Understanding Human Motivation is a lively presentation of how factors such as biological nature, instinct, past experience, and society determine what we do.
* Draws on many different domains of human behavior and links together many motivational factors such as fear, sex, consciousness, and rage.
* Illustrates the theoretical bases of motivation through real-life examples and case studies.
* Written in accessible manner for use in courses.
Autorentext
Donald Laming was formerly Senior Lecturer in the Department of Experimental Psychology at the University of Cambridge. He has written several previous books, Information Theory of Choice-Reaction Times (1968), Mathematical Psychology (1973), Sensory Analysis (1986), and The Measurement of Sensation (1997).
Klappentext
Understanding Human Motivation is a lively presentation of how factors such as biological nature, instinct, past experience, and society determine what we do. Donald Laming draws on laboratory experiments, social surveys, and a large and varied collection of anecdotes to explore the driving forces behind many different domains of human behavior, both individual and social. The book not only discusses such obvious topics as fear, sex, boredom, rage, and money, but also covers underlying issues such as free will, consciousness, the psychological basis of ethics, and the extent to which behavior is shaped by the society into which we are born and the people around us. The discussion is illustrated throughout by real-life examples that relate psychological theory to what people do in their everyday lives.
Zusammenfassung
Understanding Human Motivation is a lively presentation of how factors such as biological nature, instinct, past experience, and society determine what we do.
- Draws on many different domains of human behavior and links together many motivational factors such as fear, sex, consciousness, and rage.
- Illustrates the theoretical bases of motivation through real-life examples and case studies.
- Written in accessible manner for use in courses.
Inhalt
Preface and Acknowledgments xii
INTRODUCTION: THREE FUNDAMENTAL IDEAS 1
What is "Motivation"? 2
How Can We Study Human Motivation? 3
The use of anecdotal material 3
Three Fundamental Ideas 6
Quasi-mechanical behavior 6
Personal view and camera view 6
Social extrusion 7
Some omissions 8
The Plan of this Book 9
Questions for discussion 10
1 DETERMINISM AND FREE WILL 11
Determinism 12
Psychological theory treats behavior as determinate 13
Free Will 14
Questions for discussion 20
2 TERROR 21
The Origins of Fear 23
Components of Fear 25
Two stages in the genesis of fear 27
Fear as Instinct 30
Pathological fear 32
The Experience of Fear 33
Companionship 33
Military combat 34
Being in control 34
Training and skill 35
The Persistence of Fear 35
The persistence of memory 35
Recurrence of fear 36
Questions for discussion 37
3 SEX 38
Personal View and Camera View 40
Which view - personal view or camera view? 42
Lay psychology 43
Sexual Behavior is Quasi-Mechanical 45
"Mechanical" 45
"Substantially mechanical" 46
Acquisition of patterns of sexual behavior 47
The pleasure principle 49
Some Questions about Sexual Behavior 51
1 What are the extraneous signals which trigger sexual behavior? 51
2 What other signals or social constraints act to modify sexual behavior? 52
3 What about the intense feelings that accompany sexual activity? 53
4 What has this to do with the survival of the species? 54
5 What about the variation in sexual behavior from one adult to another? 56
6 Does sexual behavior have to match between male and female? 56
7 How much of our sexual behavior is innate and how much acquired?
4 CONSCIOUSNESS 60
Two Views of What People Do 61
The Meaning of "Consciousness" 62
Philosophical inquiry into consciousness 64
The neural signature of consciousness 65
Personal view and camera view 67
The Relationship of Subjective Experience to Objective Observation 69
The split brain 75
Why is consciousness important to the study of motivation? 79
Questions for discussion 80
5 BOREDOM 81
The Political Background 82
"Brainwashing" 83
Sensory Deprivation 84
Hallucinations 85
Disturbances of perception 92
Cognitive deficits 94
What does it all signify? 96
Boredom 96
Boredom at work 97
Leisure activities 97
Questions for discussion 102
6 SOCIAL CONVENTIONS 103
Milgram's Experiments 104
Proximity of teacher and pupil 104
What is going on? 106
Relaxation of the conflict 108
The importance of social structure 109
Social Conventions 111
Social conventions are different in different societies 113
Social conventions also differ between subgroups within the one society 116
Understanding Milgram's Results 117
Military obedience 119
The Stanford County Prison Experiment 120
Questions for discussion 123
7 THE RATE FOR THE JOB 124
How Much Do Different People Earn? 124
1 People doing the same job get paid the same (irrespective of how well they do it), unless, sometimes, they happen to be women 125
2 Those people closest to the money are paid the most 125
3 If someone can earn more by negotiating a private deal, well, good luck to her or him 128
Boardroom pay 130
MPs' financial interests 134
What has this chapter really been about? 137
Questions for discussion 139
8 LONELINESS 140
The Experience of Being Alone 140
Applications of research into social isolation 143
"Brainwashing" 144
Feral Children 147
What may we conclude from the attempted rehabilitation of these three children? 151
Conclusions on Social Isolation 153
Questions for discussion 155
9 THE MORAL SANCTION 156
The Moral Sanction 157
An experimental study of extrusion 157
Whistleblowers 159
Examples from the wider society 162
Some Interim Conclusions on Extrusion 167
1 Extrusion is spontaneous 167
2 Moral constraints are subconscious 169
3 The sanction of extrusion is powerful 171
4 The underclass 171
Questions for discussion 173
10 PEER PRESSURE 174
Social Conformity 174
Informational and Normative Influences 177
Informational influence 178
Normative influence 179
Group cohesiveness 180
What Happens if the Majority is Not Unanimous? 181
Inversion of majority and minority 184
How Large Does the Majority Have to Be? 185
Individual differences between participants 186
Interrogation by the police 188
Summary 192
Questions for discussion 194
11 THE CROWD 195
The Problem 195
The flashpoint 196
"Group mind" 197
The random evolution of crowd behavior 197
1 Social Attitudes, Standards, Conventions Evolve 197
2 Social Conventions Can Evolve Rapidly 198
3 The Evolution of Social Conventions is Essentially Random 202
Rumor 202
Public protest 203
4 The Likelihood of Disorder, of Riot, Depends on the Crowd's Reason for Being 205
5 The Likelihood of Disorder, of Riot, also Depends on the Social Setting 207
Summary 209
Questions for discussion 209
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