d) self-esteem. D) level of aspirations.
Personality and motivation
A personality is characterized by the following motivational formations: a) the need for communication. (affiliation) The desire to be in the company of people b) the motive of power. The desire to have power over other people. c) the motive of helping other people (altruism), the antipode of this motive is egoism. d) aggressiveness. The desire to harm a person.
Psychological theories of motivation.
Thus, according to the theory Freud, human motivation is entirely based on the energy of arousal produced by bodily needs. In his opinion, the main amount of mental energy generated by the body is directed to mental activity, which allows one to reduce the level of excitation caused by need. According to Freud, mental images of bodily needs, expressed in the form of desires, are called instincts. Instincts manifest innate states of excitation at the level of the body, requiring release and discharge. Although the number of instincts may be unlimited, Freud recognized the existence of two main groups: the life and death instincts. The first group (under the general name Eros) includes all forces that serve the purpose of maintaining vital processes and ensuring the reproduction of the species. The energy of sexual instincts is called libido(from Latin - to want or desire), or libido energy - a term used to mean the energy of life instincts in general. Libido is a certain amount of mental energy that finds release exclusively in sexual behavior.
Freud believed that there is not one sexual instinct, but several. Each of them is associated with a specific area of the body, called the erogenous zone. The second group - death instincts, called Thanatos - underlies all manifestations of cruelty, aggression, suicide and murder.. /
Maslow defines neurosis and psychological maladjustment as “diseases of deprivation,” that is, he believes that they are caused by deprivation of satisfaction of certain fundamental needs. Examples of fundamental needs are physiological needs such as hunger, thirst, or the need to sleep. Failure to satisfy these needs definitely leads ultimately to illness, which can only be cured by satisfying them. Fundamental needs are inherent in all individuals. The extent and manner of their satisfaction varies in different societies, but fundamental needs can never be completely ignored. To maintain health, certain psychological needs must also be satisfied. Maslow lists the following fundamental
Physiological needs (organic)
Security needs.
Needs for belonging and love.
Needs of respect (honor).
Cognitive needs.
Aesthetic needs.
Self-actualization needs.
According to the concept A.N. Leontyev, the motivational sphere of a person, like his other psychological characteristics, has its sources in practical activities. In the activity itself one can find those components that correspond to the elements of the motivational sphere and are functionally and genetically related to them. Behavior in general, for example, corresponds to a person's needs; in the system of activities from which it is composed, there is a variety of motives; a set of actions that form an activity - an ordered set of goals. Thus, between the structure of activity and the structure of a person’s motivational sphere there is a relationship of isomorphism, i.e. mutual correspondence.
L .Festinger. The main postulate of his theory of cognitive dissonance is the assertion that a person’s system of knowledge about the world and about himself strives for coordination. When a mismatch or imbalance occurs, the individual strives to remove or reduce it, and such a desire in itself can become a strong motive for his behavior. Along with attempts to reduce an imbalance that has already arisen, the subject actively avoids situations that could give rise to it.
American scientist D .Atkinson was one of the first to propose a general theory of motivation that explains human behavior aimed at achieving a specific goal. His theory reflected the moments of initiation, orientation and support of human behavioral activity at a certain level. This same theory provided one of the first examples of a symbolic representation of motivation.
21. Definition of emotions. Classification of emotional phenomena. Conditions for the emergence and functions of emotions.
The emotional sphere of a person.
Emotions (affects, emotional disturbances) are states such as fear, anger, melancholy, joy, love, hope, sadness, disgust, pride, etc. And. Bleuler (1929) combined feelings and emotions under the general name of “efficacy.”
The variety of emotional life is divided into affects, emotions themselves, feelings, mood, stress.
Emotions ( according to the dictionary) mental reflection in the form of direct experience of the meaning of a life phenomenon or situation. With the help of emotions, you can understand unconscious motives. The simplest form of emotion is the tone of emotional sensations. – direct experiences. Emotions in origin represent a form of species experience.
Emotions manifest themselves in certain mental experiences, known to everyone from their own experience, and in bodily phenomena. Like sensation, emotions have a positive and negative feeling tone, associated with feelings of pleasure or displeasure. When intensified, emotions turn into affect.
