Human Motivation

Human Motivation

“Human Motivation” by Franken provides a profound presentation to the fundamental issues and significant theories of human motivation. Robert Franken addresses the kinds of queries that frequently arise, including why some individuals seem to be more organized compared to the rest, and why people usually dream. In Franken’s search of the daily human motivation, he presents a topical team that reveals to students how learning, cognition, biology and learning, and their interactions with differences of the individuals to produce behavior.

The book has fourteen chapters that present interconnected ideas ranging from. “themes in the study of motivation, elements of motivation, hunger, and eating, passion, (love and sexual behavior), (arousal, attention and peak performance), (wakefulness, alertness, sleep, and dream), drug use and drug addiction, (aggression, coercive action, and anger), (emotion, stress, and health), goal- negative emotions, goal-positive emotions, from curiosity to creativity, the urge for competence and control, and lastly (the self-esteem and self-concept)” respectively. Chapter one to four of this sixth edition reflects the new citations on relevant search, whereas section four discusses the current findings concerning the greater interest of males. Chapter five provides extensive coverage on the origins of the evolution of the prefrontal cortex. In contrast, chapter six entails updated content and current discussions of the prefrontal cortex during sleep and additionally provides the effects of the compensatory model resulting from sleep reduction. Chapter seven presents the origins of the evolution of the dopaminergic system, how addiction to drugs affects self-regulation. Chapter eight comprise of information concerning the source of terrorism; hence students can distinguish human motivation with the current atmosphere of the world. Chapter nine reveals the new content that links evolutionary psychology to the immune system and stress. Chapter ten covers the significance of the prefrontal cortex in expressing emotions and the need for self-control. Chapter eleven discuss the widely the theory behind human motivation and the development of resilience within individuals. Chapter twelve entails intensive attention on techniques for motivation improvement through presentations on the impacts of rewards on creativity. It also presents the significance of the challenge.

Chapter thirteen reflects the new thoughts on the competence-nature and the integration of conceptualization with self-regulation in competence development. In contrast, chapter fourteen focuses on current views on research on motivation towards the growth of self-esteem, its benefits, and the high costs accompanied by its pursuit.

Robert Franken focuses on a better understanding of exploratory behavior and curiosity. He addresses the perception of sensation seekers motivated by the urge to experience different and the willingness to take the risk in such experiences.

Chapter one; themes in the study of motivation

According to Robert Franken, motivation involves the study of principles of behavior, and behavior suggests the intention to make situation adaptation. From this definition, he mentions that workers possess an intrinsic motivation to beat challenges and survive. According to Franken, if the rational mind evaluates an incident and discovers it to be friendly, the brain prevents the emotional response. In contrast, if the environmental events are realized to be complacent, then an employee feels no urge to respond, react, and beat the challenge. Every worker needs adequate incentive to establish the internal motivation to perform something else. Moreover, Franken mentions the rewarding for good behavior and better performance is an external motivation or reward.

Incentives and engagement

In a job or business, it is believed that employees are motivated by money; this is correct to a certain degree. Many individuals need income to lead a decent life. But the notion that more money leads to high motivation is incorrect. The assumption that the performance of the employee can be enhanced by financial manipulation is centered on trust in the concept of behaviorist skinner.

Almost all the managers want to inspire good behavior such as quality production, punctuality, and teamwork. Choosing a positive trait to target at a particular instance and applying a positive reinforcement method with an aim on eradicating the negative behavior, according to reinforcement theory this can aid in turning the essential trait into healthy work habits over time. According to Franken, eradication of unwanted behavior results from the lack of positive reinforcement, not from punitive measures.

Intrinsic motivation is better than incentives. Intrinsic motivation is the motivating influence of the task itself. Intrinsic motivation seems to commence with instinctive character. For instance, individuals will pay a considerable amount of cash to play tennis or golf; the concern people spent a lot of time playing it with a high level of engagement. It would be challenging to state that these people are doing so to solve a problem. Instead, it will be easy to state that it is part of a general desire or curiosity to comprehend one environment.

