Human behavior is one of the most complex phenomenon known to humans. Human personality, behavior and motivation are complex processes with a diversity of theoretical perspectives and interpretations that attempt to define each. Nonetheless, parts of the theories often overlap and there is no absolute theory that defines any of them completely. When it comes to human motivation theory the same applies. Motivation theory tries to define the forces that steer us in one direction as opposed to another. Motivation theory tries to access what is responsible for pushing us in a certain direction, typically the direction toward some need, interest or desire. In other words, motivation encompasses goal-directed behavior. While there are many different theories that try to explain human motivation, most of the theories can be grouped into two categories. The first category are those theories that primarily explain motivation as a mechanism of innate, biological forces. The second category comprises those theories that lean more heavily on a learned, social explanation of motivation. Not only are there diverse and overlapping theories to explain motivation, there are also diverse and overlapping definitions as demonstrated below:
We may define the study of motivation broadly as a search for determinants (all determinants) of human and animal activity.
Questions about motivation, then, are questions about the causes of specific actions. Why does this organism, this person or rat or chimpanzee, do this particular thing we see it do? The study of motivation is the search for principles that will help us understand why people and animals initiate, choose, or persist in, specific actions in specific circumstances.
Motivation has to do with why behavior gets started, is energized, is sustained, is directed, is stopped and what kind of subjective reaction is present in the organism when all this is going on.
This analysi...