Human Emotion and Motivation
There is only one reason why any human being ever performs any action.
It is because he wants to.
That is to say, the reason he acts is because there is something he wants to attain or obtain.
Man is a creature of desire, of motivation, of wants.
He takes action because he doesn't have everything that he wants, and he has to take action in
order to get it.
Man, because he is a rational being, doesn't have a built-in pattern of wants.
He has to identify the nature of the world about him, and then select from that world
those things which he believes will be compatible to his best interests, and then he acts in
an effort to obtain them.
Man discovers at a very early time that there is what we could call a cause-effect relationship.
He knows that when he initiates a certain cause, that an effect, further down the line,
will be made available to him.
If he has done his intellectual homework correctly, then he has identified the type of result
that he wants, and he initiates the proper cause or causes leading to that effect.
However, if man was not a creature of desire and wants and needs, he probably wouldn't
act at all. He would, I suppose, be very much like a tree. We would just plant our feet
in the soil, raise our arms to the sun and rain, and flourish as a result. But we are
not that type of living organism. The only way that we can survive in this world is by
by taking positive cognitive action in an effort to get what we want.
Now this is a very interesting factor here.
When we speak in terms of motivation, we're actually speaking in terms of our emotional
makeup.
We view wants and desires as being of an emotional character, something that we have a feeling
toward.
Now when we're talking in terms of ideas themselves, we usually disassociate them from emotion.
We think that they are intellectual, abstract, and that there is no emotion connected with
them.
In fact, in the early days when people were first beginning to study the nature of man
and trying to figure out how we worked, they used to think that the thoughts originated
in the brain and that the emotions originated in some other organ of the body, like the
the Heart, perhaps, or the solar plexus, or the spleen, or the wishbone, or whatever it
is we have.
Anyway, now we know that that's not the case, that an idea, however abstract and however
intellectual it may be, nonetheless has some element of emotion in it, there is some emotive
of Money, The Theory of Money and Credit of Money and Credit of Money and Credit of Money
and, for example, perform a lobotomy, which virtually, insofar as emotions are concerned,
can reduce a person to a mere vegetable.
His wants and desires are simply removed from him, and he doesn't want anything anymore.
And this is done by an operation on the brain, not an operation on the liver or the solar
plexus or some such thing.
So we think and we desire from the brain.
Now here is the interesting thing.
When we are thinking in terms of ideas themselves, that is the intellectual side, we find that
these ideas are tremendously individualistic.
Every human being by his nature selects a little different pattern of statistical data
from the world about him.
He chooses certain stimuli that are meaningful to him and he ignores others so that his pattern
of thought is uniquely his own.
But when we start thinking in terms of drives and basic emotional characteristics, all men
are surprisingly similar, if not identical.
It follows that in our emotional characteristics, we are very nearly instinctive creatures,
because our emotional drives we apparently inherit, since these drives are much the same
with all human beings irrespective of race, religion, creed, color, or whatever.
But the ideas are very individualistic, but the drives are very similar.
So we could think of man as an emotionally oriented person almost on the basis of an
In the early days, we used to think that all
All men had instincts, of course, and we always used to begin by saying that every man had
a basic instinct for self-preservation.
That's the way we used to begin it, that all men had an instinct for self-preservation.
Actually now we know that that's probably untrue and certainly it isn't the best way
to get at what we're trying to get at.
It is certainly true that most of us, if we are normal and healthy, would have a very
strong drive to preserve ourselves.
But it wouldn't be an instinct, and it wouldn't be a constant.
It would vary depending on other things.
So what I would like to do is use a little different phraseology here.
Rather than say that all men have an instinct of self-preservation, let me say instead that
that every man has a desire to prevent loss. Loss of what? Well, that we don't know. We
know that each man here might very well differ from the next man. We only know that whatever
an individual man values at a given time and place, that particular thing that he values,
He will try to prevent the loss of or he will at least seek to minimize the loss of it.
In other words, man will seek to preserve his life when his life is valuable to him.
If it ever becomes such that his life is not valuable to him, then he probably will not
take a great deal of effort to try to preserve it.
If his life becomes a burden upon him, he might very well act to do away with it.
Indeed, we find this happening all the time, fortunately, not too frequently, but no day
passes in this country, for example, when someone doesn't commit suicide.