According to Franken, the first necessity for the establishment of intrinsic motivation is the requirement that the work involves some challenges. And sometimes just putting in the time is not enough. Although problems might be so negligible, it must be present. Robert states that with a monotonous task, accuracy, and productivity might produce the challenge. To numerous workers, the presence of challenges makes the work engaging provided that the work is not impossible. The act of solving the problem to some people seems to be intrinsically motivating. Franken notes that there are some of the workers who would like a day free of the challenge; this indicates that such as individuals were not appropriately managed during the early days of their career development. An instance of establishing intrinsic motivation is by making the process seem very attractive and interesting that people will be willing to seek an opportunity to do the work.

Another theme for motivation is recognition. Recognition is the process in which the top leadership identifies and appreciates the employees who made a significant contribution to the success of the company. Robert states that it is essential for the employees to be aware that management understands the participation of the employee, and the appreciation is sincere. Franken says that it will not be appropriate for the management to get everyone together and inform them that they did a great job. Recognition needs to be personal. It should be clear that workers have mastered the situation and attained a remarkable result when recognition is done appropriately; it can have a powerful impact. While a gift mostly accompanies realization, it should not be viewed is incentive compensation.

Components of Motivation

Any individual who has ever had a goal usually realizes that just having the desire to achieve something is not enough. To accomplish such goas needs one to be so persistent through the available obstacles and endure to keep moving despite any difficulty. Motivation involves the emotional, social, biological, and cognitive forces which activate specific behavior. Motivation answers the why behind human actions, as described by Robert Franken. According to Franken, motivation does not just refer to factors that activate human behaviours. Motivation includes elements that direct and uphold the goal-directed actions.

There are three major components of motivation. These components include activation. Activation is the decision to initiate a specific behavior such as enrolling for a class, reading a book, and many other actions. Another component is persistence. Persistence is a constant effort toward a goal despite the existence of obstacles. An instance of persistence is taking a particular course to acquire a degree, although it needs a considerable investment of time, resources, and energy. The last component of motivation is intensity. Intensity can be viewed as the vigour and the concentration that goes into goal persuasion. For instance, one learner might coast without much effort. At the same time, another student will study regularly, take advantage of the available resources, and participate in the discussion; this is an indication that the second student pursues the educational goals with much intensity.

Hunger and Eating

Eating is essential for survival, and it is not surprising that a need like hunger exists so that individuals will seek sustenance. When the stomach is empty, it contacts, causing secretion of chemical substance and hunger pangs, which sends the message to the brain, which functions as a signal to initiate feeding behavior. When the sugar level goes down, the liver and pancreas produce chemical signals that initiate hunger and hence induce feeding habits.

Once an individual is satisfied, the eating behavior stops. Satisfaction is also controlled by several physiological processes, just like the initiation of eating. As the glucose level rises, a signal is produced by the liver and pancreas, and the sugar ingestion is cut off the numerous satiety, and hunger signals that are involved in the controlling of eating are combined in the brain.

Attention, arousal, and peak performance

One of the main factors in the study of motivation all arousal systems have to be in optimal operation to achieve peak performance. Peak performance, according to Franken, is doing the very best that an individual can achieve to the best of one’s ability and entirely focusing on the task despite any kind of disruption. One of the reasons why people do not attain peak performance is the inability to regulate one’s attention. Organization and direction appear to be controlled by a high degree of arousal. When arousal shift, attention tent to shift. Arousal can be simply be defined as the activation of body and mind, according to Franken. Also, Robert Franken state that arousal is the state of preparedness so that an individual can indulge in adaptive behavior. Franken further notes that there are two types of arousal, autonomic arousal, which activates the body and cortical arousal which arouses the brain system. The two systems work independently. This is to safeguard energy and reduce the wear and tear on the body. The system is only activated when required.

According to Franken, the cortical arousal function of the brain involves goal-directed behavior, planning the way to the goal, creation of goals feedback evaluation, and managing adjustments. Robert states that the autonomic nervous system is responsible for numerous physiological alterations that take place when one is in a state of arousal. For instance, blood flow increases, digestion halts, glucose is realized for immediate energy, muscle tense, and sense improves. According to Robert, this kind of response is as a result of the hypothalamus and endocrine system.

Drug Use and Drug Addiction

Substance dependence, also known as addiction is the inability to of control over limiting drug intake and impairment of the occupational and social function. According to Robert (2017), drug addiction has the aspect of both compulsive disorder and impulsive control disorder. The impulse control disorders are categorized by an increasing sense of arousal and tension before committing an impulse pleasure, act gratification or relief during the time of committing the act, and perhaps regret, guilt or self-reproach following the action.

