Psychologies:

In one of your interviews, you told us that science today makes it possible to find out why I do something in this moment. What answers could there be?

Dmitry Leontyev:

Psychology does not give direct answers, but it can say more and more about the reasons for our behavior, because motivation is the reason for what we do: why we get out of bed in the morning, why we are doing one thing and not another at the moment.

One of the largest psychologists of the end of the last century, Heinz Heckhausen, the creator of the now actively working scientific school, showed that there have been several successive views on motivation throughout history. The first, the most traditional, seems to many to be the most obvious, because it corresponds to our everyday consciousness. A person does something because he has an internal reason for it. It can be called a motive, an attraction, a need.

Previously, this could have been called instinct, but now almost no one talks about instincts in relation to humans and even in relation to animals; this concept is outdated and is used only metaphorically. So, there is an internal reason.

Our actions are explained by interaction internal factors and forces that are outside of us

What other options? The second view, said Heckhausen, is that we are driven to act by external forces that lie in the situation, in the circumstances. But in pure form the second view, even from the point of view of common sense, does not really work.

A third view soon emerged, which still dominates today. Our actions are explained by the interaction of internal factors and forces that are outside of us: in the situation, in social, cultural requirements, and so on. These two groups of factors interact with each other, and our behavior is a product of this interaction.

Is it possible to describe what external and internal causes look like and how they interact? What serves as a stronger incentive for us to act?

D.L.:

It depends. Small children, like animals, are difficult to force to do something against their wishes. An animal can be trained based on biological needs: they won’t give you food if you break the chain, but if you sit at attention for a while, you will get food.

You can only complicate the path to satisfying initial needs. In a small child, development begins with the fact that he does only what he wants, and there is no way to go against his desires. Then, gradually, the original incentive systems are supplemented with more complex ones.

As a person integrates into a network of connections, he learns rules thanks to which he can interact with people and adapt to the social environment. He cannot be an absolutely independent subject who directly satisfies his desires; he must integrate into a rather complex system.

Ultimately, another level of motivation arises: motivation associated with the need for harmonious interaction with the social whole.

Is this motivation more likely internal or external?

D.L.:

It is rather external, because initially it is not there. It is formed in the process of life. This is what is associated with the social nature of man. Mowgli couldn't have anything like that. But it doesn't end there.

A person is not just an imprint of social matrices plus the realization of biological needs. We can go further as we develop consciousness, reflection, and attitude towards ourselves. As Viktor Frankl famously wrote in his time, the main thing in a person is the ability to take a position, develop it in relation to anything, including in relation to one’s heredity, social environment, and needs.

And where a person and his consciousness develop sufficiently, he is able to take a position: sometimes critical, sometimes controlling in relation to himself. Here the third level of needs arises, which are sometimes described as existential. The need for meaning, for a picture of the world, for the formation of one’s own identity, for an answer to the question “who am I?”, for creativity, for going beyond…

Initially, a person has many different possibilities, and their implementation depends on his life. Psychogenetic studies show that genes influence mental manifestations not directly, but indirectly. Genes interact with environmental factors, human life, and specific experiences. Their influence is mediated by our real life.

If we return to childhood, to a child: when we raise him, teach him a harmonious life in society, interaction with other people, how can we preserve in him the desire to act in accordance with what is inside him? How not to suppress it within social boundaries?

D.L.:

The point is not to act according to your inner needs. It is important that those needs, values, motivations that he assimilates from the outside, learns in the process of interaction with other people, become his own, internal needs.

Psychologist Edward Deci experimentally proved that internal motivation comes from the process itself, while external motivation is associated with what we do to obtain benefits or to avoid troubles. The process may be unpleasant and painful for us, but we know that when we complete the task, some of our needs will be satisfied.

This one extrinsic motivation is one hundred percent learned, assimilated and depends on the conditions in which the adults around us place us. At the same time, the child may be treated according to the type of training: “if you do this, you will get candy, if you don’t do it, you will stand in the corner.”

Motivation based on the principle of carrots and sticks only works in short periods of time

When a person does something through “I don’t want to,” it leads to unfavorable psychological consequences: the formation of internal alienation, insensitivity to one’s emotions, needs, and oneself. We are forced to repress our internal desires, needs and emotions because they conflict with the task we perform under the influence of external motivation.

But as Edward Deci and his co-author Richard Ryan have shown in subsequent rounds of research, extrinsic motivation is not uniform. The impulses that we internalize from the outside can remain superficial, perceived by us as something external, like something we do “for uncle.” Or they can gradually become deeper and deeper. We begin to feel them as something of our own, meaningful, important.

