Basic Human Motives Research Articles

Analyzing Posyandu Cadres' Motivation in Combating Stunting through the Lens of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

Stunting, a common child malnutrition form, hampers growth due to poor nutrition, infections, and limited psychosocial stimulation. Primarily affecting those under five, especially in the first 1,000 days, it becomes nearly irreversible later. Linked to impaired brain development, childhood morbidity, and mortality, it heightens the risk of chronic diseases in adulthood, impacting cognitive function and productivity. This research aims to analyze factors related to the motivation of Posyandu cadres in tackling stunting in the Belu Regency, RI-RDTL border. The method used in this research is mixed methods. The mixed method research strategy applied is the Concurrent Embedded method. The quantitative method used is a descriptive approach while the qualitative method uses a case study. The study was conducted at Haliwen Health Center and South Atambua Health Center, with a quantitative research sample of 150 people and 10 qualitative research informants. The research findings indicate that the dominant cadre motivation factors include Social Needs at 99.3%. Based on Maslow's Basic Human Needs motivation factors, when viewed from the results of quantitative and qualitative data analysis, the motivation of cadres in handling stunting is social needs. Meanwhile, in qualitative research, a main theme was found, namely Humanitarian Harmony, which was divided into 3 categories, namely Volunteering, Dedication, and Caring. Volunteering, Dedication, and Caring are included in social needs. Humans in general need to interact and contribute to society. Dedication, caring, and volunteering are ways to fulfill this social need by providing support or assistance to others without expecting immediate reward.

The application of logotherapy to improve the meaning of life in emerging adults with self-injury

Self-injury occurs commonly in young people, especially during the development phase of emerging adults. It is seen as a manifestation of existential problems, such as obstacles in fulfilling or pursuing meaning in life which is the most basic human motivation. This study aims to determine the effect of logotherapy as an intervention to increase purpose in life in emerging adults who engage in self-injury. The research utilized a single case experiment A-B design involving two subjects, measuring their level of meaning in life with the Meaning in Life Questionnaire (MLQ). The analysis technique of visual analysis, baseline-corrected tau, and Reliable Change Index (RCI) yielded outcomes indicating logotherapy as an effective intervention option for increasing meaning in life in emerging adults with self-injury.

Mattering, wellness, and fairness: Psychosocial goods for the common good.

Whereas the behavioral and health sciences have been mainly concerned with the private good, there is an urgent need to understand and foster the collective good. Without a coherent framework for the common good, it will be extremely difficult to prevent and manage crises such as pandemics, illness, climate change, poverty, discrimination, injustice, and inequality, all of which affects marginalized populations disproportionally. While frameworks for personal well-being abound in psychology, psychiatry, counseling, and social work, conceptualizations of collective well-being are scarce. Our search for foundations of the common good resulted in the identification of three psychosocial goods: mattering, wellness, and fairness. There are several reasons for choosing them, including the fact that they concurrently advance personal, relational, and collective value. In addition, they represent basic human motivations, have considerable explanatory power, exist at multiple ecological levels, and have significant transformative potential. The complementary nature of the three goods is illustrated in an interactional model. Based on empirical evidence, we suggest that conditions of justice lead to experiences of mattering, which, in turn, enhance wellness. Challenges and opportunities afforded by the model at the intrapersonal, interpersonal, occupational, communal, national, and global levels are presented. The proposed psychosocial goods are used to formulate a culture for the common good in which we balance the right with the responsibility to feel valued and add value, to self and others, in order to promote not just wellness but also fairness. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Moral Injury, Traumatic Stress, and Threats to Core Human Needs in Health-Care Workers: The COVID-19 Pandemic as a Dehumanizing Experience

The pandemic has threatened core human needs. The pandemic provides a context to study psychological injury as it relates to unmet basic human needs and traumatic stressors, including moral incongruence. We surveyed 1,122 health-care workers from across the United States between May 2020 and August 2020. Using a mixed-methods design, we examined moral injury and unmet basic human needs in relation to traumatic stress and suicidality. Nearly one third of respondents reported elevated symptoms of psychological trauma, and the prevalence of suicidal ideation among health-care workers in our sample was roughly 3 times higher than in the general population. Moral injury and loneliness predict greater symptoms of traumatic stress and suicidality. We conclude that dehumanization is a driving force behind the psychological injury resulting from moral incongruence in the context of the pandemic. The pandemic most frequently threatened basic human motivations at the foundational level of safety and security relative to other higher order needs.