Most drugs affect the brain; a properly functioning brain motivates a person to repeat behaviors that are needed to excel, for example, eating, sleeping, and spending time with a loved one. Surges of drug use in the brain cause the excitement of pleasurable but unhealthy behavior like taking drugs. Franken notes that as an individual continues to take drugs, the brain adapts by decreasing the ability of the cells in the reward circuit to respond to various situations.

From Curiosity to Creativity

Franken views creativity as a tendency to recognize ideas, possibilities, and alternatives essential in problem-solving, interacting with others as well as entertaining ourselves (Franken, 2007). The components of creativity, as presented by Robert Franken, include originality, flexibility, elaboration, and fluency. Originality is how unusual ideas are, while versatility is the range of plans in various categories and domains. However, elaboration represents the developmental level, and details of concepts and fluency consist of the number of ideas participants can brainstorm.

Franken, in his studies, discovered that the factors that affect fluency include space, pressures, intelligence and age, personality, and time. Creativity cannot have a positive influence if a peaceful platform is not provided, while pressures like a heavy workload can challenge creativity because of its intrinsic nature. Creativity tends to decrease with an increase in age unless a person is naturally creative. On the other hand, creativity develops more in a person who values most the beautiful qualities of his experiences and has a passion for creativity, and intuitive, independent thinker, and capable of resolving conflicts in self. Also, creativity cannot have a positive influence on an insufficient amount of time.

For instance, in an informal learning environment where learners have been subjected to class-works right from elementary schools to higher learning institutions, time, and pressure can influence their creativity. Teachers often set deadlines for submission of those assignments, which might be considered by learners as time pressure. For some, this type of pressure can be a challenging incident that might even result in stress. Therefore, time pressure can only be a treasure if one has met the deadline of the assignment (Franken, 2007).

The chart below shows the process of increasing creativity.

Fig1. The Process of Increasing Creativity.

Robert Franken put more emphasis on the reasons why individuals are motivated to be creative. These include the urge for varied, novel, and complex stimulation, secondly, the urge to communicate values and ideas, and thirdly they need for problem-solving (Franken, 2017).

He further states that for us to be creative, we need to view things from different angles. Additionally, we should be capable of generating new possibilities or rather new alternatives. The creativity test measures the amount of alternatives individuals can produce and the uniqueness of those specific alternatives. The capacity to produce alternatives or view matters on different perspectives occurs not by chance but instead connected to some other more fundamental qualities of thinking like unpredictability or tolerance of ambiguity, the enjoyment of things unknowingly, and flexibility.

Human forces usually drive motivation, and once the physiological needs have been fulfilled, the other requirements will emerge. According to Robert Franken, even though children might look forward to their parents for safety, the adults’ safety originates from making the surroundings as inductive as possible. Therefore, one can find other needs from such environments with continued fear that an individual or something might threaten their safety.

From Franken’s book ‘Human Motivation,” it is evident that conflict can occur due to social needs; this can be seen in some characters herein who experience conflicts of needs and have a varied opinion due to communication. It is also evident that a varied opinion can result from physiological demands.

A varied opinion can occur due to perceive scare resources, as seen in some characters who have not the affection and wealth. Even if the needs are met, human beings behaviours are still driven by self –actualization and high self-esteem.

Five Key Points on Human Motivation

Self-Actualization

Every individual always strives to complete what they can be provided; they feel like having the potential to accomplish their needs. However, some have the desire to be wealthy entrepreneurs, while some might need to be professional athletes or maybe successful musicians. Self-actualizing calls for an essential motivational tool for individuals to achieve their wants though for one to realize his or her full potential, he must have taken into consideration all the other needs mentioned below.

Self- Protection

After the achievement of physiological needs, people usually crave for security and safety resulting from protection desire. Whereas early human beings a different way of securing protection, the modern man’s needs revolve around access to healthcare, protection from environmental hazards, neighbourhood and stable employment (Franken, 2017). The achievement of these needs could be of great motivation.

Affection and Belonging

After the satisfaction of self-protection and physiological needs, people once again seem to focus on social needs, which can either be affection, love, and a sense of belonging. It is from these kinds of desires that human beings are viewed as social animals and are motivated to develop meaningful relationships such as family relations, friendships, romantic attachments, including other interpersonal requirements that might give them a sense of belonging. This is why human beings develop social communities irrespective of religion, family, friends, or whichever interest group an individual would wish to join. The feeling of being accepted in a social group is an essential driving force behind human motivation (Franken, 2017).

