In
psychology
Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries between ...
, a drive theory, theory of drives or drive doctrine
is a theory that attempts to analyze, classify or define the psychological drives. A drive is an instinctual need that has the power of driving the behavior of an individual; an "excitatory state produced by a
homeostatic
In biology, homeostasis (British also homoeostasis) (/hɒmɪə(ʊ)ˈsteɪsɪs/) is the state of steady internal, physical, and chemical conditions maintained by living systems. This is the condition of optimal functioning for the organism and ...
disturbance".
Drive theory is based on the principle that organisms are born with certain psychological needs and that a negative state of tension is created when these needs are not satisfied. When a need is satisfied, drive is reduced and the organism returns to a state of homeostasis and relaxation. According to the theory, drive tends to increase over time and operates on a feedback control system, much like a thermostat.
In 1943 two psychologists,
Clark Hull
Clark Leonard Hull (May 24, 1884 – May 10, 1952) was an American psychologist who sought to explain learning and motivation by scientific laws of behavior. Hull is known for his debates with Edward C. Tolman. He is also known for his work in dr ...
and
Kenneth Spence
Kenneth Wartinbee Spence (May 6, 1907 – January 12, 1967) was a prominent American psychologist known for both his theoretical and experimental contributions to learning theory and motivation. As one of the leading theorists of his time, Spence ...
, had the first interest in this idea of motivation. They knew it was a sense of their motivation, drives, and an explanation of all behavior. After years of research, they created the drive theory. In a study conducted by Hull, two groups of rats were put in a maze, group A was given food after three hours and group B was given food after twenty-two hours. Hull had decided that the rats that were deprived of food longer would be more likely to develop a habit of going down the same path to obtain food.
Psychoanalysis
In
psychoanalysis
PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: + . is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a body of knowledge. In what might b ...
, drive theory (german: Triebtheorie or ')
refers to the theory of drives, motivations, or instincts, that have clear objects. When an internal imbalance is detected by homeostatic mechanisms, a drive to restore balance is produced. In 1927,
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies explained as originating in conflicts ...
said that a drive theory was what was lacking most in psychoanalysis. He was opposed to
personality systematics in psychology, rejecting it as a form of paranoia, and instead classified drives with dichotomies like
Eros
In Greek mythology, Eros (, ; grc, Ἔρως, Érōs, Love, Desire) is the Greek god of love and sex. His Roman counterpart was Cupid ("desire").''Larousse Desk Reference Encyclopedia'', The Book People, Haydock, 1995, p. 215. In the ear ...
/
Thanatos
In Greek mythology, Thanatos (; grc, Θάνατος, pronounced in "Death", from θνῄσκω ''thnēskō'' "(I) die, am dying") was the personification of death. He was a minor figure in Greek mythology, often referred to but rarely appea ...
drives (the drives toward life and
death
Death is the irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain an organism. For organisms with a brain, death can also be defined as the irreversible cessation of functioning of the whole brain, including brainstem, and brain ...
, respectively) and sexual/ego drives.
[Mélon, Jean (1996)]
''Notes on the History of the Szondi Movement''
. Text for the Szondi Congress of Cracow, August 1996.
Freud's ''
Civilization and Its Discontents
''Civilization and Its Discontents'' is a book by Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis. It was written in 1929 and first published in German in 1930 as ''Das Unbehagen in der Kultur'' ("The Uneasiness in Civilization"). Exploring what Fre ...
'' was published in Germany in 1930, when the
rise of fascism in that country was well under way, and the warnings of a second European war were leading to opposing calls for rearmament and pacifism. Against this background, Freud wrote "In face of the destructive forces unleashed, now it may be expected that the other of the two 'heavenly forces,' eternal Eros, will put forth his strength so as to maintain himself alongside of his equally immortal adversary."
In 1947, Hungarian
psychiatrist and psychologist
Leopold Szondi
Leopold may refer to:
People
* Leopold (given name)
* Leopold (surname)
Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional characters
* Leopold (''The Simpsons''), Superintendent Chalmers' assistant on ''The Simpsons''
* Leopold Bloom, the protagonist o ...
aimed instead at a systematic drive theory.
Szondi Drive Diagram has been described as a revolutionary addition to psychology, and as paving the way for a theoretical psychiatry and a
psychoanalytical anthropology.
Early attachment theory
In early
attachment theory
Attachment theory is a psychological, evolutionary and ethological theory concerning relationships between humans. The most important tenet is that young children need to develop a relationship with at least one primary caregiver for normal ...
, behavioral drive reduction was proposed by
Dollard and
Miller
A miller is a person who operates a mill, a machine to grind a grain (for example corn or wheat) to make flour. Milling is among the oldest of human occupations. "Miller", "Milne" and other variants are common surnames, as are their equivalent ...
(1950) as an explanation of the mechanisms behind early attachment in infants. Behavioural drive reduction theory suggests that infants are born with innate drives, such as hunger and thirst, which only the caregiver, usually the mother, can reduce. Through a process of
classical conditioning
Classical conditioning (also known as Pavlovian or respondent conditioning) is a behavioral procedure in which a biologically potent stimulus (e.g. food) is paired with a previously neutral stimulus (e.g. a triangle). It also refers to the learni ...
