Analysis of motivation and its basic theories

Abstract

The course that behaviour takes is a function of the person’s essential needs, goals, wants, personality etc. There is a general consensus that motivation is goal directed, outlines the achievement and pursuit of goals and that motivation in environmentally dependent. Motivation causes the initiation, direction, intensity and persistence of behaviour. In that respect motivation involve the biological, emotional, social, and cognitive forces that activate behaviour. In our review, we look into goal-directed behaviour aspect of motivation. In that respect, there are two basic approaches to explaining motivation as goal directed behaviour. Achievement motivation (AM) theory and the attribution theory (AT). We will examine achievement motivation and attribution motivation apart, mainly because their theoretical constructs are dissimilar. We can conclude that motivation is multifactorial in nature and heading to the maintenance of a state of physiological and psychological homeostasis.