Based on bodily experiences, Kant divided emotions into sthenic (joy, inspiration, anger) - exciting, increasing muscle tone, strength, and asthenic (fear, melancholy, sadness) - weakening.
Affect.- a strong, stormy and short-term experience that completely captures the human psyche. The development of affect is subject to the following law: the stronger the initial motivational stimulus, the more effort had to be expended and the smaller the result, the greater the affect. Affects usually interfere with the normal organization of behavior. They are capable of leaving deep traces in long-term memory. Affects arise at the end of an action and reflect the final assessment of the situation.
Feelings.– the highest product of human cultural and emotional development. They are associated with certain cultural objects, activities and people. Depending on the direction, feelings are divided into moral (a person’s experience of relationships with other people. Intellectual (feelings associated with cognitive activity. Aesthetic (feelings of beauty, art and nature).) Practical (feelings associated with human activity. The manifestation of a strong feeling is called passion.
Moods. Lasting emotions are called moods. Mood is a complex complex that is partly associated with external experiences, partly based on the general disposition of the body to certain emotional states, and partly depends on sensations emanating from the organs of the body.
WITH.L. Rubenstein believes that in the emotional manifestations of a person three spheres can be distinguished: a) her organic life b) her interests of a material order c) spiritual and moral needs. In his opinion, affective-emotional sensitivity includes elementary pleasures and displeasures, mainly associated with the satisfaction of organic needs. Object feelings are associated with the possession of objects and engagement in certain types of activities. These feelings are accordingly divided into moral, intellectual and aesthetic. Worldview feelings are associated with a person’s attitude towards the world.
The emergence and development of emotions.
Darwin argued that emotions arose in the process of evolution as a means by which living beings establish the significance of certain conditions to satisfy their actual needs. Emotional phenomena in the process of evolution have become established as a unique way of maintaining the life process within its optimal boundaries and warning about the deteriorating nature of the lack or excess of any factors. The oldest emotion is pleasure and displeasure. Human emotions are a product of socio-historical development. They relate to the processes of internal regulation of behavior. They precede activities to satisfy them, motivating and directing them. The highest product of the development of emotions is feelings. The development of emotions in ontogenesis is expressed in 1) in the differentiation of the qualities of emotions 2) in the complication of objects that evoke an emotional response. 3) in developing the ability to regulate emotions and their external expression. Emotional experience changes and develops during personality development, as a result of empathy, and the perception of art and media.
The structure of human emotional life.
The mental side of emotions is manifested not only in the experience of the emotion itself. Anger, love, etc. influence intellectual processes: ideas, thoughts, direction of attention, as well as will, actions and deeds, and all behavior.
Explosive affective reactions associated with loss of self-control are called primitive reactions. Emotions can arise without any impact on the psyche, under the influence of purely chemical and medicinal influences. It is known that wine “makes a person’s heart happy”, with wine one can “fill out melancholy”, thanks to wine fear disappears - “a drunken sea is knee-deep”.
In many diseases, fear or joy appear without direct objects of these emotions: the patient is afraid without knowing what, or is happy for no reason.
Emotions are expressed by facial expressions, tongue movements, exclamations and sounds.
The attitude towards reflected phenomena as the main property of emotions is presented: 1) in their qualitative characteristics: how they are treated. a) sign – positive, negative, b) modality. – surprise, joy, anxiety, sadness. 2) in dynamics: the flow of emotions themselves - duration, intensity. 3) in the dynamics of external expression - speech, pantomime, facial expressions. There are 4 levels of emotions: 1) behavioral (facial expressions, gestures) 2) speech (change in intonation 0 3) physiological (tremor of the limbs, change in body tension) 4) Vegetative (change in breathing rhythm..)
Basic functions of feelings and emotions.
Our emotions perform the following functions6
Bias b – reflects the attitude to reality. A person evaluates everything for himself.
Evaluating function.
Anticipatory function . – individual experience is contained in individual emotional memory
Synthesizing – provides a unified emotional basis for generalization.
