Read Between The Lines

Picture Courtesy: BrandCrowd

"THE MOTIVE POWER IS THE CAUSE OF ALL LIFE"

Leonardo Da Vinci

Our reason for doing something is our motive. The word comes from the Latin word motivus meaning moving, and movere, meaning to move. Think of motive as the thing that moves you to act. In psychology, motive is an innate, biologically determined urge to attain a goal or satisfy a need. Its also called motive-a state arousal that influences how we behave.

But its an intervening variable between stimulus and response and cannot be directly observed. For example, if you see someone buying food in a shop, you may come to the conclusion that they are hungry. However, this person could just as easily be buying food for their friend. Which means that understanding the true motive can be very difficult and prone to error since we are not directly experiencing their motive for ourselves.

The idea of this article struck me when my husband and daughter were in a discussion about what she wants to do with amassing the academic qualification that she has for the past 17 years of her life. She tried her best to explain her point of view that vacillated between idealism, philosophy and political correctness. Neither of it was understood by her hardcore realist father. She continued to dig her own grave by trying to match his realism for the sake of convincing him - a pointless exercise because a leopard can’t change its spots. I am sure you can guess the outcome of this discussion. She felt unsettled and he was seemingly calm and went off to sleep. She mulled all night over their not-so-productive tete-a-tete and pounced on him with another logical explanation to convince him of her point of view. He poked more holes in her case at breakfast. By this time, I was exhausted and thought, "Alas! If only they could understand each other’s motives."

It was clear to me that my daughter’s motive was to display her “liberal” thinking in an attempt to assert her beliefs. But I was unsure of my husband’s motive to repeatedly negate my daughter’s opinions. Because, motives are hard to figure out since they are seldom direct as shown in the example above about a person shopping for food. So I asked him and his answer was, “To push her into setting realistic goals.” Whoa!! I didn’t see that coming and I am sure neither did my daughter.

And that is the genesis of my curiosity and the two things that struck me were: 1. How do you convince someone of your point of view? And 2. What is the motive behind people’s responses and actions? I will talk about one in my next article. But for now, lets focus on the motives that drive people.

If you think about it, we thrive on motive. Social rank, reputation, envy, power, love, work, service, security, fear, thrill, escape to name a few but almost every action we take is driven by an underlying motive. Therefore, to understand the world and yourself it is important to develop the ability to recognize the reason that drives a person.

My daughter would probably feel less unsettled and irritated if she could get to the heart of her father’s rationale, instead of simply defending her point of view, like a batsman caught off-guard by a bouncer, flipper and a googly in a single over. (She was a good cricketer in her school days) On the other hand, my husband would probably feel less frustrated if he could understand his daughter’s reasoning. Their discussion would be so much more productive if only they could see that thoughts contain information about what is important to each of them, and in that way, they are an expression of our needs.

Through my research I discovered that motives are biological, social/acquired and personal. We are all familiar with hunger, sleep, thirst, pain, temperature and sex drives. These are biological motives. Social motives are specific to human beings, unlike biological motives that pertain to animals and humans. Achievement, Power, Acquisitive and Curiosity are a few social or acquired motives. And finally personal motives can be described as habit, goals, aspirations and interests. And no psychological research is ever complete without the great Signmund Freud, who posited that some motives are unconscious. They are repressed motives that influence our behavior, for example, the slip of tongue, amnesia or somnambulism.

In the example above, it is the acquired motive that is significant because this motive is what affects our interaction with other people. And according to McClelland, there are essentially three:

THE NEED FOR POWER in the sense of influencing or impacting other people. One is selfish, ego-centered power, without caring whether the impact is good or bad-the kind displayed by narcissists. The other is a socially beneficial power, where you take pleasure in influencing people for the better or for the common good.

THE NEED TO AFFILIATE is taking pleasure in being with people. Those who are high in this affiliation motive, for instance, are motivated by the sheer pleasure of doing things together with people they like. Great team members may be driven by the affiliation motive.

THE NEED FOR ACHIEVEMENT is about reaching toward a meaningful goal. Those high in this need love to keep score or get feedback on how they are doing whether it means just hitting their numbers for a quarterly target or raising millions for a charity. And no matter how good they today, they are always trying to do better.

With this understanding, I can safely conclude that her father was driven by his need to influence her for her own professional and personal growth. He was consciously challenging her ideas with one aim-to have a definite goal and channelize her energy to take action to fulfill that goal. And she was driven to express her individuality as a mark of achievement in an otherwise dominant-submissive relationship between a parent and a child. Having figured this out, I am wondering, what is the big deal about understanding the motives of others and why it’s important? There are multiples reasons.

We are social animals, surrounded by people and situations that affect us. For example, any reputable business man will tell you, understand the person’s motives on the other side of the table helps you better negotiate a deal with them or you will be better able to deflect aggression or be firm and direct.

Understanding another person’s beliefs, feelings, experiences and intentions will allow you to move flexibly between your own perspectives and another. This helps putting yourself in someone else’s shoes, empathizing over judging. For example, if a friend has been acting weird for a while and you express your concern, you will get a favorable response. As opposed to bitching about them in your own head and ending the friendship.

It helps in staying unemotional and see people for who they are as opposed to who they want you to think that they are. Which means that the less people can manipulate your emotions and your perception of them, the greater control you have over yourself and outcomes around you. For example, a parent who chooses to never be happy and content ensures that you go out of your way to please them. It works the other way around too that means you are less likely to take things personally, when you understand that people’s opinion about you is not a fact but an opinion based in their innate motive.

Now that we know the benefits, lets try and understand how we can try to know why someone does what they do? According to Scot Berkun, here are three ways to know other people’s motives:

ASK THEM

It doesn’t have to be a confrontation but a sophisticated way of questioning. For example, “thanks for helping me with my presentation, but I am curious, why are you helping me?” Their response will give you more data to consider their motives than the actions they take alone.

EXERCISE YOUR JUDGEMENT

And new experience can be compared to a past one that is similar. Questions like, “why this person is behaving in this way?” or “what reputation have they earned with me in the past that I can put this recent act into context with?” These comparisons will help you engage with your inner judgment.

USE THE JUDGEMENT OF OTHERS Ask someone you trust, for his or her opinion and can perhaps they can share an insight.

I don’t mean to suggest that you should never take people’s words at face value. People are often quite straightforward. But it’s OK to be open to the occasional possibility that they might be communicating to us in more than one way. Especially when we find ourselves in a difficult situation. For example, rather than getting upset when a spouse displays resistant or awkward behavior, try to be objective and look for the need the behavior is blindly trying to meet. If you can somehow help your spouse feel that their need for power or affiliation or achievement has been adequately met, then you can achieve greater success in your marriage.

So the next time when someone you care about is behaving strangely or obnoxiously, rather than taking it personally, or getting into a spat, consider what unmet need is driving that behavior and frame your concern accordingly. This will allow you to operate in a much more sophisticated way when dealing with and understanding the important people in your life.