In its psychological consequences, such external motivation becomes very close to real, genuine, internal. It turns out to be a quality motivation, albeit external. The quality of motivation is the extent to which I feel that the reasons that make me act are mine.

Motivation High Quality encourages us to take action, increases our life satisfaction and self-esteem

If my motives are related to my sense of self, to my own identity, then this is high quality motivation. In addition to the fact that it motivates us to action and gives us meaning, it also generates positive psychological consequences and increases our satisfaction with life and self-esteem.

And if we do something under the influence of external, superficial motivation, then we pay for it through contact with ourselves. There you are classic version external motivation: fame, success. Viktor Frankl very beautifully showed that the measurement of success and the measurement of meaning are perpendicular to each other.

If I strive for success, there is a risk at some point of losing my meaning. Because success is something that other people define, not myself. I find a sense of meaning in myself, and for the sake of success I can do things that seem absolutely meaningless to me, even immoral.

Experiments have shown that if a person achieves intrinsically motivated goals, it makes him happy. If a person achieves the same success, but for externally motivated purposes, then he does not become happier. Confidence brings us only the success that is associated with our internal motivation.

High-quality motivation is something that can be cultivated or awakened good teachers and good bosses?

D.L.:

Yes. But it's difficult. The paradox is that if a person is given the opportunity to choose values ​​himself, including giving up something, then he will assimilate them better and more firmly than if he is told: “I will teach you” and hammered it in as an obligation, a compulsion.

This is one of the paradoxes that was studied in detail in the theory of self-determination and which sounds in our latitudes as something completely unexpected and even implausible: No values ​​can be introduced through pressure and influence. And vice versa, if a person is given the opportunity to freely relate to them and determine himself, then these values ​​are absorbed better.

Since you mentioned self-determination: in 2008 I was pleased to hear a talk about it at a positive psychology conference. The three basic needs it identified seemed very accurate to me.

D.L.:

Self-determination theory is the most advanced theory of personality and motivation in modern scientific psychology. It covers different aspects, including the idea of ​​three basic needs. The authors of the theory, Edward Deci and Richard Ryan, abandoned the idea of ​​​​deriving these needs purely theoretically and for the first time determined them empirically, based on experimental data.

They propose to consider those needs, the satisfaction of which leads to an increase in subjective well-being, as basic. And failure to satisfy these needs leads to its decline. It turns out that three needs meet this criterion. This list is not closed, but convincing evidence has been obtained in relation to precisely three needs: autonomy, competence and relationships.

The need for autonomy is the need to make choices for yourself. Sometimes we manipulate a small child when we want him to eat semolina porridge. We don’t ask him: “Will you eat semolina porridge?”, we pose the question differently: “Will you have the porridge with honey or jam?” By doing so we give him a choice.

Often such a choice is false: we invite people to choose something secondary, and we take the main thing out of the equation

Often such a choice is false: we invite people to choose something relatively unimportant, and we take the main thing out of the equation. I remember there was a wonderful note in notebook Ilya Ilf: “You can collect stamps with teeth, or without teeth. You can collect stamped ones, or you can collect clean ones. You can cook them in boiling water, or not in boiling water, just in cold water. Everything is possible".

The second need is competence. That is, confirmation of one’s capabilities, abilities to do something, to influence events. And the third is the need for close relationships with other people, for human connections. Satisfying it also makes people happier.

Can we say, returning to where we started, that these three needs are basically what make us get out of bed in the morning and do something?

D.L.:

Unfortunately, we do not always do what makes us happy; we do not always satisfy our basic needs. We are not always intrinsically motivated. It must be said that external motivation is not necessarily a bad thing.

If I grow vegetables and fruits in my garden and eat them myself, I can do it based on internal motivation. If, within the framework of the division of labor, I specialize in something, sell the surplus on the market and buy what I need, external motivation comes into play.

If I do something for another person, it is extrinsic motivation. I can be a volunteer, work as an orderly in a hospital. There are more enjoyable activities in themselves, but what I do this for makes up for the shortcomings. Any coordination of actions, helping another person, delaying gratification and long-term planning always involve external motivation.

The interview was recorded for the Psychologies project “Status: in a relationship” on Radio “Culture” in November 2016.