The need to belong: how to reduce workplace ostracism

ABSTRACT Although the need to belong, or the desire for interpersonal attachments, is a basic human motivation, understanding of how and when it influences workplace ostracism is notably limited. Based on belongingness theory, this study examines the negative relationship between the need to belong and exposure to workplace ostracism by focusing on the mediating role of organizational deviance and the moderating role of in-role performance. Data from 108 supervisor–subordinate dyads in China were collected at three time points. The results reveal that organizational deviance mediates the relationship between the need to belong and workplace ostracism. Additionally, in-role performance alleviates the negative relationship between the need to belong and organizational deviance. The implications for management theory and practice are discussed.

Explicit and Implicit Basic Human Motives, and Public Service Motivation.

This article contributes to the literature on the roots of Public Service Motivation (PSM) by turning to the psychological theory of basic human motives. The study explores the differential associations of explicit and implicit basic human motives with PSM, Attraction to Policy-Making (APM), Commitment to the Public Interest (CPI), Compassion (COM), and Self-Sacrifice (SS). Methodologically, the research contributes to the literature by introducing a measurement instrument new to Public Administration: the Brief Implicit Association Test (BIAT). The BIAT is an easy-to-use and flexible tool to probe into the human unconsciousness, offering ample opportunities for further research in Public Administration and Management.

Group Selection: A Review Essay on Does Altruism Exist? by David Sloan Wilson

In response to the question in the title, Does Altruism Exist?, David Sloan Wilson argues forcefully that altruism exists and that the biological mechanism of group selection is responsible. He argues that group selection should be taken especially seriously for humans, since cultural evolution is especially important for us. Economists' view of basic human motivations should then include altruism. Wilson promotes a strong form of pervasive altruism, which seems bound to be inconsistent with many economic phenomena. Although a moderate version of the position he advocates is not easily dismissed, it is unclear what such an extended theory would look like. (JEL D64, Z13)

Поражение и деструкция и их исследование в зарубежной психологии. Сообщение 2

We presented a brief review of studies identifying mechanisms associated with selfdefeating (or self-destruction) patterns. The latter patterns are defined as any deliberate or intentional beliefs and behaviors that have negative effects on the self or on the self’s projects. It is reviewed studies examining self-esteem, threatened egotism, deservingness, and social exclusion entailing self-defeating patterns. A recent literature witnesses that a low level of selfesteem can lead to self-defeating patterns. Second source is threatened egotism. Self-defeating responses are especially common when people feel that others may perceive them less favorably than the people desire. Two variables related to self-esteem may mostly tap vulnerability to ego threats. One is narcissism as inflated or exaggerated favorable views of self. Another is unstable self-esteem. Third source of self-defeat is deservingness. Much theorizing and research of it is originating with Just World Theory. It indicates that people get what they deserve and deserve what they get. The general idea is that, to the extent people might adopt various self-defeating beliefs and behaviors following the experience of misfortune because people feel compelled to view misfortune. Fourth source of self-defeat is social exclusion. It relies on the assumption that the need to belong is one of the most basic human motivations. Then so being excluded from social relationships would be a potentially powerful blow. The social exclusion leads to anxiety, depression, jealousy, loneliness, low self-esteem, fear of social rejection and exclusion. In conclusion, it is worth noting that self-esteem, threatened egotism, deservingness, and social exclusion appear along the interpersonal axis Self – Others relationships yet in various biases. Thus, our claim is that mechanisms associated with selfdefeating patterns would be heterogeneous rather than homogeneous. Besides, our assumption is that self-defeating patterns would be based on a common resource. It would combine selfesteem, threatened egotism, deservingness, and social exclusion as some portions of commonality. Then, some perspective can be delineated to move from one-dimensional questionnaires to multidimensional ones to measure self-defeating patterns and to construct a new theory of self-defeating beliefs and behaviors.

