Story of Psychology - Morton Hunt [324]
Not only were the animals aroused by novelty; they actively sought novel situations in order to arouse themselves. Human beings are especially likely to try to arouse their own minds and feelings. We seek to frighten ourselves by going to horror movies, to stir ourselves up sexually by reading erotic material, to challenge ourselves by playing games against opponents as good as or better than ourselves, and to make our minds work by solving puzzles. One psychologist, Fred Sheffield, persuasively made the case that it is not drive reduction that reinforces human behavior so much as drive induction; we seek not so much the completion of the movie, book, or game as the excitement of watching, reading, or playing.41
Such behavior makes sense in terms of evolutionary theory. As the motivation theorist Robert White suggested in 1959, highly developed animals, in order to survive, must learn to deal effectively with their environment. To be curious about novel situations and to be self-arousing is to increase the chance of learning to deal effectively with the environment, and consequently of surviving and reproducing.42
But we do not like or seek as much arousal as possible; we prefer moderate stimulation and dislike what is unduly stressful, extremely frightening, or chaotic.43 This, too, has survival value: we and other creatures function best at intermediate levels of arousal.44 In one of many experiments attesting to this, volunteers were given up to a hundred seconds to solve each of twenty difficult anagrams for a small cash reward. Their level of motivation was measured by having them rate how attractive they found the goal; those who were moderately motivated solved the most anagrams.45 The principle is familiar to everyone. All those who drive cars, play games requiring physical or mental skill, or work for others know that they do not do their best when bored or sleepy—or when under extreme pressure to do well.
Some of the best evidence that the motivation behind self-arousal and exploratory behavior is the desire to achieve competence and control of the immediate environment comes from Piaget’s and others’ studies of children’s cognitive development through play and schooling. We heard about some of Piaget’s relevant observations earlier, but one more example is apropos here. One day Piaget gave his son Laurent, aged ten months, a piece of bread; Laurent dropped the bread, picked it up, broke off pieces, and let them drop again and again, watching each fall with great interest. The next day, Piaget writes,
he grasps in succession a celluloid swan, a box, and several other small objects, in each case stretching his arm and letting them fall. Sometimes he stretches out his arm vertically, sometimes he holds it obliquely in front of or behind his eyes. When the object falls in a new position (for example on his pillow) he lets it fall two or three times on the same place, as though to study the spatial relation; then he modifies the situation.46
The obvious satisfaction such activities yield comes from finding out how the world works and achieving some degree of control over it. In Robert White’s words:
The child appears to be occupied with the agreeable task of…discovering the effects he can have on the environment and the effects the environment will have on him. To the extent that these results are preserved by learning, they build up an increased competence in dealing with the environment. The child’s play can thus be viewed as serious business, though to him it is merely something that is interesting and fun to do.47
This is true not only during childhood; in adulthood, though to a lesser extent, we are impelled to expand our knowledge of, and competence in dealing with, the world we live in.48
But this does not explain the intense motivation of some