Society exerts extreme pressures on people to act in specific ways whether or not they believe in the righteousness of their actions; many people act how society suggests they should in order to avoid punishment and judgement. A man chastises the Gossips for their lowly reasons for proper behavior: “’Is there no virtue in a woman, save what springs from a wholesome fear of the gallows?’” (Hawthorne 39). The women fear the death and punishment which the Puritan Society they live in threatens, and allow such threats to dictate the way they act. When people carry out actions simply to avoid punishment or gain rewards and recognition, their selfish motivations take away from their noble deeds. The mind and personal motivations must work in harmony in order for an individual to truly act in a highly moral way. Both specific, well thought out motivations for why an action exists as the right choice, along with the outward action itself must occur in order for one to achieve higher levels of morality. The fears of judgment, public punishment, and both physical and mental injury can cause people to simply act out of basic instincts and through egocentric motivations. Lawrence Kohlberg defines his early stages of moral development by simplicity of decision-making, and a fixation on punishment and reward: “The physical consequences of action determine its goodness or badness regardless of the human meaning or value of these consequences” (Kohlberg n.p.). In the early, pre-conventional
Lawrence Kohlberg, a developmental psychologist, identified six developmental stages of human moral reasoning. The first stage that he recognized was the Punishment-Obedience Orientation, where the person’s concern is for avoiding punishment through obedience. The second stage was the Instrumental Relativist Orientation, where the person’s concern is to work in their self interest, and better their position. The third stage of moral development was the Good Boy-Nice Girl Orientation, where the person’s concern lies with their reputation. Next was the Law And Order Orientation, where the person was less concerned with their own immediate well being to the maintenance of a larger society. The fifth stage was the Social Contract
As you may have heard, Mr. Swift has made a very modest proposal about what to do with the situation of starvation among adults. Mr. Swift has proposed that after a year of a child's birth, they be eaten if the family wishes. I, being a mother of a baby, currently, could not approve of this proposal more. Me and my husband together, concur, this will allow us to not go hungry, but also fulfill our wish to have another baby. We've always wanted more kids, but we only desire a baby. We don't want them after they have grown older. We already have an older son. Now, with this proposal, we won't go hungry and we can stay full for months on end and all I must do is push out a baby. No big deal.
Another thing that makes people to easily choose doing evil and leave good is desire. Sometimes people may go for evil than good in order to fulfill their desires. This term ‘desire’ is used to explain what one wishes to be or to do. Human beings find it easier to do evil than good in order to satisfy their wishes. Every man or woman desires to live in his or her own particular way of living and does everything in order to achieve his or her wishes. For example, two kinds of people in the society, that is to say, the prominent figures in the society as well as the ordinary or the poor people may choose the evil ways to fulfill their desires. People may use corruption to achieve whatever they plan to do. In this case for example, world activities provide setting in which one is required to exhibit moral goodness but the actual content of these activities have no intrinsic value. Some scholars indicate that, the fulfillment of one’s duty may have beneficial consequences for one self and others
The Origins of Morality: How Nature, Nurture, and Especially Free Will Influence One’s Moral Framework
“The Mystery of Motivation” appeared in the January-February 2017 article written by Gary Drevitch, who is a senior editor for Psychology Today. Drevitch a Yale graduate, currently resides in New York City with his wife and three kids. His previous work includes senior editor at PBS, Time Inc., Scholastic and Parade Publications, and is the former editor-in-chief of Grandparents.com and an AOL blogger on weight loss and nutrition.
Friedrich Nietzsche’s “On the Genealogy of Morality” includes his theory on man’s development of “bad conscience.” Nietzsche believes that when transitioning from a free-roaming individual to a member of a community, man had to suppress his “will to power,” his natural “instinct of freedom”(59). The governing community threatened its members with punishment for violation of its laws, its “morality of customs,” thereby creating a uniform and predictable man (36). With fear of punishment curtailing his behavior, man was no longer allowed the freedom to indulge his every instinct. He turned his aggressive focus inward, became ashamed of his natural animal instincts, judged himself as inherently evil, and developed a bad conscience (46).
