The Psychobiology Of Human Motivation

This is a classic edition of Hugh Wagner’s influential overview of the biopsychological underpinnings of human motivation. It includes a new foreword written by Michael Richter who reflects on Wagner’s 20 years of teaching, writing and research in the field of biopsychology and promises an engaging, succinct and accessible introductory text that remains relevant and useful to students today. The Psychobiology of Human Motivation explores what directs our behaviour, from basic physiological needs like hunger and thirst to more complex aspects of social behaviour like altruism. Wagner explores the limits of biological explanations and shows how humans can influence ‘basic’ physiological drives in order to adapt to a complex social environment. An accessible, engaging resource strengthened by many applied examples, Wagner’s text continues to be integral reading for undergraduate students seeking a solid introduction to the psychology of human motivation across the social and behavioural sciences.

Weiner introduces -- and offers his own motivation for producing - - this most impressive work with the following: There are two distinct approaches to the study of motivation. One stratagem is a product of academic, experimental procedures, while the second is an outgrowth of clinical, non-experimental methods. Each of the approaches has unique advantages and disadvantages. But all investigators in this field are guided by a single basic question, namely, "Why do organisms think and behave as they do?" To help answer that basic question, Human Motivation presents an entire range of motivation studies -- from psychoanalytic, social learning and humanistic theory; to social facilitation, arousal, emotions, personal responsibility, and the irrationality of attributions; through chapterand verse of Hullian and Lewinian theory.

Human Motivation examines the methods behind four major human motive systems - achievement, power, affiliation and avoidance.

The present paper is an attempt to formulate a positive theory of motivation which will satisfy these theoretical demands and at the same time conform to the known facts, clinical and observational as well as experimental. It derives most directly, however, from clinical experience. This theory is, I think, in the functionalist tradition of James and Dewey, and is fused with the holism of Wertheimer, Goldstein, and Gestalt Psychology, and with the dynamicism of Freud and Adler. This fusion or synthesis may arbitrarily be called a 'general-dynamic' theory. It is far easier to perceive and to criticize the aspects in motivation theory than to remedy them. Mostly this is because of the very serious lack of sound data in this area. I conceive this lack of sound facts to be due primarily to the absence of a valid theory of motivation. The present theory then must be considered to be a suggested program or framework for future research and must stand or fall, not so much on facts available or evidence presented, as upon researches to be done, researches suggested perhaps, by the questions raised in this paper.

Geen departs from the conventional approach to human motivation--going beyond the traditional survey of biological, behavioral, and scial bases of motivation--to capture the student's attention and focus on the problems of motivations with which we live every day. Starting from the premise that most human behavior is social behavior, Geen establishes a fundamental model of the motivational process by integrating the concepts of motive, situation, and incentive within a framework of how people set goals for themselves.

Human Motivation: Commentary on Goal-Directed Action deals with human motivation, illustrating a simplistic model of a goal-directed action sequence derived from the usual layman's conception of a goal-directed action. This book consists of five chapters. After an introduction provided in Chapter 1, Chapter 2 considers the Hullian tradition in motivation, emphasizing that there is a body of evidence that requires an analysis of motivational phenomena in nonpurposive terms. The theories growing out of research on achievement motivation is examined in Chapter 3. Chapter 4 covers the theory of affective dynamics and applications of certain economic principles to human behavior, including theoretical developments to the theory of action presented in the preceding chapter. Chapter five discusses complexities in the commonsense view of action tendencies, such as the usual assumption that individuals are aware of the reasons for their actions and goals toward which their actions are directed is challenged. This publication is a good reference for students and researchers conducting work on the study of human motivation.