Signal function feelings is expressed in the fact that experiences arise and change in connection with changes occurring in the environment or in the human body.
Regulatory function feelings is expressed in the fact that persistent experiences guide our behavior, support it, force us to overcome obstacles along the way, or interfere with the flow of activity, blocking it.
Sometimes emotions that have reached extreme tension are transformed into “harmless” processes, such as the secretion of tear fluid, contraction of facial and respiratory muscles.
In the distant past, among animals - the ancestors of man - Darwin pointed out, expressive movements were expedient manifestations that helped to withstand the brutal struggle for existence. In the process of historical development of mankind, the forms of relationships between people and the outside world have changed, and expressive movements accompanying emotions and feelings have lost their former meaning. In modern man, expressive movements serve a new purpose - they are one of the forms of communication. From them we learn about the feelings we are experiencing. The human psyche is so complex that it is not always possible to definitely judge experiences by expressive movements. Already in adolescence, there is a discrepancy between emotions and forms of their expression. The older a person is and the more subtle and rich his experiences, the more complex and unique the forms of their expression. By accumulating life experience, a person very skillfully learns to manage his experiences and manifestations.
Emotions act as regulators of communication, influencing the choice of a partner, determining the ways and means of interaction.
In humans, the main function of emotions is that thanks to emotions we understand each other better, we can, without using speech, judge each other’s states and better prepare for joint activities and communication. Remarkable, for example, is the fact that people belonging to different cultures are able to accurately perceive and evaluate the expressions of a human face, and determine from it such emotional states as joy, anger, sadness, fear, disgust, surprise. This, in particular, applies to those peoples who have never been in contact with each other.
Emotionally expressive movements of a person - facial expressions, gestures, pantomime - perform the function of communication, i.e., telling a person information about the state of the speaker and his attitude to what is currently happening, as well as the function of influence - exerting a certain influence on that person. who is the subject of perception of emotional and expressive movements. The interpretation of such movements by the perceiving person occurs on the basis of correlating the movement with the context in which communication takes place.
Emotions and feelings are personal formations. They characterize a person socially and psychologically. Emphasizing the actual personal significance of emotional processes, V. K. Viliunas writes: “An emotional event can cause the formation of new emotional relationships to various circumstances... The object of love-hate becomes everything that is cognized by the subject as the cause of pleasure-displeasure.”
Emotions usually follow the actualization of the motive and before the rational assessment of the adequacy of the subject’s activity to it. They are a direct reflection, an experience of existing relationships, and not their reflection. Emotions are capable of anticipating situations and events that have not yet actually occurred, and arise in connection with ideas about previously experienced or imaginary situations. Feelings are objective in nature, associated with a concept or idea about a certain object.
Feelings are a product of human cultural and historical development. They are associated with certain objects, activities and people surrounding a person.
Feelings play a motivating role in a person’s life and activity, in his communication with people around him. In relation to the world around him, a person strives to act in such a way as to reinforce and strengthen Affects - these are especially pronounced emotional states, accompanied by visible changes in the behavior of the person who experiences them. Affect does not precede behavior, but is, as it were, shifted to its end. This is a reaction that arises as a result of an action or deed that has already been committed and expresses its subjective emotional coloring from the point of view of the extent to which, as a result of this action, it was possible to achieve the set goal, to satisfy the need that stimulated it.
One of the most common types of affect these days is stress. It is a state of excessively strong and prolonged psychological stress that occurs in a person when his nervous system receives emotional overload. Stress disorganizes a person’s activities and disrupts the normal course of his behavior. Passion is another type of complex, qualitatively unique and unique emotional state found only in humans. Passion is a fusion of emotions, motives and feelings concentrated around a specific activity or subject. A person can become the object of passion. S. L. Rubinstein wrote that “passion is always expressed in concentration, concentration of thoughts and forces, their focus on a single goal... Passion means impulse, passion, orientation of all aspirations and forces of the individual in a single direction, their concentration on a single goal” ".