So, we see that the range of issues related to the phenomenon of motivation is quite wide. Various authors touch upon various aspects motivation. Some (Jacobson, Obukhovsky) highlight the existence of distant goals as an essential element of motivation, others (Viliunas) classify as motivational phenomena any examples of the caring attitude of living beings to individual influences.
Of course, the definition of a phenomenon cannot but depend on the position of the researcher. Let's look at a few definitions. Jacobson (1966) defined motivation as the whole complex of factors that direct and motivate human behavior. In the psychological dictionary edited by A.V. Petrovsky and M.G. Yaroshevsky (1990), motivation is understood as motivation that causes the activity of the body and determines its direction. S. L. Rubinstein interpreted motivation as a determination realized through the psyche. V. K. Viliunas in the work “ Psychological mechanisms biological motivation" notes that the term "motivation" in modern literature used as a generic concept to denote the entire set psychological formations and processes that motivate and direct behavior towards life important conditions and objects, and determining the bias, selectivity and ultimate purposefulness of mental reflection and the activity regulated by it.
As can be seen from the above definitions, a certain unity of views has developed in the understanding of motivation. However, there are differences in the definition of the essence of motives. In the dictionary “Psychology” edited by A.V. Petrovsky and M.G. Yaroshevsky, motive is understood as: 1) motivation for activity related to satisfying the needs of the subject; a set of external or internal conditions that cause the subject’s activity and determine its direction; 2) the object (material or ideal) that motivates and determines the choice of direction of activity, for the sake of which it is carried out; 3) the conscious reason underlying the choice of actions and actions of the individual. The general thing is that motive is understood as an impulse, as a mental phenomenon.
A unique interpretation of motives is presented in the works of A. N. Leontiev, who owns one of the most formalized theories of motivation. In accordance with his concept, motives are considered as “objectified” needs. Leontyev Alexey Nikolaevich (1903 - 1978) - Soviet psychologist, doctor psychological sciences, professor, academician of the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences of the USSR, laureate of the Lenin Prize. In the 30s, A. N. Leontiev, having united around himself a group of young researchers (L. I. Bozhovich, P. Ya. Galperin, A. V. Zaporozhets, P. I. Zinchenko, etc.), began to develop the problem activities in psychology. In the concept of activity developed by A. N. Leontyev, first of all, the most fundamental and fundamental theoretical and methodological problems of psychology were illuminated.
In his work “Needs, Motives and Emotions” A. N. Leontiev sets out his views on needs and motives. He writes that the first prerequisite for any activity is a subject with needs. The presence of needs in a subject is the same fundamental condition of his existence as metabolism. Actually, these are different expressions of the same thing.
In its primary biological forms, need is a state of the organism that expresses its objective need for a supplement that lies outside of it. After all, life is a divided existence: no living system how separateness cannot maintain its internal dynamic balance and is not able to develop if it is excluded from the interaction that forms more broad system, in short, also includes elements external to a given living system, separated from it.
It follows from what has been said main characteristic needs - their objectivity. Actually, a need is a need for something that lies outside the body; the latter is its subject. As for the so-called functional needs (for example, the need for movement), they constitute a special class of states that either meet the conditions that arise in the so-called “internal economy” of organisms (the need for rest after intense activity, etc. ), or are derivatives that arise in the process of realizing objective needs (for example, the need to complete an act).
The change and development of needs occurs through the change and development of objects that meet them and in which they are “objectified” and specified. The presence of a need is a necessary prerequisite for any activity, but the need itself is not yet capable of giving the activity a certain direction. The presence of a person’s need for music creates a corresponding selectivity in him, but still does not say anything about what a person will do to satisfy this need. Maybe he will remember the announced concert and this will direct his actions, or maybe the sounds of broadcast music will reach him and he will simply stay at the radio or TV. But it may also happen that the object of need is not presented to the subject in any way: neither in the field of his perception, nor in the mental plane, in the imagination; then no directed activity that meets this need can arise in him. What is the only motivator of directed activity is not the need itself, but the object that meets this need.
The object of need - material or ideal, sensually perceived or given only in imagination, in the mental plane - we call the motive of activity.
So, psychological analysis needs must be transformed into an analysis of motives. This transformation, however, encounters a serious difficulty: it requires a decisive abandonment of subjectivist concepts of motivation and the confusion of concepts related to different levels and various “mechanisms” for regulating activity, which is so often allowed in the doctrine of motives.
From the point of view of the doctrine of the objectivity of motives human activity From the category of motives, first of all, one should exclude subjective experiences that are a reflection of those “superorganic” needs that are correlated with motives. These experiences (desires, desires, aspirations) are not motives for the same reasons that they are not sensations of hunger or thirst: by themselves they are not capable of causing directed activity. One can, however, talk about objective desires, aspirations, etc., but by doing this we only postpone the analysis; after all, further disclosure of what the object of a given desire or aspiration is is nothing more than an indication of the corresponding motive.
Refusing to consider subjective experiences of this kind as motives for activity, of course, does not at all mean denying their real function in the regulation of activity. They perform the same function of subjective needs and their dynamics that interoceptive sensations perform at elementary psychological levels - the function of selective activation of systems that implement the subject’s activities.
A special place is occupied by hedonistic concepts, according to which human activity is subject to the principle of “maximizing positive and minimizing negative emotions“, i.e., it is aimed at achieving experiences of pleasure, enjoyment, and avoiding experiences of suffering. For these concepts, emotions are the motives of activity. Sometimes emotions are given decisive importance, but more often they are included, along with other factors, among the so-called “motivational variables”.
Unlike goals, which are always, of course, conscious, motives, as a rule, are not actually recognized by the subject: when we perform certain actions - external, practical or verbal, mental - then we usually are not aware of the motives, which motivate them.
A person’s experience of an acute desire to achieve the goal opening before him, which subjectively distinguishes it as a strong positive “field vector,” in itself does not say anything about what the meaning-forming motive driving him is. This may be the motive, but it is a special case; Usually the motive does not coincide with the goal, it lies behind it. Therefore, its detection constitutes a special task: the task of recognizing the motive.
Because we're talking about about the awareness of meaning-forming motives, then this task can be described in another way, namely as the task of understanding the personal meaning (namely personal meaning, and not objective meaning!), which certain actions and their goals have for a person. The tasks of understanding motives are generated by the need to find oneself in the system of life relationships and therefore arise only at a certain stage of personal development, when true self-awareness is formed. Therefore, such a task simply does not exist for children.
When a child has the desire to go to school, to become a schoolchild, then, of course, he knows what they do at school and why he needs to study. But the leading motive behind this desire is hidden from him, although he does not find it difficult to explain - motivations that often simply repeat what he has heard. This motive can only be clarified through special research.
Later, at the stage of formation of the consciousness of one’s “I,” the work of identifying meaning-forming motives is carried out by the subject himself. He has to follow the same path as objective research, with the difference, however, that he can do without analyzing his external reactions to certain events: the connection of events with motives, their personal meaning is directly signaled by the thoughts that arise in him. emotional experiences.
Thus, the term “motive” is used not to denote the experience of a need, but to denote the objective in which this need is specified in given conditions and to which activity is directed. A. N. Leontiev proposes to call the motive of activity the object of need - material or ideal, sensually perceived or given only in imagination. Analyzing this concept, V.K. Vilyunas in his work “Psychological Mechanisms of Human Motivation” (1990) notes that motives, according to Leontiev, are only called ultimate goals activities, i.e. those goals, objects, results that have independent motivational significance. The meaning that various circumstances, acting as intermediate goals, temporarily acquire is called “meaning,” and the process, as a result of which motives seem to lend their meaning to these circumstances, is called the process of meaning formation. The phenomenon of acquiring the properties and functions of a motive by individual intermediate means-goals is called the “shift of motive to goal.” The author notes that explaining the ontogenetic development of motivation by the process of objectification of needs was typical for Soviet psychology. The theory has been criticized by a number of researchers. The main drawback was the actual removal of the motive from the mental framework.

