Specifying the concept of motivation
Parables and Illustrations for Values Education |
It is difficult to get a definition, a concept or a homogeneous criteria that agreement multidisciplinary different versions about the motivation. Moreover, trying to cover them all would be an endless task. Rarely a first approximation, we will build on Josef Cohén.
The term motivation James Mili introduced him at the beginning of the 19th century: "develops a peculiar state that, as it is a tendency to action, is properly called"motive". For his part, Emmanuel Kant called "will" to this concept, the last of the three main psychological categories; the other two were the knowledge (cognition) and feeling (emotion).
Psychologists, says Cohen, currently classified motifs in primary and secondary. The primary reasons are always inborn and physiological (such as hunger and thirst) basis. The reasons side (like the trend to the social domain or drug use) are not directly necessary for the preservation of the individual or the continuation of the species and are classified as social and personal. Social motives are relatively dependent on social groups and social dynamics; personal motives, on the other hand, are relatively independent of the social groups and social dynamics.
After approaching different theoretical approaches, concepts of the Colombian consultant Fernando Toro Álvarez lead us to an enunciation of scientific and practical at the same time. Professor Toro Álvarez says in one of his writings:
The motivation is that aspect of the personal reality that moves us, that print orientation and energy to the desires and intentions of man to the point do so to act in the direction of their achievement and accomplishment. As the occupational performance of people does not occur by instinctive automatisms, like lower animals, there are always determinants that are under voluntary control of persons and, almost always, under his conscious control. These immediate and direct determinants include the knowledge, skills, and motivation. They are related among themselves in the process of determining performance.
And adds: the motivation may explain the reason why the man has managed to go into space, investigate molecules and atoms, build amazing machines and intervene in complex biological processes around life. The magnitude of that reality can not be explained by common sense judgements, "we need to get to know what explains the performance of man if you want to influence it wisely and at the height of its almost infinite potential to learn, create, and transform the reality that surrounds it".
With these statements, Toro Álvarez confront us with the fact that we can not reduce the concept of motivation to a purely utilitarian matter such as this: How do people to work me more, cheaper and with less rotation?
In the background which seek, as humanists of the management, is to prevent that human work will be reduced to the simple exchange of goods.
This that shows whether a person is or is not motivated, is the high level of energy and commitment exhibited in a given activity. Motivation produces effect the performance of that person in any activity.