Final Research Paper

Factors Influencing Employee Motivation

Motivation is an encouragement to complete a task from a desire to satisfy human needs and wants. These needs are a push factor in fulfilling a job that is beneficial to them. Motivation theories tend to prioritize the satisfaction of individual needs because it increases productivity in an individual. Motivation can also be a desire to maintain or engage in a specific behavior.

In an organization, full-time employees are expected to work a maximum of 40 hours per week. It is, therefore, necessary to know and understand what happens in the places of work. An organization where the employer never fails to give a paycheck to the employees will always thrive. A thriving organization is due to an increase in employee production. Motivation and communication are two ways that can help in increasing employee productivity.

Communication is an essential thing for the increase in production and the success of an organization. Research shows that communication is key, and the center of a workplace organization. External and internal motivation reinforce positive performance and therefore increasing production. To gain a better understanding of human motivation, this research purposes of examining the factors that influence employee motivation.

Workplace motivation is a word that is currently buzzing most organizations, and many employers are adopting it. Both non-academic and academic publications are now focusing on the issue of motivation and its importance in an organization. Thus, supervisors need to understand the power of motivation. The elements of choosing and wanting should be available for one to stay motivated.

Maslow’s Hierarchy Theory of Needs best explains the motivation and its hierarchical needs. Each level on the hierarchy builds up from the previous level forming up like a pyramid. The demands in the hierarchy come in different degrees of urgency, and the requirements are never satisfied fully. From the top of the hierarchy are physiological needs, followed by safety needs, then love needs, esteem needs, and finally, on the lower level is self-actualization needs. The four lower levels apart from self-actualization are referred to as D- needs. D means deficit needs. The D- needs are inborn. These are never enough, and once they are satisfied, they no longer be motivating.

Physiological needs are needs like having enough food, vitamins, and water, maintaining a comfortable temperature, getting rid of waste, avoiding pain, engaging in the activity, and having sex. As these physiological needs get fulfilled, the second level of needs, security, and safety arise. Security and safety needs include finding stability, safe circumstances, order, structure, and protection. The third level is love and belonging needs. Examples of this need include having friends, feeling involved, and wanting children. The next level is esteem needs, which is divided into higher and lower esteem needs. Higher esteem needs include the needs of self-respect like independence, confidence, freedom, and achievement. Lower esteem needs include the need for others’ respect, like attention, glory, dignity, and glory.

D- needs are usually associated with motivation in a workplace environment. Employees at work who may feel pain, hot or hungry will focus more on satisfying the physiological need rather than being motivated at work. The same case applies to security and safety needs, love and belonging needs, and esteem needs.

Self-actualization needs to continue to be felt even when it is fulfilled. This need involves a continuous desire to be great or to excel to be able to fulfill one’s potential continuously. The need to help supervisors understand the need for motivation. If the employees can satisfy the D- needs, then they will do what they can to fulfill the need for self- actualization. Self-actualization need is vital in the workplace as it helps one achieve their potential. One is likely to strive to continue to meet the demand even if they have met the need once. The need feeds from itself.

In a workplace, motivation can be defined as employees’ desire to choose to act or to want to act to get satisfied in the workplace. Further, motivation can be referred to as the energy that influences a work style and encourages work-related behavior, duration, intensity, and direction. There are two types of motivation at work; they include external (extrinsic) and internal (intrinsic) forces.

Internal motivation comes from personal motivation and revolves around completing a certain task just for the sake. Here the employees complete a task because they want to be rewarded rather than earning the reward. External motivation originates from other sources like monetary rewards, company goal setting, and supervisor’s feedback. Supervisors have the power to motivate employees, and therefore they should realize the important role they play in motivating their workers. Supervisors should be able to motivate their subordinates by creating extrinsic motivation in the workplace.

It is always important to consider money hierarchy when studying motivation in an organization. Money can be a straightforward concept in an organization, but it is the one holding a company to survive in an economy. An organization must give money to employees to retain and attract skilled professionals in society.

Reference

Franken, Robert E. (2007). Human motivation (6th Ed.). CA: Brooks/Cole.9780495171713, 0495171719