On Motivation

[chris_gerrib]

Over on John Scalzi's site, they’re having a flame-war over why trying to shame poor people for being poor is a bad idea. On this site, a full bodied woman wonders why “skinny bitches” have the gall to ask her how she can stand to be fat. And on more sites then I care to count, various and numerous arguments about the pros and cons of torturing people rage on.

What’s the common thread? Motivation. I submit that some (many?) people have difficulty understanding 1) what motivates people and 2) the limits of motivation. Let’s discuss.

What motivates people? The short answer is “it depends.” Different folks respond to different things or motivators. Try shaming a stripper, or those idiots “stars” in reality TV shows. Not only do different people have different motivators, but these change over time. Many people went through a phase where “it’ll piss off my parents” was a wonderful motivator.

A corollary to what motivators will work is understanding how the person to be motivated will respond. The “skinny bitch” in the first paragraph assumed that her fat “friend” would respond with some variant of “I’m sorry, I’ll do better.” Instead, Ms. Full Figured came back with an insult. Instead of shame, Skinny Bitch got anger.

What are the limits of motivation? For motivation to work, the person being motivated must have ability. You can strap a nuclear bomb to my ass, but I’ll never be able to dance the lead ballerina role in Swan Lake. I’ll try real hard, but the results are not going to be forthcoming. Waterboard me until I drown, but I have no idea where Bin Laden is. I’m sure I’ll tell you something – but random chance excepting, it won’t be right.

We sometimes assume people have the ability to control things, but they don’t, or don’t know it. Skinny Bitch assumed Ms. Full Figured could loose weight. Either Full Figured can’t or doesn’t know she can. Either way, snide comments aren’t going to help.

These same failures to understand motivation are not just problems in individual interactions. Failure to understand how real people respond to stimuli has led to any number of collapsed utopian schemes and ill-fated political philosophies. Thus endeth the lesson.

Comments

[e-moon60.livejournal.com]

Understanding the complexities of motivation is also necessary for writing good fiction. The more a writer is aware of the way that experience (including cultural values/biases/etc.) shape motivation, the more complex and interesting that writer's characters can be, and the easily character and plot will intertwine.

Of course, in the day-to-day practical sense, understanding motivation would prevent many difficulties, internal and interpersonal. Imputed motives are often wrong ("He said that because he's jealous of my success!" "They don't like me because they're bigoted.")

In my experience, the simplistic motivations found in psychology books are only the barest beginning...motivations are often mixed--the ultimate action's vector is comprised of the sum or sometimes product of multiple motivational vectors. (Why am I writing this comment at this moment? Among other things, three "got to do it now" chores have crashed into one another and produced immobility--equal urgency, equal "weight"...I can't decide which comes first or even estimate how long each might take. An earlier, quick chore put me at the computer; that's completed; I'm here, this doesn't involve going anywhere or getting up, so...it took very little "push" of interest to make this an escape gate.)

[chris-gerrib.livejournal.com]

Thanks for stopping by. BTW, I just finished Victory Conditions last night, and enjoyed it immensely.