Aggressiveness, friendship and love from the point of view of ethology

This paper discusses human nature and basic human motives and emotions such as aggressiveness, altruism, hate and love from the point of view of modern evolutionary psychology and ethology. Relying on the works of both classical and modern psychologists and ethologists (J. Bowlby, D. Buss, D. Morris, I. Eibl-Eibesfeldt), the author argues that a man is an imminent, genetically programmed social being. He has the potential for hate and aggressiveness as well as for prosocial, friendly and altruistic behavior based on empathy, parental instinct, love and the urge for bonding. Ethological psychologists derive commitment and love in a human being from thousands of years long evolution, which has shaped man's proclivities, urges and thrives by selection. In creation of the future society, in which there will be less violence and egoism, all this ethological knowledge about human aggressiveness, those inborn human potentials (compassion, gentleness, love and care for posterity, solidarity) and mechanisms that confront man's brutality, wantonness and proclivity for various forms of violence should be taken in consideration.

Dobro wspólne i interes własny jako problem etyki gospodarczej

The goal of this article is to argue in favor of such a type of ethical reflection which comes to terms with the unavoidable existence of competition and self-interest as a basic human motivation, which does justice to the market rules of the game, but, at the same time, does not allow itself to embrace the extremities of neoliberal ideology which a priori rejects any state intervention in the markets. Competition in a modern economy which resembles a positive-sum game, can be recognized as constructive element of the market leading to prosperity and economic development. Morality then cannot be construed as rules which favor only restraint, altruism and compassion but rather as a social regulator which creates conditions of fair competition, fair rules of the game. This kind of economic ethics has been elaborated by the followers of the so-called ordoliberalism of Walter Eucken. The ethics of order (Ordnungsethik) or institutional ethics has been focused on the legal and moral order created and safeguarded by a state. The article develops the idea of non-contradictory status of self-interest and common good within the modern economy as a basis for business ethics.

Biocultural Theory and the Study of Literature

This essay argues that the sciences most relevant to literary study form an integrated complex summarized by the term “biocultural theory.” Foundational theories accepted currently in literary scholarship are incompatible with a biocultural understanding of the evolved character of the human mind. Psychological and social theories that form part of the amalgam designated “poststructuralism” identify important areas of human concern but can now be replaced with empirically grounded concepts that are more complete, more correct, more nuanced. The most important elements in biocultural theory are the theory of human life history and gene-culture coevolution. Biocultural theorists argue that basic human motives are channeled into cultural norms that are articulated in imaginative form through myths, legends, rituals, images, songs, and stories. Biocultural theory offers an opportunity to develop literary research in company with our developing scientific understanding of human motives, emotions, identity, social interactions, and forms of cognition.

Requests, Their Meanings and Aspectual Forms in Early Greek and Russian Child Language

Requests are among the three basic human communicative motives which emerge earliest in ontogeny. The imperative constitutes the prototypical linguistic verb form category for expressing direct requests. In both Modern Greek and Russian, this category is differentiated from other verb forms and most verbs distinguish between perfective and imperfective imperative forms. In the present paper, the perfective and imperfective imperative verb forms occurring in the early speech of a Greek and a Russian child and their mothers’ child-directed speech are studied with regard to their frequencies and functions. It will be shown that the perfective/imperfective contrast of imperative forms does not function alike in the two languages. The differences of imperative usage between the two mother-child dyads and the similarities within each of them may be taken as evidence that the children construct the grammatical distinctions of their language on the basis of usage.

Beautiful friendship: Social sharing of emotions improves subjective feelings and activates the neural reward circuitry.