In his reasoning about emotions, W. Wundt did not limit himself only to an attempt to classify them in accordance with the above scheme, but also proposed some hypothetical curves that, in his opinion, express the typical dynamics of changes in emotional states for each of the named dimensions
If we consider different types of emotional processes according to these curves, they will differ greatly from each other along both dimensions. The smallest amplitude of vertical fluctuations of these curves will probably be associated with moods, and the largest - with affects. Along the horizontal line, the relationships will be reversed: moods will last the longest, and affects will last the least.
Basic qualities of emotions and feelings. The flow of feelings is characterized by dynamics and phases. First of all, this appears in voltage and his successor permission..
Any qualitatively diverse feelings and emotions (love, anger, fear, pity, affection, hatred, etc.) can be considered as positive, negative or uncertain(approximate).
An indefinite (indicative) emotional experience occurs in a new, unfamiliar situation, in the absence of experience in relations with the new surrounding world or when becoming familiar with objects of activity.
It is necessary to highlight one more specific property of emotions and feelings - their polarity. Polarity is the dual (or ambivalent) emotional attitude, unity of contradictory feelings (joy-sadness, love-hate, charm - disgust).
Physiological bases of feelings and emotions. Special studies show that emotional experiences are caused by nervous excitement subcortical centers and physiological processes occurring in vegetative nervous system.
The meaning of emotions and feelings. Vibrancy and variety of emotional relationships make a person more interesting. He responds to a wide variety of phenomena of reality: he is excited by music and poetry, the launch of a satellite and the latest technological achievements. The richness of a person’s own experiences helps her to more deeply understand what is happening, to penetrate more subtly into the experiences of people and their relationships with each other.
Feelings and emotions contribute to deeper human cognition yourself. Thanks to experiences, a person learns his capabilities, abilities, advantages and disadvantages. A person’s experiences in a new environment often reveal something new in himself, in people, in the world of surrounding objects and phenomena.
Emotions and feelings give words, actions, and all behavior a certain flavor. Positive experiences inspire a person in his creative searches and bold aspirations. Emphasizing the importance of experiences, V.I. Lenin said that without human emotions there has never been, is not and cannot be a human search for truth.
Classification of emotional phenomena.
DISGUST
The expression "disgust" in its first simplest sense refers to food and denotes something disgusting to the taste ("turning away" is a negative reaction to food).
EXPRESSION OF FUN AND JOY
A cheerful mood is expressed in laughter, aimless movements, general excitement (exclamations, clapping, etc.). The expression of a cheerful mood can arise as an unconditioned reflex - due to bodily and organic sensations. Children and young people often laugh without any reason, presumably due to the positive tone of organic sensations that speak of the prosperous state of the body. In young, healthy people, a pleasant smell often causes a slight smile
PAIN. The effect of pain on the psyche is similar to the effect of drives. If a dominant arises that suppresses all other excitations, then the desire to get rid of pain becomes stronger than all drives. Pain, having acquired a dominant character, forcibly determines a person’s behavior.
FEAR. One of the most characteristic symptoms of fear is trembling of all the muscles of the body, often manifesting itself first of all on the lips. When fear increases to an agony of terror, we get a new picture of emotional reactions. The heart beats completely randomly, stops, and fainting occurs; the face becomes deathly pale; breathing becomes difficult; the gaze is directed to the object of fear, etc. In most cases, fear arises on the basis of life experience. Only after experiencing pain under different conditions does he begin to fear what can cause pain.
What is called the “sense of self-preservation” is only partially innate; it mainly develops throughout life on the basis of the pain experienced.
The participation of adrenaline in fear reactions is obvious. It gives strength to motor reactions, and it is hard to think that it is involved in the immobilization reflex (the “imaginary death reflex”). It is possible that in one amount adrenaline is a source of strength, in another it contributes to muscle numbness.
In a person with severe fear or horror, the following are observed: numbness, a panicky desire to run away, diffuse disordered muscle excitation. The numbness that comes with fear, as a rule, quickly passes and can be replaced by motor excitement. Fear, if it does not reach a force that inhibits the psyche, can completely put thinking at its service. The thought is chained to one goal: to find a way out of the frightening situation. And fear can be experienced to such a weak degree that a person performs his usual work, the usual course of associations takes place, and fear lurks somewhere in the background, at the margins of consciousness.
