Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
  1. Home
  2. Search

Refine search

Refine search

Access:
Content type:
Publication date:
Apply   From and To filters
Subject: Show more
Journals Show more
Publishers: Show more
Societies Show more
Series: Show more
Collections: Show more

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

1 results

  • Chapter 2 - Self-Direction

  • Martin E. Ford, George Mason University, Virginia, Peyton R. Smith
  • Book:
    Motivating Self and Others
    Published online:
    12 October 2020
    Print publication:
    22 October 2020, pp 20-66

  • 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.