Motives and needs (according to A. N. Leontiev). One of the main questions is “the question of the relationship between motives and needs,” wrote

Self the development of needs is associated with the development of their subject content, those. with the development of motives. After all, even vital needs are satisfied in order to act with their help. “But subjective experiences, wants, desires, etc. are not motives because by themselves they are not capable of generating directed activity, and, therefore, main psychological question consists in understanding what the object of a given desire, desire or passion is" (emphasis added - Auth.) A.

A need is an objective need for something. The motive is the search specific subject satisfy the need. For example: hunger is a need, a specific edible object is a motive.

True, there is also certain doubts regarding the relationship between motives and needs, indicated in the works of Leontiev, where the motive is associated with the subject of satisfying the need. For example, I.G. Kokurina believes that this understanding of motive is somewhat limited, since “a variety of needs can be embodied in one object.”

But if we take into account that needs are realized, and awareness is a complex process that involves a change in attitude both to one’s needs and to the objects of their satisfaction, then it turns out that a person constantly clarifies for himself why he needs this and that. . That's the problem: different objects can be used to satisfy a certain need. And a person constantly decides for himself which item he needs most. This may include not only purely pragmatic considerations (for example, some subject is more “accessible”, which means preference is given to it), but also various ethical restrictions, which is most interesting in the conditions of a transitional or degrading society, when questions of the motivation of certain or other actions are becoming increasingly ethical.

