Needs and desires shape every aspect of our life, including our behavior, self-image, and worldview. This global influence arises because needs and desires are the manifestation of complex psychobiological motivational systems. These motivational systems arose in response to the evolutionary pressures associated with living in social groups. Today, these motivational systems serve diverse functions that can be harnessed to work coherently; however, without motivational coherence our disparate goals can result in nearly irreconcilable inner conflict.
Topics in the text below:
Motivation
Emotion and Motivation
Motivational Systems
Conditioned Enactments
Motivational Scripts
Motivation
Why we do what we do, is perhaps the most fundamental question about human nature. Contemporary solutions to that question focus primarily on how emotions shape our motivation. Specifically, emotions are the fuel that drives us to take action, or under the given circumstances, avoid action. Emotions are inherently motivating, directing us toward what we need, such as seeking pleasure or avoiding pain. However, the sensual and visceral feelings of desire and pleasure are not the only emotions that evoke action in the world. For example, disgust or distain can illicit avoidance behaviors. Feelings of loneliness often serve to motivate us to seek out connection to others. Our individual emotional-response patterns are determined by our unique circumstances, but regardless of our history of learning and conditioning, emotions will drive our chosen action.
Emotions activate complex patterns of behavior that aim to satisfy our long-term needs and goals. These complex patterns of behavior are organized around distinct constellations of needs, desires, values, and psychobiological restraints. Because we have a multiplicity of needs, we have evolved ways to categorize and prioritize those needs. This process of internal adjudication between our competing needs is the source of our deeply-held beliefs and values. Through the process of negotiating between our conflicting motivations, we create preferences and values. By gaining an understanding about the relationship between our emotions and motivations, we can direct our actions in the world with an intentionality and purpose. When we recognize that the choices we make in life come to define us, we can see ourselves as agents in the creation of our life story. Moreover, when our actions stem from coherent, inner guidance, we come to see ourselves as principled and having Purpose.
Emotion and Motivation
Emotions are not just feelings, arising in isolation—they are critical aspects of a motivation-response repertoire. Rather than treating an emotion as a single, subjective experience, emotion is best understood as being tied to a complex, motivational and behavioral repertoire. Contemporary psychological research demonstrates that via our physiology, as well as our cognition, emotions are integrated into complex patterns of motivation. This integration has adaptive, evolutionary significance, helping us categorize events, and priming our responses based on the emotion we experience.
Emotions arise in response to a pressing need or desire; additionally, emotions trigger behavioral responses. That is, emotions reveal our needs, as well as provoke us into action in order to satisfy theses needs, or to help us cope with a situation at hand. This function of emotions arose in the course of evolution to facilitate the acquisition of adaptive, behavioral patterns to both internal and external stimuli. These patterns of psycho-evolutionary adaptation facilitated the development of our basic emotions and behavioral-response patterns in order to satisfy our instinctually-determined needs. The specific content associated with these instinctually-fueled emotions and motivational behaviors are not rigidly determined. Therefore, the emotions and response patterns are part of our psychobiology, but the content of the patterns is learned and conditioned.
These emotional-motivation patterns emerged in evolutionary time out of repeated circumstances that created our enduring adaptation-response repertoires. These environmental-evolutionary demands resulted in linking triggering emotions with motivational-response patterns. This combination can be described as emotional behaviors. Research psychologists such as Robert Plutchik have categorized these emotional behaviors into eight clusters: incorporation, rejection, destruction, protection, reproduction, reintegration, orientation, and exploration. These emotional-behavior patterns are activated when we are faced with environmental demands or internal needs. Through life experiences we have learned, or become conditioned, to use these emotional behaviors in various combinations in order to meet specific, adaptive needs. Plutchik has gone on to describe the basic human needs associated with these emotional behaviors.
