Keywords:: PermanentNote makePublic
Reference:: A: A Behavior Model for Persuasive Design
Motivation is part of the Fogg Behavioral Model which describes what compels people to action. Motivation is our desire to do a particular behavior.
There are three main motivators: Sensation (Pain/Pleasure), Anticipation (Hope/Fear), Belonging (Social Acceptance/Rejection). Let's take them one by one.
Sensation (Pain/Pleasure). We seek pleasure and avoid pain in the here and now. It's a very primitive motivator. It resides in the short-term.
Belonging (Social acceptance/Social rejection). We want to be accepted in our community and avoid being rejected. It's likely that the fear of social rejection is so prevalent in us because, especially in the past, being ostracized from the group meant almost certain death.
Anticipation (Hope/Fear). Hope is the anticipation of something good happening. Fear is the anticipation of something bad, often a loss. It's basically pleasure/pain in the future. "Will this go as I have planned?" "I am afraid of taking this flue shot"
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Some elaborations and speculations.
All three motivators seem to be about the same thing: pleasure and pain. Sensation is pleasure/pain in the now; belonging is pleasure/pain in social situations; anticipation is pleasure/pain in the future.
It looks as if these three motivators were dimensions and pleasure/pain a spectrum metric (like in Google Analytics).
Furthermore, these motivators can reflect the development phases of our brains. First, we were simple organisms that just used sensation to navigate the world. Then, around the time we became mammals, social interaction became prevalent, so another motivation circuit—belonging—developed. Lastly, as the neo-cortex grew and we became able to imagine the future, a further motivator—anticipation—materialized.
Fogg's motivators seem to cover some of Maslow's needs (P: Maslow's Pyramid of Needs). Sensation seems to be very close to immediate physiological (and maybe to self-protection) needs and belonging similar to affiliation. Anticipation doesn't seem to have an obvious partner in Maslow's needs but it may be loosely related to status/esteem and mate acquisition. The reasoning is the following. Given that procreation is our primary motivator—we seem to be doing almost everything to increase our chances and quality of spreading our genes (mostly unconsciously)—we might be basing our hope and fear on whether our actions will grow prospects of successful mating? I don't know. I developed this thought here: P: Is everything really revolving around procreation?
Is motivation our drive? Is it unconscious? Not a deeply held value like from "Start with why" but rather a neurobiological mechanism that exists to compel us to action to survive? All these things—sensation, anticipation, belonging—are very primitive drives that existed and were crucial since the beginning of our species. That said, maybe they're indeed deep, mostly unconscious mechanisms over which we have little control? Actually, the newest research shows that our motivations are often unconscious (see reference).
Relevant notes (PN: )/questions (Q:):
I must determine what motivation really is and how it relates to the trigger from R: Hooked by Nir Eyal and to the Why from Start with why and to the Emotion from the ELMR and to the Maslov's Pyramid of Needs and so on. What Maslow and Fogg talk about seems to be psychological motivation, which isn't rationalized. Rather, it's biological and we're largely unconscious of it. The Why from Start with why reminds a more rational value statement coming from our conscious mind. (maybe that's the thing that lets us rise above our biological imperative—procreation—and do what we consciously want?) But now I recall that the why usually comes from emotions, which mostly are irrational. I don't know. Explore the question: can we rise above our biological imperative—procreation—and have true free will—i.e., not be unconsciously motivated by biology but choose, independently, what we want to pursue?
Or maybe, our intersubjectivity allows us to rise above biology?
Fogg determined three main motivators that increase our desire to perform a particular behavior: Sensation (Pain/Pleasure), Anticipation (Hope/Fear), and Belonging (Social Acceptance/Rejection). More on that here: P: Motivation (Fogg Behavioral Model)