Fear is a passive defensive reaction. It indicates the danger of something from someone stronger, a danger that must be avoided, from which it must be eliminated.
In a state of fear and after experiencing it, a series of vegetative reactions occur.
ANGER. Anger in a person is expressed in the fact that the face turns red or purple, the veins on the forehead and neck swell, and sometimes the face becomes pale or blue. IN EMOTIONS, GENERATED BY THE SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT
Public opinion evaluates a person’s personal qualities: smart, stupid, cunning, handsome, etc.; determines the attitude of society towards his personality: respected, not respected, pleasant, unpleasant, etc., gives an assessment of his financial situation.
This includes emotions such as pride, vanity, self-esteem, resentment, etc.
ABOUT PRIDE. Pride (arrogance) in the mouths of the Russian people was a negative quality and was completely condemned, which was also reflected in the religious view of this feeling.
Pride, arrogance, and swagger, according to the popular imagination, are characteristic of the rulers and the rich, the oppressors, rapists and offenders.
Under the influence of the conditions of existence in human society, two sets of reactions developed. A person can be proud of superiority over others in the most diverse areas of life, he can be proud of success in the field of art and science, in all kinds of creative work.
ABOUT VANITY. A person strives to appear to others in a favorable light and avoids a position in which he could make a repulsive impression. This is how “two-facedness” is created to one degree or another: one face for outsiders, the other for insiders. The difference between these persons can reach such a degree that the true face manifested in home life is completely different from the “official” face, the face for others. With a deceitful, selfish concealment of one’s true properties, one gets what is called hypocrisy. Pride and vanity go hand in hand. A proud person, as a rule, is at the same time extremely sensitive to the opinions of others. The increased development of vanity, like pride, in different classes and strata of society is in connection with the life situation in a given class at a certain moment.
ABOUT FLATTERY
Flattery and intrigue have always been the strongest means in the struggle for the favor of crowned and other high persons. Flattery found grateful soil in self-delusion associated with great power.
The success of flattery grows on the soil of vanity, and it is clear that vain people succumb to it most easily.
RESULT
When self-esteem is hurt, when a person realizes that he is humiliated in his personal opinion or in the opinion of society, the emotion of resentment arises. Insults and insults cause acute affect, which often leads to retaliatory “insult by action” or to more serious consequences.
22. Development of ideas about emotions in the history of psychology. Basic theories of emotions.
Development of ideas about emotions.
For the first time, expressive movements became the subject of study by Charles Darwin. Based on comparative studies of the emotional movements of mammals, Darwin created a biological concept of emotions, according to which expressive emotional movements were considered as a rudiment of purposeful instinctive actions that retain to some extent their biological meaning and at the same time act as biologically significant signals for individuals not only of their own but also another type. Darwin (1872) noted that attention can gradually change, turning into surprise, and surprise into “a chilling astonishment” reminiscent of fear. Similarly, Tomkins (1962) showed that the gradients of stimulation that produce interest, fear, and horror exhibit a hierarchy, with the gradient required for interest being the smallest and the gradient for terror being the greatest. For example, a new sound interests a child. If the unfamiliar sound is loud enough when first presented, it can be frightening. If the sound is very loud and unexpected, it can be terrifying. Another characteristic of emotions that is included in their organization as a system is the obvious polarity between certain pairs of emotions. Researchers from Darwin (1872) to Plutchik (1962) have observed polarity and provided evidence for its existence. Joy and sadness, anger and fear are often seen as opposites. Other possible polar emotions are interest and disgust, shame and contempt. Like the concepts of positive and negative emotions, the concept of polarity should not be seen as rigidly defining the relationship between emotions. Wund proposed to evaluate the emotional sphere of consciousness by such quantitative measures as pleasure and displeasure, relaxation - tension, calmness and tension - these elementary feelings and sensations constitute consciousness. The result of deep theoretical thought is the biological theory of emotions by P.K. Anokhina. This theory views emotions as a product of evolution. , as an adaptive factor in the life of the animal world. Emotion acts as a kind of tool that optimizes the life process, and thereby contributes to the preservation of both the individual and the individual species. Positive emotions arise when the actual result of a completed behavioral act coincides with or exceeds the expected beneficial result. , and vice versa, the lack of a real result, a discrepancy with the expected, leads to negative emotions. Repeated satisfaction of needs, colored with positive emotion, contributes to learning the appropriate activity, and repeated failures cause inhibition of ineffective activity. This position was the starting point of Simonov’s information theory. Emotion is a reflection by the brain of higher animals and humans of the magnitude of the need and the likelihood of its satisfaction at a given moment. He proved that emotions arise when there is a mismatch between a vital need and the possibility of its implementation.