The connection between motive and purpose of activity (according to A. N. Leontiev). “The genetic basis for human activity is mismatch of motives and goals... motives are not actually recognized by the subject... however, it is not difficult for us to bring them motivation, but the motivation does not always contain an indication of the actual motive” (emphasis added. - Auth.) .

Similar thoughts can be found in S. L. Rubinstein, who wrote that in social production "direct purpose socially organized human activity is the performance of a certain social function; motive for the individual it may be the satisfaction of personal needs.” But at the same time "unity of activity specifically acts as the unity of the goals to which it is aimed and the motives from which it comes” (emphasis added. - Auth.) .

But motives can be recognized(for example, when we simply understand that some action gives us pleasure). Here there is often a contradiction between such emotionally charged motives and personal meaning (something more important, global in relation to simple action). This bifurcation is a consequence of multimotivation of activity. For example, work activity socially motivated, but it is also governed by such motives as, say, material reward.

“Thus,” writes Leontyev, “some motives, stimulating activity, at the same time give it personal meaning; we will call them meaning-forming motives. Others, coexisting with them, play the role of motivating factors (positive or negative), sometimes acutely emotional, affective, and lack a meaning-forming function; we will call such motives motives-incentives"(emphasis added - Auth.). Hence arises the problem of the hierarchy of motives.

It is interesting that in the structure of one activity a certain motive can perform the function meaning-making, and in the other - the function of additional stimulation. For example, the motive of communication in a conversation with a boring interlocutor is clearly not meaningful - to comply with the norms of decency. But if this is communication with a loved one, then it becomes essential.

"The paradox is that motives are revealed to consciousness only objectively, by analyzing activity and its dynamics. Subjectively, they appear only in their indirect expression - in the form of experience desires, desires, striving for a goal... These direct experiences serve as internal signals with the help of which ongoing processes are regulated... Awareness of motives is a secondary phenomenon, which arises only at the level of the individual and is constantly reproduced in the course of its development” (emphasis added by us. - Years).

The mechanism of “shifting the motive to the goal of activity” (according to A. N. Leontiev). In the course of the development of human activity (primarily labor), its complexity, differentiation and specialization occur, when people are more often engaged in more or less fixed production functions.

“The natural consequence of this is that there is, as it were, a shift in motive to the purpose of these actions. The action is now also transformed, but now turning not into an operation... but into an activity that now has an independent motive. Thanks to this, motives also enter the circle of the conscious.”

“The decisive psychological fact consists in the shift of motives precisely to such goals of action that do not directly correspond to natural, biological needs". For example, these could be cognitive motives, etc.

The mechanism of shifting the motive to the goal is another stroke that explains the very development of motives. But reverse transformations are also possible, when an activity loses its motive and turns into a simple action or operation (for example, automated actions and operations).

Motives and objectives of activity (but to S. L. Rubinstein).“The unity of activity is created, first of all, by the presence of large tasks that subordinate a number of smaller, private tasks included in them as links. Including an action in a new, broader context gives it new meaning and greater internal content, and his motivation - greater saturation. Action, becoming a way of solving a more general problem, loses intentionality specifically related to it and acquires special lightness and naturalness.”

The motives themselves are determined by the tasks in which a person is involved. “The motive for a given action lies precisely in the relationship to the task, to the goals and circumstances under which the action occurs.” A person’s personal motive itself is a kind of “drive belt in order to subordinate his activity to the objective logic of the tasks in the resolution of which he is involved.”

It is interesting that “the same task is a psychological task of varying difficulty when it has to be solved in various social situations." For example, it is one thing to lecture in a prepared (motivated) audience and quite another thing in an unprepared (unmotivated) audience. True, if you use primitive methods of seducing the audience, then even in an unprepared audience there can be “success”.

The problem of assessing the effectiveness of activities. First of all, this is the problem of evaluation (recognition) and self-assessment of one’s work. This is interesting, since the assessment (recognition) of work itself affects both motivation and the quality of work. S. L. Rubinstein wrote: “... an assessment aimed at the personality of the acting subject is perceived differently than an assessment aimed at certain actions. However, the assessment is still made on the basis of the results of the activity, its achievements or failures, advantages or disadvantages, and therefore it itself should be the result, and not the goal of the activity. In order to come to a positive assessment, you need to go in the direction of the goal of your actions. Where assessment becomes an independent goal of the subject... as if bypassing the goal of the action itself... certain deviations occur in the activity. This happens during public speaking."

It is interesting that “not only positive, but also negative evaluation can have a beneficial effect if it is justified and motivated.”

