The Power of Motivation: Crash Course Psychology #17

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Feeling motivated? Even if you are, do you know why? The story of Aaron Ralston can tell us a lot about motivation. In this episode of Crash Course Psychology, Hank tells us Ralston's story, as well as 4 theories of motivation and some evolutionary perspectives on motivation.

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Table of Contents

Four Theories of Motivation:
Evolutionary Perspective 1:38:22
Drive-Reduction 2:45:10
Optimal Arousal 3:38:21
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs 4:49:04
How Sex, Hunger, and the Need to Belong Motivate us 5:29:02

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>HANK GREEN: You've probably heard this story.

Aron Ralston was out climbing
in Utah's Blue John Canyon

when a giant rock shifted
under his feet and he fell,

pinning his right arm to the canyon wall.

He was stuck, and worse,

he hadn't told anyone where he was going.

For the next five days, Ralston tried
to move and chip away at the rock.

He ate his remaining food,
drank the last of his water,

eventually he drank his own urine,
and started videotaping his goodbyes.

But then something happened.

Ralston had a dream.

He saw himself as a father,
picking up his son,

and with that vision,

an overpowering will to survive kicked in.

He broke his arm bones,

sawed through his flesh with a dull pocket knife,

and freed himself.

Ralston harnessed some of our
most powerful psychological forces:

hunger, thirst, desire to be part of a family,
need to return to the human community.

They ignited his tenacity,

which allowed him to do an incredible thing.

He harnessed the power of motivation,
obviously in a big, big way.

♪ [ intro ] ♪

>In its most basic sense,

motivation is the need
or desire to do something,

whether that need is biological,
social, or emotional.

And whether that something
is making dinner, going to college,

or cutting off your arm,

motivation is what gets you moving.

The big question is, why?
Why do we do anything?

I mean, why ever bother
changing out of my sweatpants?

Psychologists often view motivation
in one or more of four ways.

On their own, none of these theories is perfect,

but taken together, they help us
understand what drives us.

Let's start with the first theory:
an evolutionary perspective.

For a while in the early 20th century,

it was popular to think of all behaviors
as instincts, or innate drives to act a certain way,

but this so-called "instinct theory" was misguided,

in part because the presence of a tendency

doesn't always mean it's supposed to be there.

Like, we can imagine why a bunch of people
might start rioting at a heated soccer match,

but to say that they're supposed to,
is a little short-sighted.

Evolution is a far more complex, chaotic,
and interesting process than that.

Plenty of behaviors could
just be accidents of evolution.

Late paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould

called these accidents "spandrels,"
or traits that, rather than being adaptive,

just stuck around as byproducts
of other processes.

Today we define instincts as
complex, unlearned behaviors

that have a fixed pattern throughout a species.

For example, dogs instinctively
shake their fur when wet,

salmon return to the stream
in which they hatched,

and human babies know how to
suckle just minutes after being born.

These are true, genetically predisposed
instincts that do not require learning.

But today we understand that while
certain tendencies may be genetic,

individual experience plays a major role
in behavior and motivation as well.

So another theory of motivation suggests

that a psychological need, or drive,
simply compels us to reduce that need.

This is called the drive-reduction theory.

This can be as simple as hearing my
stomach growl and looking for a burrito.

My need is food, my drive is hunger,
my drive-reduction behavior is burrito.

Drive reduction is all about
maintaining your body's homeostasis—

the balance of its physiological systems.

As much as we're pushed to reduce our drives,

we're also pulled along by incentives:

the positive or negative stimuli
that either entice or repel us.

The mouth-watering smell of
that burrito pulls me toward it,

just as much as my hunger pushes me there.

However, we're also clearly more complicated
than our homeostatic systems,

and drive-reduction theory may
oversimplify a lot of our behavior.

For example, a person may fast for days,

ignoring their body's hunger,

to honor some spiritual or political cause,

and I know I'm not the only one

who sometimes eats when
I'm not actually hungry.