JAMES-LANGE THEORY
Lange (1890), James (1892) put forward the theory that emotions are the perception of sensations caused by changes in the body due to external irritation. External irritation, which serves as the cause of affect, causes reflex changes in the activity of the heart, breathing, blood circulation, and muscle tone. That is, emotions are the sum of organic sensations. As a result, the whole body experiences different sensations during emotions, which make up the experience of emotions.
They usually say: we have lost a loved one, we are upset, we cry; we met a bear, we were scared, we were shaking; we are insulted, enraged, we strike. And according to the James-Lange theory, the order of events is formulated as follows: we are sad because we cry; we are afraid because we are trembling; enraged because we beat. If bodily manifestations did not immediately follow perception, then, in their opinion, there would be no emotion. They independently created the peripheral theory of emotions, according to which emotion is a secondary phenomenon - awareness of signals coming to the brain about changes in muscles, blood vessels and organs at the time of the implementation of a behavioral act. Their theory played a positive role in connecting the external stimulus, behavioral act and emotional experience.
Arnold's theory.
According to this concept, the intuitive assessment of the situation causes a tendency to act, being expressed in various bodily sensations, experienced as an emotion. That is, we are afraid because we think that we are threatened.
ALFRED ADLER'S THEORY
According to Adler, the driving force of the psyche is the desire for superiority, resulting from a sense of self-preservation.
Izard's Theory of Differential Emotions
This theory is based on five key assumptions:
The nine fundamental emotions form the basic motivational system of human existence.
Each fundamental emotion has unique motivational and phenomenological properties.
Fundamental emotions such as joy, sadness, anger and shame lead to different internal experiences and different external expressions of these experiences.
Emotions interact with each other - one emotion can activate. strengthen or weaken another.
Emotional processes interact with and influence drives and homeostatic, perceptual, cognitive, and motor processes.
Emotions as the main motivational system.
The theory of differential emotions recognizes the functions of emotions as determinants of behavior in the widest range. Emotions are considered not only as the main motivating system, but also as personal processes that give meaning and meaning to human existence.
Emotions and the emotional system.
An important assumption of the theory of differential emotions is the recognition of the special role of individual emotions in human life
Definition of emotion.
The theory of differential emotions defines emotion as a complex process that has neurophysiological, neuromuscular and phenomenological aspects. The experience of emotion can create a process in the mind completely independent of cognitive processes. Phenomenologically, positive emotions have innate characteristics that tend to enhance, support, and encourage feelings of well-being. They facilitate interaction with people, as well as understanding situations and connections between objects. Negative emotions are felt as harmful and difficult to bear and do not contribute to interaction. Emotions as a system. Differential emotion theory presents emotional elements as a system because they are interconnected in both dynamic and relatively stable ways. Definitions of some terms in the theory of differential emotions. As a conclusion and vocabulary for the theory of differential emotions, the following are definitions of some key terms. Emotion (fundamental, separate) is a complex phenomenon that includes neurophysiological and motor-expressive components and subjective experience. The interaction of these components in the intra-individual process forms emotion, which is an evolutionary-biogenetic phenomenon; In humans, the expression and experience of emotion is innate, cultural and universal.
Complexes of emotions are a combination of two or more fundamental emotions that, under certain conditions, tend to appear simultaneously or in the same sequence and which interact in such a way that all the emotions in the complex have some motivational effect on the individual and his behavior.