Now, if we had an instinct of self-preservation, that would be impossible.
We would have a basic drive, a basic desire to preserve our lives at whatever cost. This
is manifestly not so. We do usually place a very high value on our lives, but when other
factors intervene, such as old age, sickness, or possibly even a high element of risk related
to something else that we value, we might very well give up our lives in preference
to either some other condition or in favor of another person or thing, as the case may
be.
We know, for example, of many instances in history where men have gone to the scaffold
or to the gallows or to the stake rather than deny a principle or aid in what they construed
to be wrongdoing.
Here they readily accepted their own death rather than simply denying something that
they thought was true.
Now here would be a case where a person has a very interesting value structure in which
he would value his own life less than what he took to be an ultimate truth.
We have had the same thing happen with men who have preferred to die rather than betray
or possibly rather than to lose a loved one or possibly to lose a piece of property.
We find men constantly engaged in exchanging their particular views of what is valuable
for something else which they view as valuable, even putting their own lives into the balance
whenever this seems warranted to them.
I might even point out that this appears constantly with most of us every day. There are some
men who value their lives in such a context that they never run any risks if they can
possibly avoid it. They live quiet, retiring lives. They take as few chances as possible
and in case of any appearance of danger, their natural tendency would be to run and hide.
There are other men who would find that that type of existence would simply place them
in a completely untenable position.
They find the only joy of living is taking a chance.
These men sometimes are stunt pilots or they drive racing cars or they do other things
that are risky and filled with adventure because without the spirit of adventure, their lives
would be meaningless to them as they see it.
So here you have individuals who value their lives, but they value them differently.
Some men placing far more value on how they live their lives than the mere fact of living,
others less.
And this is the nature of man as he values things.
The point is that all men, irrespective of their values, will act to prevent loss.
We just don't know what it is that they're going to value at a given time, but we do
know that if they value it, they will seek to prevent the loss of that which they value.
If they can't totally prevent the loss, then they will act to minimize that loss.
Now this is a constant.
I know of no exception to this.
Every human being who has ever lived is alive now, or conceivably who could live in the
of the Future, would operate with that drive in him. It is virtually instinctoid. It would
apply to all of our species. We will all act to minimize or prevent loss. Now, there is
a necessary corollary with this, because that is not the only motivational factor that we
have. In addition, all men will act to promote gain. Well, you might very logically say,
Well, what's the difference? If a man is acting to prevent a loss, that is a gain. And obviously,
if he's getting a gain, well, that prevents a loss. And, of course, this would be correct.
But there is a precise difference here. The difference relates to a kind of pattern that
tends to emerge here. This is not a principle. This is only a probability, but it has been
Detected. When men anticipate a loss, their tendency is to try to get in with the group.
When they anticipate a gain, their tendency is to try to get out and be by themselves.
Now that's a very interesting thing. As I say, this is only a probability because I
can find exceptions to this. But as a general rule, this would be the case. In other words,
It is as though you and I, acting as human beings and always having our own best interests
uppermost in our minds, which we really do, however we like to deceive ourselves in this
connection, we say in effect, if there's a loss to be had, I'd like all of you people
to share it with me.
Now, if there's a gain, I don't need you, I can have that for myself.
In other words, if there's profit, I'd like it.
If there's a loss, I'd like to divide it.
And we act this way.
We are constantly engaged in trying to maximize well-being for ourselves.
We are inner-directed, egocentric, and trying to please the most important person in the
world to us, me, whoever you are.
That is what you are trying to do.
The most important person to you is you.
However, you may think about it.
Let me cover a couple of other desires that we have.
There's a long list of them.
I won't go into all of them.
It isn't essential for purposes of this particular course, but let's take another one here.
All human beings by their nature have a drive toward winning approval from others.
We all want to be thought well of by others of our kind.
Incidentally, not necessarily by all others of our kind.
Sometimes we actually can take pride and pleasure in being disapproved of by people that we
ourselves disapprove of.
In other words, we can take a kind of pleasure in being hated by the right people.
We want to be accepted by the people that we accept.
But if the others who we don't accept disapprove of it, well, that's just dandy with us.
And this is the way many of us view this.
So we seek approval of others.