So a third theory, the theory of optimal arousal,

attempts to fill in some of those gaps.

It suggests, rather than just reducing
a drive or tension like hunger,

we're motivated to maintain a balance
between stimulation and relaxation.

Say you're holed up in your
house all weekend studying.

You're bored and lonely and gettin' weird,

so you call up some friends to go
mountain biking or go to a karaoke bar

or whatever you like to do for stimulation.

The idea here is that you want
to hit the right level of arousal —

which, take note, psychologists
often use in a non-sexual sense —

without getting overstimulated and stressed.

So if you nearly break your face on that bike ride

or the Journey covers at karaoke
night start getting too intense,

you may need to back off and take a nap.

Of course, everyone has a different
level of optimal arousal,

and I'm guessing Aron Ralston's was fairly high.

Adrenaline junkies may jump out
of planes to hit their ideal level,

whereas others might be satiated by an
engaging book or a new knitting pattern.

No matter which, the optimal arousal theory

suggests that we're motivated
to avoid both boredom and stress.

And obviously, not all needs are created equally.

If I'm suffocating and can't catch a breath,

I'm not going to be thinking
about eating that burrito.

And if I'm about to be ravaged by lions,

I'm not going to worrying
about my next paycheck.

American psychologist Abraham Maslow

illustrated this shuffling of
priorities in the mid-1900s

with his famous hierarchy of needs.

Down at the bottom of the pyramid,

you'll find our most basic
physiological needs

for food, water, air, and moderate temperatures.

The next rung up speaks to our need for safety,

then comes love and belonging,
followed by esteem or respect,

and finally, once all those needs have been met,

we have the relative luxury of being
motivated by self-actualization

and spiritual growth and yoga retreats and stuff.

Of course there are problems with Maslow's vision.

Empirical research hasn't really supported his hierarchy.

We tend to skip around on
that pyramid all the time,

and the importance of those higher-level needs

may vary depending on our culture
and finances and personalities.

But still, everyone is restricted by
the lowest levels of the pyramid,

so regardless of theories about why we have them,

most schools of psychological thought

agree that we are driven by
at least three big motivators:

sex, hunger, and the need to belong.

We'll do a whole lesson later
on all sorts of sex-related stuff,

including how it motivates us.

(There's a lot there.)

For now, let's just say that sexual motivation
is how we promote the survival of our species

through recreation and/or procreation,

both of which help human
communities bond and expand.

Without it, none of us would be here today

thinking about burritos and
severed arms and sex and stuff.

Internally, we are biologically driven
to knock boots by our sex hormones.

We're also motivated by psychological
and sociocultural influences

ranging from suggestive external stimuli

plastered all over billboards, magazines, and TVs

in the form of, you know, like, scantily
clad bodies sprawled out on beaches

to more genteel desires like love and family

or adherence to personal, religious,
and cultural values.

Sex is a big motivator,
but it isn't precisely a need.

No matter what anyone has told you,
people do not die without it.

Hunger, though… After air and water,
food is our body's greatest need,

and thus, obtaining food is
one of our greatest motivations.

Hunger may seem pretty simple --
eat food, stay alive --

but physiologically and psychologically,

there is a lot going on,

and like so many things,
it starts in the brain.

The sensation of hunger usually begins
with a drop in your blood-sugar level.

Glucose is our body's primary source of energy,

and while you might not initially
feel a drop, your brain will.

Your hypothalamus monitors your blood chemistry

and responds to both high levels
of the "hunger hormone" ghrelin,

and low levels of glucose,

by triggering that feeling of hunger,
reminding you to eat something.

I am in fact experiencing it right now!

Once you've eaten that burrito,

your metabolism takes over,
converting that food into energy,

but while our physiological need for calories varies

depending on our body size and composition,

your gender, and your age,

our hunger is also shaped by our
psychology, culture, and mood.