Humans have a strong tendency to affiliate with other people, especially in emotional situations. Here, we suggest that a critical mechanism underlying this tendency is that socially sharing emotional experiences is in itself perceived as hedonically positive and thereby contributes to the regulation of individual emotions. We investigated the effect of social sharing of emotions on subjective feelings and neural activity by having pairs of friends view emotional (negative and positive) and neutral pictures either alone or with the friend. While the two friends remained physically separated throughout the experiment—with one undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging and the other performing the task in an adjacent room—they were made aware on a trial-by-trial basis whether they were seeing pictures simultaneously with their friend (shared) or alone (unshared). Ratings of subjective feelings were improved significantly when participants viewed emotional pictures together than alone, an effect that was accompanied by activity increase in ventral striatum and medial orbitofrontal cortex, two important components of the reward circuitry. Because these effects occurred without any communication or interaction between the friends, they point to an important proximate explanation for the basic human motivation to affiliate with others, particularly in emotional situations.

Egoism Versus Altruism in Television Content for Young Audiences

The model of intuitive morality and exemplars is an organizational framework that was created to incorporate theories of basic human motivations with both micro- and macrolevel media research. Thus far, literature has integrated a framework of basic moral intuitions (here labeled altruistic motivations) with the model but has yet to integrate a framework of basic egoistic motivations. The current study integrates frameworks for both altruistic and egoistic motivations with the model in order to examine depictions of motivational incongruities (e.g., moral dilemmas) in television content for young audiences. Findings suggest that the frequency of depicted motivational incongruities increases as audience target-age increases. In addition, findings show that most motivational incongruities involve both egoistic motives versus altruistic ones, rather than just egoistic or altruistic motives alone. Discussion centers on implications for research on media and morality as well as entertainment theory.

Show me the product, show me the model: Effect of picture type on attitudes toward advertising

We suggest that a consideration of consumer self-evaluations is fundamental to understanding the conditions under which it is more advantageous to present person or product pictures in print advertisements. We build on the basic human motives of self-enhancement and self-verification to propose that the specific self-esteem level of consumers, in the domain relevant for the category, differentially affects their responses to picture type. Specifically, for consumers with low (high) domain-specific self-esteem, depicting a product (person) in the advertisement enhances attitudes toward the advertisement more than depicting a person (product). In two studies, we demonstrate the proposed matching relationships using two different domains of consumer self-evaluation: appearance self-esteem and academic self-esteem. We also show that increased and more fluent generation of self-related mental imagery drives the observed improvement in attitudes toward the advertisement. Our findings suggest direct implications for advertising design.

Extending hierarchical achievement motivation models: The role of motivational needs for achievement goals and academic performance

In the current study, we investigated the role of three basic motivational needs (need for power, affiliation, achievement) as antecedents of goals within the 2×2 achievement goal framework, and examined their combined predictive validity with regard to academic performance in a sample of 120 university students. Structural equation modeling analysis largely supported our postulated model, linking motivational needs indirectly to course grades through goals. Achievement goals were formed by a combination of different motives: need for achievement was a positive predictor of all four achievement goals, and need for affiliation was negatively related to performance-approach and performance-avoidance goals. Additionally, need for power was a positive predictor of performance-avoidance goals. Performance-approach goals had a direct (positive) effect on performance outcomes. In sum, our results integrate basic motivational needs with the achievement goals literature and extend therefore hierarchical achievement motivation models, by showing how basic human motives of achievement, affiliation, and power are related to goal striving motivation and performance outcomes in an academic setting.

Roles of implicit processes: instinct, intuition, and personality

The goal of this research is to explore implicit and explicit processes in shaping an individual’s characteristic behavioral patterns, that is, personality. The questions addressed are how psychological processes may be separated into implicit and explicit types, and how such a separation figures into personality. In particular, it focuses on the role of instinct and intuition (two kinds of mostly implicit processes) in determining personality. This paper argues that personality may be fundamentally based on instincts resulting from basic human motivation, along with related processes, within a comprehensive cognitive architecture. This approach is implemented as a computational model. Various tests and simulations show that this model captures major personality traits and accounts for empirical data. The work shows how a cognitive architecture with the implicit–explicit distinction may capture instinct, intuition, and personality.