Romer, David. “Misconceptions and Political Outcomes.” Economic Journals, Royal Economic Society, vol. 113(484), pages 1-20, January 2003
Human motivation is a physiological drive that we all have inside ourselves. There is no way to completely avoid it. Some drives we have are for basic necessities of survival, like the feelings of thirst and hunger. Obviously we must give into the drive that our body is signaling to us we must have because food and water are essential for us to live. When our behavior is directed by means of survival this is something known as homeostasis. “According to drive theory, the body maintains a condition of homeostasis, in which any particular system is in balance or equilibrium (C.L. Hull, 1951). Any departure from homeostasis, such as depletion of nutrients or a drop in temperature, produces an aroused condition, or drive, which impels the individual to engage in appropriate action such as eating, drinking, or seeking warmth. As the body’s need is met, the drive and associated arousal subside.” (Garrett, pg. 161)
The MBTI (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator) has given me insightful information over 4 different dichotomies: 1)Where I focus my attention 2) How I take in information 3) How I make decisions based on the information and 4) How I deal with the world. After completing the assessment, I was dubbed ‘INTJ’. This being 9% Introvert, 38% iNtuitive, 3% Thinking, and 31% Judging. To my surprise, after reading the detailed report, I found most of the information presented, to be ‘spot on’. According to the Center for Confidence and Well-Being, “Of all the personality types, INTJs are most motivated by “vision”. They have a great need to come up with a unifying idea of a future, improved state, which is then their job to realize. This inner vision can be so strong for INTJs and so individual that they are often reckoned to be the most independent-minded of all the types” (Craig, C., 2014). This provided me with great validation that I have been lucky enough to find myself in the right career. Currently, I am the interim Director of Quality at an acute care hospital in San Diego. Daily, myself and my team are looking for ways to improve hospital processes, systems, and relationships. Always striving for a future vision or ‘ideal state’ of how we would like to see our organization functioning to better serve our community. Many people have told me that they could ‘not do what I do’ simply because of the data collecting, analyzing, reporting, and
Neuroscience and psychology seem to have been working together to try to understand how and why certain behaviors transpire in a person’s personality, and what makes or motivates a person to do the things they do. One of the most analyzed wonders that mark motivation, the thought developments, and the social interaction, is the analysis of drug obsession. Through advance forms of scanning the brain with imaging equipment like positron emission tomography (PET) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) have advanced the knowledge of drug addiction and how the brain is affected (Volkow, Fowler, & Wang, 2003,para 2). This paper will examine the brain structures and functions, the influence of
The human mind is designed with the innate ability to achieve anything. The interesting part of this paper is how we all use different triggers and motivations to goad us into gear. Motivation is an area of psychology that has gotten a great deal of attention, especially in the recent years. There are several distinct theories of motivation we will discuss in this section. Some include basic biological forces, while others seem to transcend concrete explanation. All creatures are born with specific innate knowledge about how to survive. Animals are born with the capacity and often times knowledge of how to survive by spinning webs, building nests, avoiding danger, and reproducing. These innate tendencies are preprogrammed at birth,
One might contemplate an aspect to life may be the pondering existential question; what motivates people to do what they do? The human experience is exceptionally complex due to different variables attributing to our individual experiences. Though each person 's experience is particularly unique to themselves, as a general phenomenon, people seem to have some similarities in experience that bring us together as a bonding universal community. Through many different theoretical lenses, we can look through the study of psychology of how motivation contributes to human behavior of why people do what they do.
Over the past years different theories on motivation have been developed. These theories reach different conclusions on what motivate employees in their workplace. Job satisfaction, motivation, and reward systems are included in one area of organizational theory. A review of the classical literature on motivation reveals four major theory areas:
Morality is an important component of a human being because it helps shape the ethical foundation that every human being has. Whether to be good, evil, honest, or deceitful are just some of the traits morality helps us develop. Thus, it is evident that morality is a crucial component of a human being. However, what ultimately drives moral action? This question is debated and investigated against many philosophers, a few of them being Thomas Hobbes, Frans de Waal, and David Hume.
Motivation is one of the most discussed topics in the present era’s organisations, especially since renowned psychologists like Maslow and Herzberg are dedicating their efforts to understanding it. Companies are investing a significant amount of resources in improving productivity in order to maximise profits. One of these important resources is of human nature. In order to get the very best out of employees, some motivational approaches need to be used. But what is motivation and how do I successfully motivate? I will try to relate one of my personal experiences with a friend to some of the most influential motivational theories. After introducing my story and making a definition of motivation I will address the ideas of Taylor,