And these factors don't just
rule WHEN we're hungry;

they also guide WHAT we're hungry for.

Biologically speaking, most humans
and many other animals

have a genetic taste for sweets and fatty foods

because they're typically high in energy,

but other taste preferences are conditioned

through experience and culture.

I may have an aversion to oysters
because they once made me sick,

and love gingerbread cookies because
my grandma used to make them.

Although popular in Cambodia,

I'm not too keen on eating fried tarantulas,

just as lots of folks around the world think
that the very idea of peanut butter is gross.

Still, the feeling of hunger affects us the same.

During World War II in the U.S.,

some conscientious objectors
volunteered for medical research

as an alternative way to serve their country.

Perhaps the most famous of these studies

was physiologist Ancel Keys'
Minnesota Hunger Experiment,

which measured the effects of semi-starvation
by partially starving its volunteers.

While ethically dubious, the experiment
was geared toward understanding

the many small and large effects of hunger,

which was plaguing Europe at the time.

The study started in 1944

by feeding 36 young, healthy men
a normal diet for 3 months,

then halving their caloric intake for 6 months,

then slowly rehabilitating them to
normal weight during the last 3 months.

They ate mostly wartime-foods like
root vegetables, bread, and pastas,

and were required to walk 22 miles

and participate in various work
and educational activities

for 40 hours each week.

The goal was to see a 25% drop in
body weight during the starvation period,

and, as you can imagine,
the changes were dramatic.

The men became gaunt and listless

and showed a decrease in strength,
heart rate, and body temperature.

But the psychological effects were
perhaps even more dramatic.

The men became totally obsessed with food.

They dreamed about it, talked about it
all the time, read cookbooks.

They lost interest in sex and
jokes and social activities.

They were irritable, anxious, and depressed.

In the end, they were all rehabilitated,

but the study gave us some understanding of

the devastating psychological
effects of starvation.

It also showed us something of the social effects

as men withdrew from one another
and isolated themselves.

As one fundamental need was frustrated,

these men experienced the decline
of another: the need to belong.

Humans are social animals.

Evolutionarily speaking, it's fair to say
that social bonding has helped us survive.

It's a tough world out there,

and we've got a lot better shot at thriving

if we're sharing resources and responsibilities,

protecting and supporting each other in groups.

That isn't say you need to be
joined at the hip with everyone;

our social needs have to be balanced with
our autonomy, or sense of personal control,

so we feel both connected and independent.

But sometimes we're denied that sense of belonging.

We've all experienced the pain

of being ignored ignored or rejected
at some point in our lives.

It's worse than just about anything.

The evidence for this is abundant.

One recent study suggested

that teenagers who had a sense
of belonging to their community

had better health and emotional outcomes
than those who didn't feel like they belonged.

Cultures all over the world

actually use ostracism, or social
exclusion, as a type of punishment.

Whether it's kids in time out, adults in exile,

or prisoners in solitary confinement,

separation feels like a punch in the gut.

Never underestimate the power
behind what motivates us.

The need to survive, the need to belong:

if you can harness that motivation,
you can do just about anything.

Just ask Aron Ralston.

If you were motivated to learn today,

hopefully you took in four theories
of motivation including

the evolutionary perspective,
drive-reduction, optimal arousal,

and Maslow's hierarchy of needs;

and how sex, hunger, and the
need to belong motivate us.

Thanks for watching,

especially to our Subbable subscribers
who make this whole channel possible.

If you'd like to sponsor
an episode of Crash Course

or even be animated into an upcoming episode,

just go to Subbable.com/CrashCourse.

This episode was written by Kathleen Yale,

edited by Blake de Pastino,

and our consultant is Dr. Ranjit Bhagwat.

Our director and editor is Nicholas Jenkins,

the script supervisor is Michael Aranda
(who is also our sound designer),

and the graphics team is Thought Cafe.

[END]