About these motivations seeming too restrictive...
Agreed... add ***.


I love to understand how stuff works and how people tick . I read,
study, test, and observe, then make notes.

If you throw in ***... This leaves us with power, fear, ***, ease, and
prestige. (I said money because I was relating it to the corporate
paradigm...) but it is actually either power, greed or money depending
on the nature of the research.. plus the others on the list. This list
is referenced in J. Conrads "guerilla Marketing" book but the primary
source is a yale publication I believe.

But still, indeed this is a slight oversimplification of human
motivation but because the nature of it is complex, I'm sharing things
useful to help him get his arms around it and pointed in the right
direction. Right this second I'm temporarily separated from my text
library, so I cannot site the specific research now, (though I do
appreciate your asking) but if after reading this you still desire it,
(hopefully it will all be cleared up) I will search it on the web or
have it searched.

One reason the list seemed too restrictive to me at first is the
confusion of motivation with drive and needs. These are not the same but
confusing them is common. Thus when we think of motivation, many
variations seem to emerge when considering various cultures, periods,
religions etc.

Upon scrutiny, however, it becomes plain that most every motivation can
be reduced to one of the above primary motivations. Even when accounting
for these cultural differences. The guy who says "NO FEAR!" will go on
to have it applied in a bumper sticker.. "prestige/ Exclusivity"? Those
lil guys (motivations) creep on you before you know what hit you.

Motivation is the process of a goal being met with action to attain that
goal... but further, for the purposes of psychology, certainly in this
context (consumerism) we are speaking not of fundamental human drives or
needs, but something more elusive.


What we have to grasp as marketers dabbling into consumerism is the
nature of that mobilizing thing... that something ... the "activation
mechanism" shaped by learning... that moves us BEYOND the physical level
of needs (primal/ biological drives).

While "drives" may be an instinctive goal, motivation is the reason we
exert effort towards them, rather than to simply conserve the energy
thus expended and possibly suffer through the outcomes.

If we take something like companionship, the elements of motivation can
be seen in play. A person may say that the desire to share "their life
and love with another" is why they call the matchmaker. This may be true
on the surface. But there are tons of people who would love to share
their life.. homeless, those needing hospice, orphans etc.


So what sensational concept or feeling is at the CORE of it all.. what
REALLY makes them literally pick up the phone, go through all the
riggamahrole of paying the fees, kissing all the toads etc?

Underneath lurks motivations, such as fear of being alone or lonely,
desire for financial stability ($$), desire for *** or safe ***, to have
someone to look after us when we're old (ease), or the sense of being
accepted in the community.

As to TRUE LOVE.. well, IMHO K. Gibran said it best, when you can gaze
into the eyes and love the female of 6 months, the female of 25, and the
female of 100 years with equal love, then you know what true love might
be.

But what if they say they just want to have fun doing things with that
special someone? Well if that someone is not special to us, it's really
not much fun, right? But what IS special about that someone is most
likely that WE feel special when we are with THEM. It's how they make us
feel. Oops, we're back to pride and prestige .
Ego strokes required. So.. the motivations snuck up on us again.

The motivation to achieve social status is often viewed as a derivative
of the *** drive. Maybe, maybe not, but it can hardly be divorced from
the need for prestige (which is exclusivity or conspicuous consumption
in marketing terms).

Motives are sometimes hurriedly classed as deficiency motives, such as
the need to remove the physiological deficiency of hunger or thirst, or
abundancy motives, i.e., motives to attain greater satisfaction and
stimulation. However when you get rid of the idea of basic survival and
it's instincts, you are back to the basic core motivations, and the
instinctive stuff is, again, better classified as drives.

What does it mean to marketing planners?

POSITIONING.
The work non-marketers love to hate

Why do we need designer water on our store shelves? It wetter? No. Does
it sell? Yes. Now we're talking understanding motivation dynamics.


But back to your question... isn't there more to us than those few
motivations? Theoretically yes... the "spirit" if you allow me, is
always at war with them. Sometimes we can see flashes of compassion so
brilliant they are truly romantic. A. Maslow has classified motives into
five developmental levels, with the satisfaction of physiological needs
most important and esteem and self-actualization needs least important.
He is dealing primarily, in those ower levels, with drives which
translate, in established societies, certainly in marketing, as fears of
doing without something.

According to Maslow, the most basic needs must be satisfied before
successively higher needs even can emerge. This means that while there
are five levels, the upper ones will seldom emerge and the lower ones
are constantly in play to varying degrees. Thus you see the pyramid with
few people attaining actualization, although I feel that a number of
people attain this level periodically through peak experiences and
heroic deeds. And, at that level, experience very few needs or fears.
But the desire for constant actualization is not the same as the
motivation to actually take the steps to attain it.
Many times in fact, the two are confused, as when spirituality is
defined AS these very motivations -- delving in... FEAR, POWER, MONEY,
EXCLUSIVITY (PRESTIGE) etc. The idea of all this handed out WITH
spiritually in a plate is VERY appealing.. What's not to love? lol. So
you see, friend, knowledge of these motivations it can even seductively
sell SPIRITUALITY!

Cognitive psychologists (Albert Bandura comes to mind) have long
suggested that individual mental processes, such as beliefs, play an
important role in motivation, But even within these systems of beliefs
we see the dynamics of fear, power, and other motivations at play. The
promise of exclusivity... or, we see the expectation of certain
reinforcements for certain behaviors... even threats of loss of status.
shunning, etc.

Speaking of religion, even in the bible Jesus was reportedly tempted
with these types of things...lol.... and after, angels came to minister
to him well perhaps that says it all right there about how we humans
tick. lol.

Personally I have done lots of experimenting with headlines.. and I have
found that many people do not really know themselves nor admit their
motivations (!!)Try this... have people pick out a "headline" that would
"work" with them. Then, test the headline for response... not much
relationship lol. Seems people are in denial of their core motivation
much of the time!
Thus is the reality of the unconscious mind.

And.. by the way.. if you have read this far, you may want to know...
when you ever find a person living "above" or beyond those 5
motivations...

FEAR
MONEY (OR POWER OR GREED)
***
EXCLUSIVITY (PRESTIGE)
EASE (LEISURE)

....we have a name for them in this society -- "insane".

Yes my friend, the things they will do and not do, without those dreaded
motivations, are so far out the box, they will likely be severely
penalized within this culture. We will call the "men in white jackets"
to have them promptly hauled off .. too far out of our comfort zone,
although we say those very motivations are not OUR motivations most
times, hands down.


~zion