The adaptive needs we face reflect the pressures that emerged as human beings evolved, becoming self-conscious and living in social groups. These needs can be organized into broad categories. We can use these categorizations to help us identify our needs and shape our emotional-behavioral responses. By identifying our emotions and behavioral responses, we can recognize which basic-need systems are pressing upon us. This understanding can help us direct our behavioral responses to meeting or regulating the specific underlain need.
One categorization of basic needs is: hierarchy, territoriality, identity, and temporality.
A societal organization requires some form of hierarchy, either through individual force or through force of agreed-upon rule. Hierarchy relates to a specific set of emotions that could include fear and anger: the top dog is angry and the under dog is fearful.
Territoriality is related to boundaries and control. When our boundaries are intact, we have some control and when our boundaries are not intact we have less control.
Identity is our existential adaptation to being in a group, addressing issues of fitting in, and being the same or different from others.
Temporality needs are tied to the limits placed on us by the passage of time, as well as by our awareness that our time will end, bringing up feelings of loss and sadness. Emotional-behavioral patterns around temporality help us adapt to losses in our life, as well as coming to terms with our own ultimate demise.
These various basic needs and emotional behaviors are not experientially distinct. We often experience various needs and feelings at the same time. In the course of our life, though learning and conditioning, these needs and emotional behaviors evolve into enduring combinations. These learned and conditioned associations can become entrenched in the form of character traits. The variety of human character reflects the many ways emotional behaviors combine to form our inner, emotional structure.
Understanding the nature of emotions can help us understand our character. Since emotions are integral to our needs and motivations, we can deepen our understanding or our character traits by recognizing that our conflicted emotions are expressions of the disparate goals of our basic needs.
Motivational Systems
The influence of the emotional behaviors on our character is further magnified by their impact on memory and cognition. There is a complex interplay of emotions, motivations, behavior, and cognition that constitute what psychoanalyst Joseph Lichtenberg calls a motivational system. The complex patterns of thoughts, feelings, and desires that comprise our motivational systems are tied to specific biologically-determined needs. Although our motivational systems serve to meet our inherent basic needs, they are not a simple manifestation of our instinctual desire for gratification. Our innate drives are not expressed in us as a linear demand for satiation, rather our basic human needs are manifested in our sense of well-being, self-image, and worldview. Through the complex integration of cognition, emotion, and memory, motivational systems have an enduring effect on our thoughts and behaviors.
Lichtenberg has identified five motivational systems he feels are associated with our basic needs:
- Physiological regulation
- Attachment
- Sensual-sexual
- Exploratory-assertive
- Aversion
1. Physiological Regulation
The motivational system based on the regulation of physiological requirements corresponds to complex patterns of behavior. At its root this motivational system seeks to decrease physiological dis-regulation. It strives to preserve homeostasis by triggering sensations, emotions, and behaviors that will likely led to meeting our physiological needs. For instance, hunger does not merely evoke a desire to eat, but is associated with patterns of arousal or agitation. Similarly, our need for psychical activity can arouse feelings of lethargy and even anxious or depressed moods. Through our motivational systems, we can experience our physiological needs through complex feelings of shame, fear, or a general sense that something is wrong or missing. By attaching our physiological condition to our self-image and emotions, the motivational systems serve to heighten our focus on enacting a behavioral strategy to decrease the upset.
2. Attachment
The motivational system for attachment significantly affects our well-being, because of its ability to shape our capacity for love and connection. Attachment is so critical to our survival that the motivational system regulating attachment tends to supersede most of our other motivations. The quality of our attachment affects our overall well-being and how we function in in the world. Extensive research on attachment by John Bowlby reveals how the securely attached child will be proactive in exploring the world with a confident feeling of safety. This is in contrast to the insecure child who will avoid and withdraw with a feeling of inadequacy. These early patterns reveal the degree to which our attachment motivational system shapes our sense of confidence, safety, and self esteem.