Now I've run into some people who don't really like to accept that because they feel that
in themselves they are very rugged individuals, and doubtless they are, and they say, I just
Just don't give a hang what anybody thinks about me.
I don't need the approval of anybody.
I'm my own judge and everybody else can go way back and sit down.
But actually, although they may think this to themselves, what they are probably trying
to do is to please the arch type of rugged individualism that they imagine must exist
somewhere.
They're cutting themselves to a predisposed pattern and they would like to measure up
to that.
Somewhere in the world there may be another rugged individualist who is as rugged and
as individualistic as they, and they would like to be as good as he is.
They would equate this with being good.
Just to give you another instance of this, we find instances, for example, where we have
A person, this is particularly noteworthy among children, where we have a child, let's
say, who doesn't find that his playmates accept him.
This child will very often, in an effort to be approved by at least someone, will invent
a playmate for himself, and then he'll play with that playmate.
This playmate doesn't exist, except in his own mind, but he creates this playmate who
always does approve of him, and then he has conversation with his playmate and they get
along well together because, of course, the planet always understands him.
There may be a great deal relating to religion in this area.
We all feel that we want to be approved of by somebody who will understand us in spite
of our faults and will accept us and forgive us our weaknesses and whatever.
So we are constantly seeking approval from somebody who understands us and in spite of
that likes us. Understanding doesn't always mean liking. So this is a very important thing
and everybody has it. We want to be approved of by at least one other, hopefully more than
one, possibly a great many, probably not everybody, but the more we have who will approve of us,
The more satisfied we are, the more we tend to be in balance and emotionally mature because
we feel then that we fit in and that everything is going our way because we have approval
from so many areas.
Actually, if we're in business, this is a very important thing.
Every businessman is essentially very much concerned with the other party.
He has to be.
Although he's in business to make profits, without any question, the only way that he
can make profits is through a process in which he considers what the other fellow wants.
And he's got to win the approval of that other fellow by providing a good or a service
for the other fellow quicker, cheaper, and better than the other fellow can do it for
himself.
Otherwise, he can't succeed in business.
So here's the businessman, and I've talked to lots of them, and they go around telling
me how independent they are and how they are seeking profits, and I sort of chuckle because
I know that every one of them is basically just concentrating for all he's worth in trying
to figure out what somebody else wants so he can give it to him, for a prize, of course.
But that's the idea.
He definitely must concentrate on the other fellow, and he will often tell you what a
There is another type of drive we all have, and this is the drive toward self-approval.
We not only want to win approval from others, but we want very much, in fact we must, it
is absolutely a part of our own mechanism for self-survival, we want to be able to approve
of ourselves, a very important factor.
I might even suggest that, and I think there's a general consensus here, that most psychiatrists
and psychologists would concur that the open doorway into any or almost any kind of mental
imbalance, discounting physical injury to the brain, is caused by a decline in self-esteem,
caused by one reason or another.
It could be caused by the acceptance of a guilt complex or possibly a self-imposed guilt complex.
It can be imposed by the person on himself as a result of disapproval of something he
has done, disapproval of the way he looks, disapproval of something he has said.
All of these things cause us to become sometimes critical of ourselves or even hypercritical.
If we become overly critical of ourselves, if we lose self-esteem to a significant degree,
we can become ill.
It is imperative that we retain our good opinion of ourselves at least to a point.
I'm not suggesting that egotism is a vital factor, but egoism may well be.
We have to think well of ourselves so we want to be able to approve of ourselves.
One of the best things, of course, in order to win self-approval is to do those things
which we know in advance we would approve.
If we're going to busy ourselves by doing things that we can't approve because it may
be fun and so many things that we would disapprove of would be fun, well then, of course, we
may run the risk of disapproving of ourselves.
And that's, I guess we could call that a bad trip or a bummer.
It's not really the way to do it.
So what we have to do if we're going to be emotionally healthy is to have self-approval,
to win the approval of others, at least some others, we are definitely engaged in promoting
gain for ourselves and we're certainly engaged in trying to prevent loss.
When we put all these things together, these are four of the basic drives we have.
Now I could go on and tabulate a number of additional drives, but you know in the end
they'd all be added up to one thing.
I can call this an ultimate given with respect to the nature of man.
It is an ultimate given that every human being by his nature is actually a profit seeker.
