Why do we see some people better motivated compared to others? It is a bit hard to get a clear picture when it comes to Motivation in human beings. That is because it depends on a number of individual and social factors. Individual factors may include a person’s needs, attitudes, abilities, and goals. Social factors may include the type of employment a person may have and the remuneration on it, financial stability, and praise, among others. Several theories have been introduced on how to better explain what human motivation may be and how it may occur. It has been divided into two main explanations. They are content and process.
The content theory can also be divided further as needs and reinforcement. The explanation on needs is the indication that the behavior of humans is usually powered by internal stimulations. However, reinforcement explains the behavior of humans to be based on factors that can be controlled such as punishment or rewards.
How to motivate yourself
Although the content theory is based on internal or external causes of human behavior, the process theory attempts to provide an explanation on why people are moved to make choices based on motivation. This can further be explained by dividing it into four more topics which are perpetuity, expectancy, quiddity and discrepancy.
Expectancy is identified as the most important out of the four. It explains how and why people are pushed to motivational choices. This explains that most people make different choices depending on the value of the reward they get, the relationship it has to performance, and the ability to get the job completed. It also is assumed that human beings are very rational when it comes to maximizing the profit they get when they are directed towards a goal. They will therefore evaluate the outcome of the options to select the one that promises them maximum results.
People most often are found to take motivational decisions by looking at the angle of the relationship their requirements have with the rewards they get for doing something. If they feel that they may not be able to fulfill their requirements with the reward they get for something, they will not get motivated enough of they might even get demotivated towards the task. Motivation will increase generally if the take these relationships to their favor. People can select what motivates them by comparing the prospective rewards to their needs and if they find it in their favor, they will be motivated enough to complete that what will be assigned to them. It is often seen in organizations where employees are motivated by offerings such as salary increments, annual bonuses, incentives for productivity and so on. The management will be able to decide the satisfaction of employees by assessing the total output compared to the work done by their employees. We are able to derive several principals through these instances.
The comparison of rewards to people’s needs, the suitability of the rewards for the performance of people who choose to be motivated towards that cause, and people having suitable goals that they may motivate themselves towards achievement. The expectancy can be increased through performing of tasks by the adopting of the above principals easily and in turn will be useful in finding out what is it that motivates you the most.