Motivation and level of aspirations. The connection between motivation and the level of individual aspirations has long been not only the subject of scientific research, but is also perceived by many even at the level ordinary consciousness. For example, if a student unsuccessfully solves a problem that students cannot cope with, then he is unlikely to be very upset, but if he is told that such a problem is easily solved by junior school students, then this will upset him and force him to somehow master ways to solve it . In this case, an interesting pattern arises: “with an increase in the level of an individual’s achievements, as a rule, the level of his aspirations also increases.”

The connection between motivation and success (A. N. Leontyev, S. L. Rubinshtein). The problem of experiencing success as the basis for the formation of personal meaning of activity. “Hedonic concepts” of motivation, where everything is explained by the “pleasure principle,” are still very popular. Interestingly, if rats have electrodes implanted in their pleasure centers, they work themselves to the point of exhaustion; motives here do not develop, but are destroyed. “The peculiarity of emotions is that they reflect the relationship between motives (needs) and success... they arise after the actualization of the motive (need) and before the subject’s rational assessment of his activities.” Based on the experience of success (or failure) of an activity, a “personal meaning of activity”(but to A.N. Leontiev).

It is interesting that “even successful execution of the same action does not always lead to positive emotion"(for example, sneezing during a performance). It is also interesting that “success or failure in one area of ​​activity can significantly shift up or down the level of children’s aspirations in another area, especially if the level of aspirations in the second area has not yet been established.”

It is important to distinguish between personal success and public success.

S. L. Rubinstein writes: “In reality, the motives of personal success do not at all reign supreme in people’s behavior. Everything truly great and valuable that was done by people was often done not only for the purposes of personal success and recognition, but sometimes with obvious disdain for it. How many great innovators are there in public life, in science and art, they did their job without receiving recognition during their lifetime, and yet they did not deviate from it, did not turn onto those well-trodden paths that led to personal recognition and success with the least amount of effort! But personal success, the success of a given individual, which is achieved in the work that he does for the sake of this success, is one thing; social success, the success of the work to which a person devotes himself and for which he is ready to make all kinds of sacrifices, is a completely different matter. It is this motive - the success of a big business, and not personal success - that should become the basis for motivating the activities of a person in a socialist society."

Motive in the structure of activity (by A. N. Leontiev). The activity itself is determined by the goal (where activity acts as a transformation of the relationship between the needs of the subject and the possibilities of satisfying them). Action is the motive. Operation - task (the relationship between the goal and the conditions determines the task, where the task is a goal given under certain conditions and requiring the use of specific methods and means of solving it).

Activity (according to A.N. Leontiev) is a process through which a connection is made with the object of a particular need and which usually ends with the satisfaction of the need specified in the subject of the activity (the subject of the activity is its actual motive). Activity is always stimulated by certain motives.

A.N. Leontyev deeply and consistently revealed the relationship

in the fundamental psychological triad “need-motive-activity”. The source of the motivating force of motive and the corresponding incentive to activity are actual needs. A motive is defined as an object that meets a need and therefore motivates and directs activity. Activity always has a motive ("unmotivated" activity is one whose motive is hidden from the subject himself and/or an external observer). However, there is no strictly unambiguous relationship between motive and need, between motive and activity, and between need and activity. In other words, the same object can serve to satisfy various needs, stimulate and direct different activities, etc.

Motives perform the following functions (according to A.N. Leontiev):

The function of motivation - motives-stimuli - act as additional motivating factors: positive or negative;

The function of meaning formation is the leading motives or meaning-forming ones - motivating activity, at the same time giving it personal meaning.

X. Heckhausen considers the functions of the motive only in connection with the stages of action - beginning, execution, completion. On initial stage motive initiates action, stimulates it, encourages it. Updating the motive at the execution stage ensures constant high level action activity. Maintaining motivation at the stage of completing an action is associated with evaluating results and success, which helps reinforce motives.

The components of the motif that create its structure include three blocks.

1. The need block, which includes biological, social needs and obligation.

2. “Internal filter” block, which includes the following components: preference for external signs, interests and inclinations, level of aspirations, assessment of one’s capabilities, taking into account the conditions for achieving the goal, moral control (beliefs, ideals, values, attitudes, relationships).

3. Target block, which includes the following components: objectified action, process of satisfying needs and need goal.

All of the above components of the three blocks can manifest themselves in a person’s consciousness in verbal or figurative form. They may not appear all at once, but one by one. One of the components in one case or another can be taken as the basis for an action from a specific block. The structure of the motive itself is built from a combination of components that determined the decision made by a person.

