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Chapter 2 - Self-Direction

How Nature Has Equipped You to Survive, with Well-Being

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 October 2020

Martin E. Ford
Affiliation:
George Mason University, Virginia
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Summary

This chapter tells the fascinating story of how human motivational processes evolved from the humblest of creatures, starting with “primordial” goals and precursors of basic emotions. In addition to explaining how our capabilities for self-direction and self-regulation evolved, this chapter provides a way of understanding the complexly organized motivational systems we see in humans in a way that transcends specific motivation theories. It is thus a chapter about the fundamental properties of human nature as they relate to motivation and optimal functioning rather than a chapter about a particular theoretical approach to human motivation. That is an essential framing, as one of the basic premises of this book is that efforts to motivate self and others can best succeed if they are consistent with basic human nature.

Type
Chapter
Information
Motivating Self and Others
Thriving with Social Purpose, Life Meaning, and the Pursuit of Core Personal Goals
, pp. 20 - 66
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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