Although our need for attachment is innate, the quality of our attachment is not instinctual, but is learned and conditioned. Attachment patterns are fundamentally shaped by the earliest, infant-caregiver interactions. The complex patterns of interaction between infant and caregiver will define the ways of attaching to others throughout a lifespan. Each individual will have a unique content to their attachment based on this developmental history; however, there are four basic categories of attachment: secure, ambivalent, avoidant, and disorganized. These categories describe the overall quality of the attachment motivational system and will shape our interpersonal relations throughout life. How we give and receive love are shaped by these patterns of attachment. The way we seek closeness or distance from others, as well as what comes to define comfort in a relationship, will all be determined by the nature of our attachment as either secure, ambivalent, avoidant, or disorganized. These patterns endure regardless of the situation or the individuals to which we attach. Although, different people and situations can magnify or mitigate the effect these attachment patterns have on us. However, we often find ourselves seeking out or creating our basic attachment pattern even if they are not adaptive. They have this repetitive and enduring nature because of the early developmental impact on our attachment motivational system.
3. Sensual-Sexual
The third motivational system in Lichtenberg’s analysis is the sensual-sexual motivational system. This motivational system is organized around sensual enjoyment and sexual excitement. The sensual-sexual focus is not just on purely-physiological, erogenous zones, but also on physical stimulation, touch, and soothing. Our patterns for obtaining sensual-sexual satisfaction are mediated through a motivational system that includes our physical sensation, as well as emotion, cognition, and self-image. This motivational system is involved in gender identity as well as body image.
The sensual-sexual motivational system, like that for attachment, has a large psychobiological component that determines overall needs. These innate needs are given specific expression through learning and conditioning. For example, an infant will actively seek out physical soothing and stimulation. The caregiver that responds appropriately based on the needs of the child will help the infant establish motivational patterns that seek out physical comfort without distress. However, a caregiver that fails to respond within the range required by the infant could evoke conditioned patterns of over- or under-physical stimulation in the infant. Optimally, the caregiver and infant should have similar contours for physical interaction.
Our sensual-sexual patterns will endure across diverse situations and throughout our life. However, being aware of our sensual-sexual motivational system can help us make choices that optimize the adaptive aspects of this need and mitigate the less adaptive behaviors.
4. Exploratory-Assertive
The exploratory-assertive motivational system facilitates our constructive engagement in the world. This motivational system aims to seek out opportunities for control and mastery in new and novel ways. The exploratory-assertive motivational system has a powerful effect on our well-being because it is directly liked to our sense of self-efficacy.
Our need for exploration and assertion may have an evolutionary root; however, the way we express this need will be determined by our developmental history and environmental circumstances. We all have a need to feel efficacious and to explore the world. Infants express this need within the caregiver relationship through developing new competencies such as crawling and walking, as well as developing the capacity to self-sooth. In childhood, the exploratory-assertive motivational system is reflected in play, while later in life it is reflected learning and work.
This motivational system will shape our sense of competence throughout our life. It will influence our ability to manage in the face of challenge, frustration, and setback; as well as our ability to maximize our opportunities. Our ability to explore and assert ourselves is malleable to a degree, beyond some of the other motivational patterns. Mastery and failure throughout our life will continue to shape our sense of competence and self-efficacy.
5. Aversion
The need for aversion arises when we are exposed to injurious or noxious conditions. The aversive motivational system serves to pull us out of situations that are dangerous or hurtful. It accomplishes this through evoking antagonism or withdrawal. The basic reaction of fight-or-flight is an aspect of the psychobiological nature of the aversive motivational system. The aversion system strives toward the cessation of distress. In the infant, antagonistic responses include crying, disgust, and anger; while, withdrawal responses include crying, fear, or shame.
The aversive motivational system is the source of aggression. A distressing environment will be met with aversion or withdrawal; however, if this fails to reduce the distress, the antagonistic aversion will escalate antagonistic aggression. This motivational system triggers aggression in service of assertiveness and avoidance and does not view aggression as a distinct need. However, an individual with a developmental history where aversion did not reduce distress will become conditioned to react aggressively in the face of any distress. In addition to learning and conditioning, low frustration tolerance can be due to temperament and psychobiological factors that result in readily-evoked, aggressive responses.
