Definition: Motivation

Business and marketers can now have direct, and immediate, access to the best work on motivation and “getting”/”seeking” behavior — how we all get paid.  It is complex but now we can discuss facts and avoid ideology, myths and opinions.

Of course, 99% of marketers and clients just want to do what makes them money today – that’s the priority for all animal brains.  But a (very) few will actually want to try to understand how some of this may work.  Here is a good basic definition – excerpted from a longer science paper.

In view of the fact that motivational stimuli usually are available at some physical or psychological distance from the organism, the only way to gain access to these stimuli is to engage in behavior that brings them closer, or makes their occurrence more likely.  This phase of motivated behavior often is referred to as ‘‘appetitive,’’ ‘‘preparatory,’’ ‘‘instrumental,’’

Perhaps the main utility of the construct of motivation is that it provides a convenient summary and organizational structure for observable features of behavior.  Generally speaking, the modern psychological construct of motivation refers to:

• the behaviorally-relevant processes that enable organisms to regulate both their external and internal environment.
• Behavior is directed toward or away from particular stimuli, as well as activities that involve interacting with those stimuli.
• Organisms seek access to some stimulus conditions (i.e., food, water, sex) and avoid others (i.e., pain, discomfort), in both active and passive ways.
• Moreover, motivated behavior typically takes place in phases.  The terminal stage of motivated behavior, which reflects the direct interaction with the goal stimulus, is commonly referred to as the consummatory phase.
• The word ‘‘consummatory’’ does not refer to ‘‘consumption,’’ but instead to ‘‘consummation,’’ which means ‘‘to complete’’ or ‘‘to finish.’’

Thus, researchers sometimes distinguish between ‘‘taking’’ versus ‘‘seeking’’ of a natural stimulus such as food, or of a drug reinforcer; indeed, the term ‘‘drug-seeking behavior’’ has become a common phrase in the language of psychopharmacology.  As discussed below, this set of distinctions (e.g., instrumental versus consummatory or seeking versus taking) is important for understanding the effects of dopaminergic manipulations on motivation for natural stimuli such as food.In addition to ‘‘directional’’ aspects of motivation (i.e., that behavior is directed toward or away from stimuli), motivated behavior also is said to have ‘‘activational’’ aspects. 

• Because organisms are usually separated from motivational stimuli by a long distance, or by various obstacles or response costs, engaging in instrumental behavior often involves work (e.g., foraging, maze running, lever pressing).
• Animals must allocate considerable resources toward stimulus-seeking behavior, which therefore can be characterized by substantial effort, i.e., speed, persistence, and high levels of work output.
• Although the exertion of this effort can at times be relatively brief (e.g., a predator pouncing upon its prey), under many circumstances it must be sustained over long periods of time.
• Effort- related capabilities are highly adaptive, because in the natural environment survival can depend upon the extent to which an organism overcomes time- or work-related response costs.

For these reasons, behavioral activation has been considered a fundamental aspect of motivation for several decades.  Psychologists have long used the concepts of drive and incentive to emphasize the energizing effects of motivational conditions on measures of instrumental behavior, such as run speed in a maze.

• Cofer and Appley suggested that there was an anticipation-invigoration mechanism that could be activated by conditioned stimuli, and which functioned to invigorate instrumental behavior
• Scheduled noncontingent presentation of primary motivational stimuli such as food reinforcement pellets can induce various activities, including drinking, locomotion, and wheel-running
• Several researchers have studied the impact of work requirements on the performance of instrumental tasks, which ultimately helped to lay the groundwork for the development of economic models of operant behavior.

Ethologists also have employed similar concepts. Foraging animals need to expend energy to gain access to food, water, or nesting material, and optimal foraging theory describes how the amount of effort or time expended to obtain these stimuli is an important determinant of choice behavior.

There is a considerable degree of conceptual overlap between motor control processes and activational aspects of motivation. For example, food deprivation can accelerate run speed in a maze.  Does this reflect conditions that are motivational, motoric, or some combination of the two?  Locomotor activity clearly is under the control of neural systems that regulate movement.  Nevertheless, locomotor activity in rodents also is very sensitive to the impact of motivational conditions such as novelty, food deprivation, or periodic presentation of small food pellets.  In addition, if an organism is presented with a work-related challenge during instrumental performance, it often responds to that challenge by exerting greater effort.

Although one can define motivation in terms that make it distinct from other constructs, it should be recognized that, in fully discussing either the behavioral characteristics or neural basis of motivation, one also should consider related functions. The brain does not have box-and-arrow diagrams or demarcations that neatly separate core psychological functions into discrete, non-overlapping neural systems. Thus, it is important to under- stand the relation between motivational processes and other functions such as homeostasis, allostasis, emotion, cognition, learning, reinforcement, sensation, and motor function

As stated above, organisms typically are separated from primary motivational stimuli or goals by obstacles or constraints. Another way of saying this is that the process of engaging in motivated behavior requires that organisms overcome the ‘‘psychological distance’’ between themselves and motivationally relevant stimuli.  The concept of psychological distance …In the present context, it is simply used as a general reference to the idea that objects or events are often not directly present or experienced, and therefore organisms are separated along multiple dimensions (e.g., physical distance, time, probability, instrumental requirements) from these objects or events.

In various ways, mesolimbic DA serves as a bridge that enables animals to traverse the psychological distance that separates them from goal objects or events… many of the functions in which accumbens DA has been implicated, including behavioral activation, exertion of effort during instrumental behavior, Pavlovian to instrumental transfer, responsiveness to conditioned stimuli, event prediction, flexible approach behavior, seeking, and energy expenditure and regulation, are all important for facilitating the ability of animals to overcome obstacles and, in a sense, transcend psychological distance.