Theories of Motivation
Abraham Maslow’s “Need Hierarchy Theory” :
One of the most widely mentioned theories of motivation is the hierarchy of needs theory put forth by psychologist Abraham
Maslow. Maslow saw human needs in the form of a hierarchy, ascending from the lowest to the highest, and he concluded that
when one set of needs is satisfied, this kind of need ceases to be a motivator.
As per his theory this needs are :
(i) Physiological needs :
These are important needs for sustaining the human life. Food, water, warmth, shelter, sleep, medicine and education are the
basic physiological needs which fall in the primary list of need satisfaction. Maslow was of an opinion that until these needs were
satisfied to a degree to maintain life, no other motivating factors can work.
(ii) Security or Safety needs :
These are the needs to be free of physical danger and of the fear of losing a job, property, food or shelter. It also includes
protection against any emotional harm.
(iii) Social needs :
Since people are social beings, they need to belong and be accepted by others. People try to satisfy their need for affection,
acceptance and friendship.
(iv) Esteem needs :
According to Maslow, once people begin to satisfy their need to belong, they tend to want to be held in esteem both by
themselves and by others. This kind of need produces such satisfaction as power, prestige status and self-confidence. It includes
both internal esteem factors like self-respect, autonomy and achievements and external esteem factors such as states, recognition
and attention.
(v) Need for self-actualization :
Maslow regards this as the highest need in his hierarchy. It is the drive to become what one is capable of becoming, it includes
growth, achieving one’s potential and self-fulfillment. It is to maximize one’s potential and to accomplish something.
As each of these needs are substantially satisfied, the next need becomes dominant. From the standpoint of motivation, the theory
would say that although no need is ever fully gratified, a substantially satisfied need no longer motivates. So if you want to
motivate someone, you need to understand what level of the hierarchy that person is on and focus on satisfying those needs or
needs above that level.
Maslow’s need theory has received wide recognition, particularly among practicing managers. This can be attributed to the
theory’s intuitive logic and ease of understanding. However, research does not validate these theory. Maslow provided no
empirical evidence and other several studies that sought to validate the theory found no support for it.
8) Vroom’s Valence x Expectancy theory :
The most widely accepted explanations of motivation has been propounded by Victor Vroom.
His theory is commonly known as expectancy theory. The theory argues that the strength of a
tendency to act in a specific way depends on the strength of an expectation that the act will be
followed by a given outcome and on the attractiveness of that outcome to the individual to make
this simple, expectancy theory says that an employee can be motivated to perform better when
their is a belief that the better performance will lead to good performance appraisal and that this
shall result into realization of personal goal in form of some reward. Therefore an employee is :
Motivation = Valence x Expectancy.
The theory focuses on three things :
Efforts and performance relationship
Performance and reward relationship
Rewards and personal goal relationship
This leads us to a conclusion that :
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MOTIVATION, SATISFACTION, INSPIRATION AND
MANIPULATION
Motivation refers to the drive and efforts to satisfy a want or goal, whereas satisfaction refers to
the contentment experienced when a want is satisfied. In contrast, inspiration is bringing about a
change in the thinking pattern. On the other hand Manipulation is getting the things done from
others in a predetermined manner.
Hence, manipulation or external stimulus as well as inspiration or internal stimulus acts as
carriers of either demotivation or motivation which in turn either results into dissatisfaction or
satisfaction depending upon.
10) Clayton Alderfer’s ERG Theory :
Alderfer has tried to rebuild the hierarchy of needs of Maslow into another model named ERG
i.e. Existence – Relatedness – Growth. According to him there are 3 groups of core needs as
mentioned above. The existence group is concerned mainly with providing basic material
existence. The second group is the individuals need to maintain interpersonal relationship with
other members in the group. The final group is the intrinsic desire to grow and develop
personally. The major conclusions of this theory are :
1. In an individual, more than one need may be operative at the same time.
2. If a higher need goes unsatisfied than the desire to satisfy a lower need intensifies.
3. It also contains the frustration-regression dimension.