Implicit Motive Profile of Treatment-Seeking Opiate Users: High Affiliation and Low Achievement

Research on basic human motives (achievement, affiliation, and power) encoded at the emotional level recently returned to the forefront of scientific research. To date, there are only a few studies on the pattern of implicit motives of substance users, so the present study examined opiate users participating in methadone maintenance treatment (N = 80) along these dimensions, comparing them to 40 non-substance users. Participants were asked to create stories on the basis of the pictures of the Thematic Apperception Test. The stories were analyzed using the content analysis method of David Winter (1991). Like other substance user groups, opiate-dependent persons used less achievement and more affiliation notions in creating stories, while there was no significant difference between the two groups concerning power notions. The results proved to be independent of the presence of anxiety and depression symptoms, despite substance users reporting higher levels of these, and suggest that motivational factors are worth considering in treatment planning.

Motivations for Reconciliation: Regulatory Mode, Individual Differences, and Evolutionary Considerations

Conflict is an integral component of human and other group-living animals’ social nature. But conflicts are often managed and settled through a process called reconciliation, whereby friendly relations between former opponents are restored. In humans, conflict resolution research has focused primarily on forgiveness and less on this broader and perhaps more basic dynamic of when two individuals are actually motivated to come together in the first place. Further, research in all species has failed to emphasize individual differences as a potential source of variation in conciliatory tendencies, perhaps because reconciliation is inherently an inter- as opposed to intra-individual phenomenon. The overall goal of this paper is to expand what we know about reconciliation by examining whether there are individual differences in basic human motivations to reconcile. Regulatory Mode Theory (RMT) is a potentially useful starting point for addressing this question. RMT distinguishes between two fundamental and independent components of effective self-regulation: locomotion and assessment. Locomotion constitutes the aspect of self-regulation concerned with movement from state-to-state, while assessment is the aspect of self-regulation involved in making comparisons. This is the first research, to our knowledge, that examines the direct influence of regulatory mode on conflict resolution. In this study, participants were presented with various interpersonal conflict scenarios, and then rated their motivations for reconciliation and feelings of negativity following these conflicts. Results of multilevel mixed-effects regression analyses revealed that there were significant individual differences, such that as locomotion increased, the motivation to reconcile was higher and less influenced by feelings of negativity generated by the conflict. Conversely, as assessment increased, the motivation to reconcile decreased and became more influenced by these negative feelings. Further interactions revealed that high assessors are most sensitive to the roles that they are depicted playing in the conflict. Results are consistent with the idea that high locomotors are motivated to just do it whereas high assessors are motivated to do it right. RMT provides a promising approach to investigating the relation between motivation, individual differences, and reconciliation, not just in humans but in other species as well. Evolutionary implications and future steps for further research in humans and other animals are also discussed.

Wanting to Be Great and Better But Not Average

What is the nature of self-evaluation motives? The relativist perspective suggests that self-evaluation motives vary culturally, with self-enhancement developing in Western culture and self-effacement and self-improvement developing in East Asian culture. The universalist perspective suggests that self-enhancement and self-improvement are basic human motives that coexist in the self-system and are prevalent across cultures. We tested the competing perspectives in a cross-cultural study. Chinese and American students rated the degree to which they want to receive four types of feedback (self-enhancing, self-effacing, self-improving, and no-feedback) from four sources (parents, teachers, friends, and classmates). Chinese and Americans (a) overwhelmingly wanted self-enhancing and self-improving feedback more than self-effacing feedback and no-feedback and (b) were uninterested in self-effacing feedback. These findings attest to the universal nature of self-enhancement and self-improvement motives.