Now don't jump. I don't mean a profit seeker in terms of dollars. Not necessarily. I see
nothing wrong with dollars and I know many people who seek dollars for themselves. Fine.
But when I use the term profit here, I am talking and thinking in terms of a plus factor,
something that is better than I now have.
In other words, I anticipate a loss, so I will act to prevent the loss.
If I act in such a way that the loss is prevented, that's a plus factor.
Or I anticipate a gain, and I act in such a way that the gain occurs, well that's a
or I anticipate winning the approval of someone that is meaningful to me and I act in such a way that I win that approval, well, that's a plus factor or I act in such a way that I am able to admire myself a little bit for something I've done, something I've said, some accomplishment, that's a plus factor.
In other words, when I say profit, I mean a plus factor, and every human being, by his nature, acts in terms of innumerable plus factors which he erects in his mind and he seeks, through varying behavior, depending upon his analysis of the nature of the world about him, in an effort to satisfy all of these drives that he comes equipped with.
And that's the way we work. Every human being then, whether he likes to think of it this way or not, is actually a prophet-seeker.
Now, let me take up a question that's bound to arise here. What about the question of altruism, charity?
If a person is really a profit seeker, if he's looking after number one, himself, would
it be possible for him to extend charity to another person?
Why, of course, certainly.
A person who would assist another is simply putting that other into his scale of values
as a plus factor.
For example, let's suppose that we have a man here who desires to give $100 to his church.
Why would he do that?
The only reason that he would do this—and I'm excluding any coercion here, I'm assuming
a free choice—the only reason that he would do it would be because, after he does it,
he would feel that he would be better off than he would be if he didn't do it, therefore
he will do it.
Well, how could he possibly feel that way? Doesn't he know that if he gives a hundred dollars to his church, he'll be minus a hundred dollars?
Sure he will. But he will have a plus factor, or he won't do it.
Now, what that plus factor will be, I don't know. It could depend on his point of view relating to many things.
Perhaps, he believes that if he gives $100 to his church, this will help to make life
better for him in the next world.
And then that's a plus factor because he's gaining something in another life.
Or possibly he feels that he wants to see the church succeed and he is a part of it
and he believes in it and he wants to contribute towards its success.
and its success is meaningful to him and therefore having it succeed is a plus factor and he
wants to be a part of that.
Or possibly he wants to be recognized as a donor to this church.
Possibly he wants to please other people and stand before them as an important figure.
Certainly he wants to please himself.
So when he gives away some money in an act of charity, he is doing it to please himself
Fundamentally, he can't help it. These acts of apparent selfless generosity really aren't so.
The apparent selflessness isn't there. There isn't any selflessness. That's impossible unless
you really are sick. You are definitely interested in number one, and when you are engaged in
and including somebody else in your choices and actions, you are simply engaged in including
them because they have become a plus factor to you or their good opinion has become a
plus factor to you and so on.
So actually you are engaged even in an act of charity of pleasing yourself.
Now the term altruism I think probably means, it can be interpreted many ways, but I think
What it means is that a person actually values another person above himself or another thing
above himself.
And of course, I don't think that that's possible unless you have a case of severe mental derangement
and illness.
Every human being, even when he is most self-effacing, is in essence taking pride in himself for
being self-effacing.
We're all engaged in being egocentric.
Perhaps I can show what I mean by introducing another word here.
The word is sacrifice.
Is it possible for a person to make a sacrifice?
Of course.
One can always sacrifice someone.
You sacrifice someone else.
You take a friend and you toss him into the den of lions.
That's a sacrifice.
But supposing instead you decide to walk into the den of lions volitionally, well that isn't
a sacrifice, that's self-fulfillment, assuming no coercion has appeared.
You are simply acting in terms of your highest value as you see it at that time.
That's not self-sacrifice, that's not possible.
Sacrifice?
Yes, you sacrifice someone else.
Self-sacrifice?
No. Altruism, no. These things don't happen. A friend of mine once approached me and said,
I've sacrificed everything to give my girl an education. I said, who held the gun at
your head? She said, no one. I said, well then, it wasn't a case of sacrifice. You were
acting to fulfill your highest value. You would rather give the girl a good education
than not. We'll consider other ideas here at a later time. Thank you.