Conditioned Enactments
The way we experience and express our motivations is the result of our temperament and the responsiveness of our environment. This conditioning is critical during early interactions between infant and caregiver and will profoundly shape all five of our motivational systems. A caregiver, who is able to resonate to the infant’s behavioral emotions appropriately, will inculcate an association between feeling a need and having that need satisfied. Such an interaction helps to build the capacity to tolerate distress and activate appropriate, motivational patterns seeking satisfaction.
Just as attunement provides experiences that teach us we can manage our emotional behaviors, caregiver mis-attunement can leave an enduring deficit in our capacity to regulate our motivational behaviors. For example, a caregiver that does not recognize the infant’s emotional-behavioral cues cannot respond appropriately. The infant will soon learn that distress does not lead to soothing, but to greater distress. In this case, the infant will have little, if any, tolerance for frustration or disquiet. This lack of regulation will vary between each of the motivational systems depending upon those that were mis-attunened.
Deficits in caregiving are not the only cause of caregiver inadequacy. Infant-temperamental hypersensitivities and profound, environmental stressors or deprivations will compromise infant caretaking and soothing. Whatever the origin of the failed caretaking, deficiencies in having appropriate early childhood interactions around our behavioral emotions will impact our capacity to experience and regulate our emotions, and develop adaptive, motivational systems.
In addition to developmental deficits in any given motivational system, difficulties can arise because of unmanaged tensions between competing motivational systems. Our motivational systems may be reinforced in such a way as to generate conflict that can endure throughout life. For example, if the primary caregiver singularly reinforces attachment, while selectively restricting assertiveness, a pattern of conflict can arise between the attachment and assertiveness motivational systems. Specifically, selective reinforcement of the attachment motivational system over the assertiveness motivational system could result in an adult that frequently feels torn between attachment and assertiveness. Such a conflicted pattern of motivation could leave an individual always experiencing a trade-off between attachment and assertiveness. This person would lack the capacity to arbitrate between the competing basic needs of attachment or assertiveness. This is merely one example of how the patterns of reinforcement between the various motivational systems will shape our life.
Motivational Scripts
The complex patterns of action in the world stemming from these motivational systems are frequently represented in stylized memories. Memories of life’s defining scenarios are often condensations of various patterns of experience that were overly determined by our motivational systems. An individual comes to have an established pattern of interaction with the environment associated to a particular motivation. These patterns are entrenched behaviorally, emotionally, and cognitively as internal scripts. These internal scripts come to manage all aspects of our motivational systems, often overruling environmental contingencies, according to Joseph Lichtenberg. For example, infants begin to anticipate the repetition of certain events as early as eighteen months of age. Initially, these anticipations are based on actual experiences, but over time, the scripts begin to lead to a degree of expectation that may shape the actual experience.
The patterns of action in which we engage throughout life are often conducted as an enactment of these previously-established scripts. This occurs because reenactments and the scripts that reinforce them, shape how we attend to our environment. For example, negative events in one situation can cause us to expect a similar negative event — even in only weakly, analogous situations. Developmental research reveals that an infant, after one negative experience, will scan future situations for hints that there may be a negative outcome. After a bad experience, the infant will scan all other situations for hints that they may contain an aspect of the previously-negative experience. Positive experiences do not result in a similar, overly-broad system of scanning. A positive experience in one situation will lead the infant to scan only very similar situations for a repeat of the pleasurable experience. This difference in scanning between the positive and negative expectations is rooted in a psychobiological predisposition for heightened harm-avoidance. This is why distress, associated with a set of emotional behaviors or a motivational system, leads us to being overly alert to any hint of future distress. The result is that we may avoid exposure to broad ranges of our feelings, needs, and desires.