Human motivation midterm essays Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Human motivation midterm essays - Essay Example It explains human behavior as it is supposed to be an inborn tendency that directs it. Along with need theories learning theories it bore traces of Darwinian concepts. The problem with the instinct theories is that it ignores the interaction between an individual and an environment. According to Landy and Conte (2006), this is the reason why the need theories replaced it in popularity. Citing Maslow’s notion, they explained that need theory is an improvement over the former because it allowed for the environment to play a role in motivated behavior by suggesting that when one set of needs was satisfied by external forces, the next higher set of needs are activated. (p. 334) The person as â€Å"godlike† is one concept shared by cognitive, learning and humanistic theories of motivations. Here, there is an assumption that humans are rational and that there is a faculty of discernment when it comes to actions - its results and its relationship to goal-attainment. Each of these theories is universal in terms of their notion of rationality, their ideas of the human body as well as its needs. Furthermore, the traces of Freudian and Darwinian influences in these theories reinforce their appeal in this regard. The theory of obesity is mostly confined to the cognitive categories in theorizing human motivations. Barbara Dossey enumerated what the theories focus on: overeating behaviors as totally determined by learned responses; negative self-talk that triggers the desire to eat and overeat; negative body images that can contaminate self-concept to drive overeating behaviors; as well as the self-monitoring and response control as a way of correcting it. (p. 313) Meanwhile, to compare scientifically, the overweight notion is a condition of increased body weight in relation to height and is determined by a certain standard of acceptable weight; on the other hand, the concept of obesity is the accumulation of excess fat for one’s age and body type.