Drive is a motivational state caused by changes in body tissues. Examples of drives are hunger, thirst, fatigue, etc. The motivational intensity of all drives, excluding pain, is cyclical in nature. Two drives—pain and sex—share some of the characteristics of emotions.
Affect is a general, nonspecific term that includes all of the above motivational states and processes. Thus, the affective sphere consists of fundamental emotions, complexes of emotions, motivations and their interactions. The affective domain also covers states or processes in which one of the affects (for example, emotion) is interrelated with a cognitive process.
Interaction of emotions - expansion, weakening or suppression of one emotion by another. The interaction of emotion and motivation is a motivational state characterized by the strengthening, weakening or suppression of motivation by emotion or emotion by motivation. 23. The concept of will, volitional action and volitional regulation.
THE CONCEPT OF WILL
Will is the side of consciousness, its active and regulating principle, designed to create effort and maintain it for as long as necessary. Thanks to it, a person can, on his own initiative, based on his own need, perform an action in a pre-planned direction and with a predetermined force. So the will directs or restrains a person, and also organizes mental activity based on existing tasks and requirements. Initially, the concept of will was introduced to explain the impulses to actions carried out according to a person’s own decisions, but not in accordance with his decisions, but not in accordance with his desires. Will as a characteristic of consciousness arose along with the emergence of society and labor activity. Will is needed when choosing a goal, making a decision, taking action, and overcoming obstacles. Will manifests itself as a person’s confidence in his own abilities, as the determination to commit an act that a person considers appropriate.
Main functions of the will highlight: 1) choice of motives and goals. 2) regulation of the impulse to act when there is insufficient or excessive motivation, 3) organization of mental processes into a system adequate to the activity performed by a person. 4) mobilization of physical and mental capabilities in overcoming obstacles in achieving set goals. The presence of will explains the manifestation of such qualities in a person: perseverance, determination, endurance, courage.
Volitional qualities may not be formed if:
the child is spoiled.
The child is suppressed by the rigid will and instructions of adults.
According to Vasilyuk : Depending on the difficulties of the external world and the complexity of the internal world, 4 options for the manifestation of will can be distinguished:
in an easy world, (infantile) where any desire is feasible, will is practically not required
in a difficult world, a leap of will is required to overcome obstacles, but the person himself is internally calm, since his inner world is simple.
In an easy external and complex internal world, willpower is required to overcome internal disagreements, contradictions, doubts, there is a struggle of motives and goals, a person suffers when making decisions.
In a difficult internal and external world, intense volitional obstacles are required to overcome internal doubts, in conditions of objective obstacles and difficulties.
So, in American behavioral psychology Instead of the concept of will, they began to use the concept of “stability of behavior” - a person’s persistence in carrying out initiated behavioral acts, in overcoming obstacles that arise in their path. This persistence, in turn, was explained by such personality characteristics as determination, patience, perseverance, resilience, consistency, etc.
W. James in the USA and S. L. Rubinstein in Russia (during the years of general diversion of attention from the problems of will, they continued to deal with it), will is a very real phenomenon, having its own specific, easily detectable and described in scientific language features. Aristotle introduced the concept of will into the system of categories of the science of the soul in order to explain how human behavior is realized in accordance with knowledge, which in itself is devoid of motivating power. Aristotle's will acted as a factor, along with desire, capable of changing the course of behavior: initiating it, stopping it, changing direction and pace.
One of the essential features of a volitional act is that it is always associated with applying efforts, making decisions and implementing them. Will presupposes a struggle of motives. Based on this essential feature, a volitional action can always be separated from the rest. A volitional decision is usually made in the context of competing, multidirectional drives, none of which can finally win without making a volitional decision.
Will presupposes self-restraint, restraining some fairly strong drives, consciously subordinating them to other, more significant and important goals, and the ability to suppress desires and impulses that directly arise in a given situation. At the highest levels of its manifestation, will presupposes reliance on spiritual goals and moral
values, beliefs and ideals.. As a social new formation of the psyche, will can be represented as a special internal action. , including internal and external means. The participation of thinking, imagination, emotions, motives, in volitional regulation has led in the history of psychology to an exaggerated assessment of either intellectual processes (intellectual theory of will) or affective processes (emotional theory of will). Theories of will also appeared that considered it as the primary ability of the soul (voluntarism)
Volitional action.
