Understanding Human Motivation: What Makes People Tick?

Table of Contents:
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 12 RAGE . . . 210 Why Are People Aggressive? 211 Frustration 212 Negative affect 212 Retaliation 213 Aggression as Instinct 213 The “terrible twos” 213 Instrumental and Emotional Aggression 214 Experimental Methods 215 The Buss aggression apparatus 216 The effects of alcohol 218 Aggression in Everyday Life 220 Domestic violence 220 Road rage 222 Social cognition 223 Crowding 225 Three principal factors 226 Summary 228 Questions for discussion 229 13 . . . AND ARE WE PROVOKED TO VIOLENCE BY THE MEDIA? 230 Video Nasties 230 “Copycat” Murders 231 Boxing 234 The effect of watching a boxing match 235 Neighbor Disputes 236 Sympathetic motivation 237 Suicides 238 The Long-Term Effect of Television Violence 239 Summary 243 Questions for discussion 244 14 MONEY 245 Two ways to become rich 246 The Psychopathic Personality 247 Machiavellianism 248 The $10 game 249 The con game 250 Pawnbroking 252 Eye contact 253 Credibility when lying 253 Pyramid selling 256 Commissions for financial services 257 Questions for discussion 261 15 GAMBLING 262 The Prevalence of Gambling 262 Rationality 264 The estimation of probabilities 265 Blackjack 268 How gamblers play blackjack 269 Roulette 270 Betting systems 271 Luck 272 Personal view and camera view 274 Sales Promotions 276 Questions for discussion 277 16 HUMAN MOTIVATION: HOW DOES IT WORK? 278 Three Fundamental Ideas 278 Personal view and camera view 278 Quasi-mechanical behavior 279 Social conventions 280 How Does it All Work? 281 Hormones 282 References 284 Index 302

About the Author :
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).

Review :
"This new book on human motivation by Donald Laming represents a fresh look at an important area of psychology. The material is presented in the original idiom of real life stories in newspapers, which serve to illuminate classical controversies in social psychology. Although the book also has some novel theoretical insights, it should be particularly useful for students beginning in psychology." Trevor Robbins, University of Cambridge