There are a huge variety of approaches to understanding the motive and its structure. Various authors give definitions that sometimes differ significantly from each other. What they have in common is the use of descriptive terms instead of explanatory ones. Based on the purpose of our research, we will adhere to the following definition of motive: motive is a need, the urgency of which is sufficient to direct a person to satisfy it.

1.2 Types of motives

The motives that prompt a person to act in a certain way can be conscious and unconscious.

1. Conscious motives are motives that encourage a person to act and behave in accordance with his views, knowledge, and principles. Examples of such motives are large life goals that guide activity over long periods of life. If a person not only understands, in principle, how to behave (belief), but also knows specific ways of behavior determined by the goals of such behavior, then the motives of his behavior are conscious.

2. Unconscious motives. A. N. Leontyev, L. I. Bozhovich, V. G. Aseev and others believe that motives are both conscious and unconscious motivations. According to Leontyev, even when motives are not consciously realized by the subject, i.e. when he is not aware of what prompts him to carry out this or that activity, they appear in their indirect expression - in the form of experience, desire, desire.

Motives are also classified according to their relation to the activity itself.

External motivation (extrinsic) - motivation that is not related to the content of a certain activity, but is conditioned by circumstances external to the subject.

Internal motivation (intrinsic) is motivation associated not with external circumstances, but with the very content of the activity.

External motives are divided, in turn, into social: altruistic (to do good to people), motives of duty and responsibility (to the Motherland, to one’s relatives, etc.) and personal: motives of evaluation, success, well-being, self-affirmation. Internal motives are divided into procedural (interest in the process of activity); productive (interest in the result of an activity, including cognitive) and self-development motives (for the sake of developing any of one’s qualities and abilities).

A person is driven to activity not by one, but by several motives. Each one has a different strength. Some motives are updated quite often and have a significant impact on human activity, others act only in certain circumstances (and in most cases are potential motives). Let us analyze in detail some types of motives.

Self-affirmation motive(the desire to establish oneself in society) is associated with self-esteem, ambition, and pride. A person tries to prove to others that he is worth something, strives to obtain a certain status in society, wants to be respected and appreciated. Sometimes the desire for self-affirmation is referred to as prestige motivation (the desire to obtain or maintain a high social status). The desire for self-affirmation, for increasing one’s formal and informal status, for a positive assessment of one’s personality is a significant motivational factor that encourages a person to work intensively and develop.

Identification motivewith another person - identification with another person - the desire to be like a hero, idol, authoritative person (father, teacher, etc.). This motive encourages you to work and develop. It is especially relevant for children and young people who try to follow other people in their actions.

Identification with another person leads to an increase in the individual’s energy potential due to the symbolic “borrowing” of energy from the idol (object of identification): strength, inspiration, and the desire to work and act as the hero (idol, father, etc.) did.

Power motive- this is the desire of the subject to influence people. Motivation for power (need for power) is one of the most important driving forces of human actions, it is the desire to take a leadership position in a group (team), an attempt to lead people, determine and regulate their activities.

Activities is called a system of various forms of realization of the subject’s relationship to the world of objects. This is how the concept of “activity” was defined by the creator of one of the variants of the activity approach in psychology, Aleksey Nikolaevich Leontyev (1903 - 1979) (10).

Back in the 30s. XX century in the school of A. N. Leontiev was highlighted, and in subsequent decades the structure of individual activities was carefully developed. Let's imagine it in the form of a diagram:

Activity- Motive(item of need)

Action - Purpose

Operation- Task(goal under certain conditions)

This structure of activity is open both upward and downward. From above it can be supplemented by a system of activities of various types, hierarchically organized; below - psychophysiological functions that ensure the implementation of activity.

At A. N. Leontiev’s school there are two more forms activity of the subject (by the nature of its openness to observation): external Andinternal (12).

In A.N. Leontiev’s school, a separate, specific activity was distinguished from the system of activities according to the criterion motive.

Motive is usually defined in psychology as what “drives” an activity, that for the sake of which this activity is carried out.

Motive (in the narrow sense of Leontiev)– as an object of need, i.e., to characterize the motive, it is necessary to refer to the category “need”.

A.N. Leontiev defined need in two ways:

Example: Before meeting a specific object, the properties of which are generally fixed in the genetic program of the gosling, the chick has no need to follow exactly that specific object that will appear before its eyes at the moment of hatching from the egg. However, as a result of the meeting of a still “non-objectified” need (or “need state”) with a corresponding object that fits the genetically fixed scheme of an approximate “sample”, this particular object is imprinted as an object of need - and the need is “objectified”. Since then, this object becomes the motive for the activity of the subject (chick) - and he follows him everywhere.