, the infant learns to associate the mother with the satisfaction of reduced drive and is thus able to form a key attachment bond. However, this theory is challenged by the work done by
Harry Harlow
Harry Frederick Harlow (October 31, 1905 – December 6, 1981) was an American psychologist best known for his maternal-separation, dependency needs, and social isolation experiments on rhesus monkeys, which manifested the importance of caregi ...
, particularly the experiments involving the
maternal separation of rhesus monkeys, which indicate that comfort possesses greater motivational value than hunger.
[Harlow H F; Zimmermann R. R. (1959)]
Affectional responses in the infant monkey
Science, vol(130):421-432
PDF
.
Social psychology
In
social psychology
Social psychology is the scientific study of how thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the real or imagined presence of other people or by social norms. Social psychologists typically explain human behavior as a result of the ...
, drive theory was used by
Robert Zajonc
Robert Bolesław Zajonc ( /ˈzaɪ.ənts/ ''ZY-ənts''; Polish: zajɔnt͡s November 23, 1923 – December 3, 2008) was a Polish-born American social psychologist who is known for his decades of work on a wide range of social and cognitive pro ...
in 1965 as an explanation of the phenomenon of
social facilitation
Social facilitation is a social phenomenon in which being in the presence of others improves individual task performance. That is, people do better on tasks when they are with other people rather than when they are doing the task alone. Situation ...
. The
audience effect
Social facilitation is a social phenomenon in which being in the presence of others improves individual task performance. That is, people do better on tasks when they are with other people rather than when they are doing the task alone. Situation ...
notes that, in some cases, the presence of a passive audience will facilitate the better performance of a task, while in other cases the presence of an audience will inhibit the performance of a task. Zajonc's drive theory suggests that the variable determining direction of performance is whether the task is composed of a correct dominant response (that is, the task is perceived as being subjectively easy to the individual) or an incorrect dominant response (perceived as being subjectively difficult).
In the presence of a passive audience, an individual is in a heightened state of
arousal. Increased arousal, or
stress
Stress may refer to:
Science and medicine
* Stress (biology), an organism's response to a stressor such as an environmental condition
* Stress (linguistics), relative emphasis or prominence given to a syllable in a word, or to a word in a phrase ...
, causes the individual to enact behaviours that form dominant responses, since an individual's dominant response is the most likely response, given the skills which are available. If the dominant response is correct, then social presence enhances performance of the task. However, if the dominant response is incorrect, social presence produces an impaired performance. Increasing performance of well learned tasks and impairing performance on poorly learned tasks.
Corroborative evidence
Such behaviour was first noticed by Triplett (1898) while observing the cyclists who were racing together versus cyclists who were racing alone.
It was found that the mere presence of other cyclists produced greater performance. A similar effect was observed by Chen (1937) in
ant
Ants are eusocial insects of the family Formicidae and, along with the related wasps and bees, belong to the order Hymenoptera. Ants evolved from vespoid wasp ancestors in the Cretaceous period. More than 13,800 of an estimated total of ...
s building colonies. However, it was not until Zajonc investigated this behaviour in the 1960s that any empirical explanation for the audience effect was pursued.
Zajonc's drive theory is based on an experiment involving the investigation of the effect of social facilitation in
cockroach
Cockroaches (or roaches) are a Paraphyly, paraphyletic group of insects belonging to Blattodea, containing all members of the group except termites. About 30 cockroach species out of 4,600 are associated with human habitats. Some species are we ...
es. Zajonc devised a study in which individual cockroaches were released into a tube, at the end of which there was a light. In the presence of other cockroaches as spectators, cockroaches were observed to achieve a significantly faster time in reaching the light than those in the control, no-spectator group. However, when cockroaches in the same conditions were given a maze to negotiate, performance was impaired in the spectator condition, demonstrating that incorrect dominant responses in the presence of an audience impair performance.
Evaluation apprehension
Cottrell's
evaluation apprehension model The evaluation apprehension theory was proposed by Nickolas B. Cottrell in 1972. He argued that we quickly learn that the social rewards and punishments (for example, in the form of approval and disapproval) that we receive from other people are bas ...
later refined this theory to include yet another variable in the mechanisms of social facilitation. He suggested that the correctness of dominant responses only plays a role in social facilitation when there is an expectation of social reward or punishment based on performance. His study differs in design from Zajonc's as he introduced a separate condition in which participants were given tasks to perform in the presence of an audience that was blindfolded, and thus unable to evaluate the participant's performance. It was found that no social facilitation effect occurred, and hence the anticipation of performance evaluation must play a role in social facilitation.
Evaluation apprehension, however, is only key in human social facilitation and is not observed in other animals.
References
External links
*
*
* Sembera, Richard (2017), ''Metapsychology for Contemporary Psychoanalysis: Mind, World, and Self.''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Drive Theory
Psychoanalytic terminology
Interpersonal relationships