Unconscious motivation
According to certain psychologists, a considerable part of human behavior is stimulated and driven by unconscious motives. Maslow states that Psychoanalysis has often revealed that there need not be any direct connection at all between a conscious desire and the eventual unconscious aim underlying it. To put it differently, affirmed motives do not always conform to those deduced by proficient observers. For instance, a person can possibly be accident-prone because of his unconscious desire to injure himself and not because of being careless or unaware of the safety rules. Likewise, some obese people are not actually hungry for food but for attention and love. Eating is only a self-protective response to lack of attention.
Certain workers damage more equipment compared to others due to their unconscious feelings of antagonism toward influential figures.
According to Psychotherapists, certain behavior is so involuntary that no reasons are available for it in the individual's conscious mind. Compulsive cigarette smokings can be taken as an example of this.
When a motive for an action becomes overpowering, it might become disguised or repressed. Rationalization or “explaining away” is one such disguise or defense mechanism. Blaming others for one’s own faults is another instance and “I feel I am to blame” then becomes “It is her fault, she is selfish.”
Subjugating motives that are powerful, yet not accepted in society can result in behavior that is antithetical to the repressed tendencies. For example, an employee who hates his boss may overwork himself in office simply to make his boss realize that he holds him in high esteem and thus carve his own promotions.
The presence of unconscious motives makes it difficult to interpret human behavior. Yet the awareness that they do exist makes studying of behavioral patterns careful and thorough.
The existence of unconscious motivation is dispelled by many psychologists who feel that such motivation is given way to only when one is in anxiety or in stress. They are of the opinion that human behavior, from the perspective of the subject or the one who is exhibiting the behavioral pattern is always based on a rational and logical base.
There are quite a few different approaches of motivation training through which motivation can be controlled. However, most of these are considered to be pseudoscientific by critics.
The first step in understanding how to control motivation involves the process of trying to find out why many people lack motivation in the first place.
Modern research has proved that emotional programming is predominantly defined in childhood. According to research done by Harold Chugani, Medical Director of the PET Clinic at the Children's Hospital of Michigan and professor of pediatrics, neurology and radiology at Wayne State University School of Medicine, a child's brain is better equipped to consume new information than adults. The capacity to store new information can be linked to emotions. Brain activity in the cortical regions is about twice as high in children as in adults from the third to the ninth year of life. However, after that, it starts declining, as a child starts moving towards adulthood. In the ninth year, brain volume is already about 95% of adult levels.