                 1.  AN INQUIRY INTO MOTIVATION IN HUMAN BEINGS.
        
             Motivation is the force that initiates, directs, and
        sustains individual or group behavior in order to satisfy a need
        or to attain a goal.  This force is unique to each individual
        human being.  There are many forces which drive an individual to
        struggle to achieve a goal or to fulfill a need.  What are some
        of these?
        
             Some individuals born into squalor strive their entire lives
        to escape their birthright.  They often sacrifice their health,
        their safety, their very existence to succeed.  What is it that
        motivates them?  
        
             Our nation developed because many individuals risked
        everything to reach beyond what "was" to what "could be." 
        Settlers in the East cut native timbers in order to expose the
        earth to the sun above and sowed crops upon the rocky soil of the
        East.  Homesteaders endured great hardships crossing the Great
        Plains to establish homesteads, ranches, and business in the Wild
        West.  Many died in the process of making a new life for
        themselves.  Their names are unknown to us, and yet in many of
        us, the same rugged individualism still exists and motivates us
        to struggle toward similar, contemporary pursuits.
        
             Some people are intrinsically motivated to achieve their
        goals or to satisfy needs.  They do what they do just for the joy
        of doing it.  There is no external factors that drive them.  You
        and I have known such individuals and sometimes they can appear
        to be a mystery to us unless we understand their internal drive
        to succeed at what they are doing.
        
             Opposite of the intrinsically motivated individual is she
        who is extrinsically motivated to achieve something.  Her
        behaviors are easier to understand.  Take for example the woman
        who, after years of working at a minimum wage job, decides to
        develop new skills in order to qualify for a better position. 
        She sacrifices time and energy to achieve her goal.  She becomes
        a nurse, a teacher, a business woman, and in her new labor, earns
        the money she so desired.  
        
             Some people are personally invested in improving themselves. 
        They possess a value system which forces them to step beyond
        their status quo and improve their condition in life.  The values
        that drive them may be simple or complex depending upon cultural
        and other environmental factors.  If a person values money above
        all else, he or she will succeed in amassing the wealth desired. 
        This "American Dream"  was certainly active in the 1950's when
        many millionaires were born, rising out of the ruins like the 
        phoenix from the aftermath of WWII.
             
             Personal investment aids the individual in motivating
        himself to succeed in life.  In viewing life from a personal
        perspective, the individual makes decisions which will foster the
        kinds of successes he desires.  Investing in self was a
        predominant theme in the late 1970's and 1980's.  Many
        individuals, unlike their predecessors in the 1960's, invested in
        the bull markets and gathered fame and fortune.  This motivating
        factor is present in all humans to some degree.  
        
             In some individuals there is a self-determination which
        motivates stellar performance.  The determination to be something
        other than what one is is the force that motivates this kind of
        individual to attain success.  The self-determined individual is
        more likely to succeed at what he wants to because within him
        exists this force which prompts him to continue to struggle
        regardless of the barriers confronting him.  
        
             Freud (1939) hypothesized that all individuals possess
        drives which cause individuals to undertake certain actions to
        produce desired results.  The libido, or instinctual drive,
        causes a man to want to eat, sleep, and reproduce.  Deeper,
        unconscious drives motivate him to achieve other things.  Though
        many reject the Freudian perspective, his work in this area laid
        a foundation for many theorists who attempted to determine what
        motivates the human being to do certain things.
        
             The attribution theory holds that some attribute within the
        individual motivates him to strive toward personal excellence. 
        What is it that prompts the olympic athlete to run, jump, and
        suffer for years of enduring work outs with the one hope of some
        day standing upon the podium and bending forward to have a gold
        medal draped around his neck?  What attribute does this
        individual possess that others do not?  Is there an attribute
        that does exist that motivates this person to forego immediate
        for deferred pleasure?  
        
             Recent investigations into conative constructs, or
        instincts, wishes, drives, or cravings, explore the individual's
        striving for excellence.  Though this is a rather new
        perspective, it is again another attempt to explain what
        motivates individuals to change their behaviors, attitudes, and
        beliefs and become new people altogether. 
        
             Once, handicapped individuals were pigeonholed into
        believing they needed to accept their physical limitations.  A
        movement developed to change this.  First, handicapped people
        changed their "label."  They no longer considered themselves
        "handicapped" but "physically challenged."  Now, each year,
        Special Olympics are held around the country so that physically
        challenged people can gather and compete against one another just
        like their sound-bodied counterparts.  What motivates the
        paraplegic to "soup up" his wheel chair, don leather gloves, and
        spin his wheels along the byways of America just so that one day
        he can ride at breakneck speed around a quarter-mile track in an
        attempt to set a world wheel-chair record?     
        
             Maslow (1954) maintained that individuals were motivated to
        meet human needs, the highest of which was to become self-
        actualized.  Before an individual could reach this state, he
        would need to meet his survival and security needs.  He must then
        fill the need to be wanted or loved and the need to be recognized
        by others for who and what he is.  No person can be self-
        actualized at all times, and yet, Maslow maintained that all
        individuals strive to achieve this state.
        
             Is there a personality type or characteristic which
        possesses more innate motivation than others?  What makes a
        Steven Spielberg or Colonel Sanders achieve the success that
        others only wish they could?  Robbins (1985) maintained that all
        champions possess seven characteristics which propel them toward
        realizing their dreams.  The first and foremost characteristic is
        passion.  These individuals contain within them a passion to
        excel.  While one made movies that excited eyes and ears, and the
        other created a famous chicken recipe which pleased the palates
        of many people world wide, both, Robbins contended, possessed a
        passion that made them a cut above the rest of mankind.  How did
        this passion surface in these two men?  What about others, the
        rest of us, who also walk the same face of the earth and want to
        succeed?  With similar passion, can we accomplish the same kinds
        of extraordinary things these two did?
        
             What comes first, motivation or competence?  Are competent
        individuals more motivated to succeed than others or does some
        intrinsic, extrinsic, conative, attributive, or other innate
        value or drive prompt an individual to strive for excellence?  Is
        there a personality type which possesses more motivational
        attributes than another?  Is there any connection between
        personality and motivation, motivation and competence, or is
        motivation only a concept that we discuss in cognitive terms and
        still don't have any real notion about what it truly is?
        
             This study attempts to answer some of these questions?  Many
        theories will be reviewed in order to formulate some general
        principles regarding what motivates human beings.  Some
        motivational techniques will be studied.  If we can understand
        what motivates some people, there is the possibility of
        replicating these practices with others who are less motivated.  
             
             Einstein (1938) wrote that "The formulation of a problem is
        far more often essential than its solution, which may be merely a
        matter of mathematical or experimental skill.  To raise new
        questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new
        angle requires creative imagination and marks the real advance in
        science."
        
             Motivation is the force.  But, what causes it; what feeds
        it; what accelerates it; what destroys it; are all pertinent
        questions.  No amount of scholarly investigation will produce a
        definitive answer.  However, melding science and the arts
        together can provide the researcher with a new perspective on
        what motivates human beings.  In this process of reading this
        text, the reader will understand what motivates others, and most
        importantly, what motivates him or her to respond to the stimuli
        of the world and produce goods and services, arts and letters,
        valued by others of the human species.