Another sign of the volitional nature of an action or activity regulated by the will is having a well-thought-out plan for their implementation. An action that does not have a plan or is not carried out according to a predetermined plan cannot be considered volitional. “A volitional action is... a conscious, purposeful action through which a person achieves the goal facing him, subordinating his impulses to conscious control and changing the surrounding reality in accordance with his plan.”
The essential features of volitional action are increased attention to such an action and the absence of direct pleasure received in the process and as a result of its implementation. This means that volitional action is usually accompanied by a lack of emotional, rather than moral, satisfaction. On the contrary, the successful completion of a volitional act is usually associated with moral satisfaction from the fact that it was possible to fulfill it. Often, a person’s efforts of will are directed not so much at winning and mastering circumstances, but at overcome yourself. This is especially typical for impulsive, unbalanced and emotionally excitable people. Not a single more or less complex human life problem can be solved without the participation of the will. No one on Earth has ever achieved outstanding success without possessing outstanding willpower. Man, first of all, differs from all other living beings in that, in addition to consciousness and intellect, he also has will, without which abilities would remain an empty phrase.
There are 6 volitional actions
A) simple are those in which a person goes towards the intended goal without hesitation, it is clear to him what and in what way he will achieve it.
B) complex volitional action. It consists of 7 stages: 1. awareness of the goal and the desire to achieve it. This e. 2. awareness of a number of possibilities for achieving the goal. 3. manifestation of motives that affirm or refute the achievement of the goal. . This stage is associated with discussing a specific path in accordance with the value system. 4. struggle of motive and goals. 5. accepting one of the possibilities as a solution. 6. implementation of the decision made. 7. overcoming external obstacles. When implementing the decision. .
Every volitional action
Volitional regulation.
For volitional regulation to occur, certain conditions are necessary—the presence of barriers and obstacles. Will then appears when difficulties appear on the path to the goal: external obstacles: time, space, opposition from people, physical properties of things, internal obstacles: relationships and attitudes, etc. The variety of situations that require urgent volitional regulation - overcoming obstacles, conflict of motives, direction of action towards the future, etc. - all this can be reduced to 3 realities. 1) fulfillment of the deficit, motivation to act in the absence of sufficient motivation. 2) choice of motives. 3) voluntary regulation of external and internal actions and mental processes. Volitional regulation of behavior and actions is the voluntary regulation of human activity. It develops and is formed under the influence of control over his behavior by society, and then self-control of the individual. Volitional regulation manifests itself as a personal level of voluntary regulation, characterized in that the decision about it comes from the individual. One of these means of personal regulation is changing the meaning of actions. An intentional change in the meaning of an action can be achieved by: 1) reassessing the significance of the motive 2) attracting additional motives 3) anticipating and experiencing the consequences of the activity 4) updating motives through an imaginary situation. The development of volitional regulation is primarily associated with the formation of: 1) a rich motivational and semantic sphere. 2) a strong worldview and conviction; 3) the ability to exert volition. It is also associated with the transition from external ways of changing the meaning of an action to internal /
Basic qualities of will.
Focus and integrity are the basis of a strong will. An important volitional quality is initiative, (effective activity), and the ability to complete a task. , determination, self-control. endurance and perseverance, while from perseverance one must be able to distinguish stubbornness, which is a thoughtless, unjustified manifestation of will; stubbornness is a manifestation not of strength, but of weakness of will. A manifestation of lack of will is conformism; its essence is that a person has his own opinion, but obeys the group. As studies have shown, conformist people are distinguished by rigidity of mental processes, poverty of ideas, reduced ability to self-control, superficial self-image, and lack self-confidence. All qualities of will develop in the process of life and activity. Weak-willed people do not finish what they start; they are not able to restrain their desires or control their emotional states. The state of painful lack of will is called abulia. Lack of will is due to many reasons. In some cases, its cause is organic or functional disorders of the cerebral cortex and its frontal areas. To such a state. Various diseases are caused: alcoholism, drug addiction.General scheme of the will.