Saturday, April 12, 2014

Perhaps one of most reoccurring question of the day would be what motivates someone to do something? A person goes to a kindergarden school and murders the kids in the school, which is most definitely obscene but the question behind this and much of the research and investigation that will be done after the incident would be regarding his motivation. Therefore human motivation still is a mystery to mankind. Well to kickstart us off, here is a TED talk by Dan Ariely that talks about the essentials of human motivation.



What truly motivates us is not the comfort we will pursue after getting money but it is the action itself. Humans are different from rats by a great deal more literally and also in the mind set aspect. We strive to do things as an facet of accomplishment and achievement. Motivation is perhaps a great factor in our actions and when disregarded brings about adversely negative effects such as the lack of interest in the action itself. This was shown with a series of experiment that was seen in the TED talk. Here is another TED talk that talks about human motivation from a slightly different perspective.



Human being pursue and do actions of self interest that bring about an act of self gain and accomplishment but thats not all to the way people operate and function, cause if that were the case free open source maintained websites like wikipedia would not have bore fruit. Another aspect that motivates us human beings essentially is the fact that emotions play a huge role in everything we do. We do certain things to feel certain ways and like the TED talk explains humans are always seeking to discover greater excitement and essentially the purpose to live is to give back to  the community. Robinson talks about the six needs that we humans strive to complete and full fill and there are some reason for human motivation. So back to the situation, what motivates a person to slaughter the kid? What our of the six needs that we were trying to full fill. Was it certainty, uncertainty, significance, connection, growth or contribution. Some of the option maybe significantly wrong but are always worth considering.

If motivation is from a point of self interest but also from a  point of emotion based actions then how do human incentives work. Yet another TED talk about human incentives and the puzzle of motivation and i do realise it might be a bit to much but this just is fascinating.



There isn't much to say after a TED talk, if anything most of it would essentially just be recounting the idea of the TED talk cause they are just so self-explanatory but essentially human incentives also don't work as humans intended them too, money doesn't always drive thought processes neither does it drive the efficiency of the work results which then goes back to the first TED talk people aren't rats, just cause there is more money doesn't make the work any easier and doesn't make the thinking any better if anything it hinders thinking and blocks the vision of success.

So is motivation coherent or is it this intangible moving force? To boil it down people do certain actions either because of self interest and personal gain, but also with a certain love for the action, or out of an emotional obligation to give back to the community. People are motivated by their actions, their work, their success and their achievements and external things such as money may motivate them to a certain point but overall would dampen their work process. 
 

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