CHAPTER LXII 



Drive and motivation 



ELIOT STELLAR 1 



Institute of Neurological Sciences, University of Pennsylvania 

 Medical School, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 



CHAPTER CONTENTS 



Classical Instinct Doctrine 



Cannon's Local Theories 



Homeostasis and Self-Regulatory Behavior 



Multifactor Central Neural Theory 



Behavioral Definition of Motivation 



Need 



Drive 



Goal 



Goal-Directed Behavior 



Satiation 



Motivated Behavior 

 Behavioral Measures of Motivation 



General Activity 



Consummatory Behavior 



Obstruction Method 



Choice, Preference and Competition Among Drives 



Learning and Learned Performance 



Summary 

 The Neurophysiology of Motivation 



Diencephalic Mechanisms 



Other Central Mechanisms 



Sensory Factors 



Internal Environment Factors 



Interaction of Factors 



The Role of Learning 

 Conclusions 



concerned themselves with the basic question in 

 motivation by trying to explain the arousal and 

 selective direction of behavior; but their use of theo- 

 logical, teleological and vitalistic conceptions of the 

 'forces' operative in behavior threw the whole question 

 of motivation into scientific disrepute. Such was the 

 Zeitgeist 30 years ago, for example, that Boring was 

 able to write .1 History oj Experimental Psychology (25) 

 in i()2(j without mention of motivation. It is now 

 possible, however, to look back over history and 

 trace the lines of development of modern approaches 

 to motivation through the contributions of the stu- 

 dents of instinct, the experimental physiologists and 

 the physiological psychologists. What emerges is an 

 historical process showing a) a gradual replacement 

 of imaginary, explanatory 'forces' by objective, 

 operational definitions of motivated behavior, and 

 b) a shift of physiological emphasis from peripheral 

 sensors and hormonal mechanisms to the central 

 neurophysiologic.il mechanisms underlying motiva- 

 tion. 



CLASSICAL INSTINCT DOCTRINE 



the notion that behavior is motivated and that 

 the scientific study of motivation might be a profit- 

 able approach to the understanding of behavior arose 

 only recently in the history of experimental psy- 

 chology. From the earliest times, the philosophers 



1 This chapter was written while the author held National 

 Science Foundation Grant G-1372 for the study of phys- 

 iological mechanisms of motivated behavior. Thanks are 

 due to Dr. J. M. Spraguc and Dr. Alan Epstein for their 

 helpful comments on the manuscript. 



The earliest scientific thinking about motivation 

 developed with the instinct doctrine. [Beach (19) 

 may be consulted for a recent critical history of 

 instinct.] Unfortunately, much of the idea of motiva- 

 tion was lost in the philosophical effort to maintain 

 the view of man as a unique and free creature of 

 reason and, by sharp distinction, to relegate animal 

 to the control of nature's predetermined instinctive- 

 forces. Not until Darwin's emphasis of the role of 

 adaptive behavior in evolutionary survival did the 

 instinct doctrine begin to receive full scientific atten- 



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