Thus, a need at the first stage of its development is not yet a need, but a need of the organism for something that is outside of it, although reflected at the mental level.

Activity prompted by motive is realized by a person in the form actions, aimed at achieving a certain goals.

Purpose (according to Leontiev)– as a desired result of an activity, consciously planned by a person, i.e. A motive is something for which a certain activity is carried out; a goal is what is planned to be done in this regard to realize the motive.

As a rule, in human activity motive and goal do not coincide with each other.

If the goal is always conscious of the subject(he can always be aware of what he is going to do: apply to college, take entrance exams on such and such days, etc.), then the motive, as a rule, is unconscious for him (a person may not be aware of the true reason for his admission to this institute: he will claim that he is very interested, for example, in technical sciences, when in fact he is prompted to enter there by the desire to be close to his loved one).

At the school of A.N. Leontiev Special attention is devoted to the analysis of human emotional life. Emotions are considered here as a direct experience of the meaning of the goal (which is determined by the motive behind the goal, therefore emotions can be defined as a subjective form of the existence of motives). Emotion makes it clear to a person what the true motives for setting a particular goal may be. If, upon successful achievement of a goal, a negative emotion arises, it means that for this subject this success is imaginary, since what everything was done for was not achieved (the motive was not realized). A girl entered college, but her loved one did not.

A motive and a goal can transform into each other: a goal, when it acquires a special motivating force, can become a motive (this mechanism of turning a goal into a motive is called in the school of A.N. Leontiev “ shift of motive to goal") or, on the contrary, the motive becomes the goal.

Example: Let's assume that the young man entered college at the request of his mother. Then the true motive of his behavior is “to maintain a good relationship with his mother,” and this motive will give a corresponding meaning to the goal “to study at this particular institute.” But studying at the institute and the subjects taught there captivate this boy so much that after a while he begins to attend all classes with pleasure, not for the sake of his mother, but for the sake of obtaining the appropriate profession, since she completely captured him. There was a shift in motive to goal ( former target acquired the driving force of motive). In this case, on the contrary, the former motive can become a goal, i.e. change places with it, but something else may happen: the motive, without ceasing to be a motive, turns into a motive-goal. This last case happens when a person suddenly, clearly realizes the true motives of his behavior and says to himself: “Now I understand that I didn’t live like that: I didn’t work where I wanted, I didn’t live with who I wanted. From now on, I will live differently and now, quite consciously, I will achieve goals that are truly significant to me.”

The set goal (of which the subject is aware) does not mean that the method of achieving this goal will be the same under different conditions of its achievement and is always conscious. Different subjects often have to achieve the same goal under different conditions (in the broad sense of the word). Mode of action under certain conditions called operation and correlates Withtask (i.e., a goal given under certain conditions) (12).

Example: admission to college can be achieved different ways(for example, you can pass the entrance exams “through the sieve”, you can enter based on the results of the Olympiad, you can not get the points required for the budget department and still enter the paid department, etc.) (12).

The subject acts in the process of performing this or that activity as an organism with its own psychophysiological characteristics, and they also contribute to the specifics of the activity performed by the subject.

From the point of view of the school of A. N. Leontiev, knowledge of the properties and structure of human activity is necessary for understanding the human psyche (12).

Traditionally, the activity approach distinguishes several dynamic components(“parts”, or more precisely, functional organs) activities necessary for its full implementation. The main ones are indicative and executive components, the functions of which are, respectively, the orientation of the subject in the world and the execution of actions based on the received image of the world in accordance with the goals set by him.

The task executive The component of activity (for the sake of which activity generally exists) is not only the adaptation of the subject to the world of objects in which he lives, but also the change and transformation of this world.

However, for the full implementation of the executive function of activity, its subject needs navigate in the properties and patterns of objects, i.e., having learned them, be able to change one’s activities (for example, use certain specific operations as ways of carrying out actions in certain conditions) in accordance with the known patterns. This is precisely the task of the indicative “part” (functional organ) of the activity. As a rule, a person must, before doing anything, orient himself in the world in order to build an adequate image of this world and a corresponding action plan, i.e. orientation must run ahead of execution. This is what an adult most often does under normal operating conditions. At early stages of development (for example, in young children), orientation occurs during the performance process, and sometimes after it (12).

Summary

Consciousness cannot be considered as closed in itself: it must be brought into the activity of the subject (“opening” the circle of consciousness)

behavior cannot be considered in isolation from human consciousness. The principle of unity of consciousness and behavior.

activity is an active, purposeful process (principle of activity)

human actions are objective; they realize social – production and cultural – goals (the principle of the objectivity of human activity and the principle of its social conditionality) (10).