Motive

All human activity is prompted by motives, whether instinctive, emotional, or dependent on attitude or ideals. In biology, instinctive acts (hereditary) or conditioned reflexes (acts reinforced by experience) are prompted by active states of brain structures or systematically organized stimuli of the central nervous system, and these states and stimuli are referred to as motivations. [Individual]

motivations refer to the most basic needs (adequate food, warmth, avoidance of pain); [group]

motivations include caring for children, maintenance of society, and jockeying for position within that society; and motivations involved in play and exploratory behaviour are referred to as [cognitive]

motivations. The presence of same need - motivational excitation - is necessary before activation of the emotions can take place. Behavioural science defines a motive or [motivational variable]

as any stimulus which induces or activates behaviour. Depth psychology refers to biological instincts and affinities as [principal]

motives, these being partially suppressed under different societal conditions. Thus a primary motive is that object which satisfies a simple material need. Subsequent motives include motivating ideas and conscious goals. Of the several motives prompting any activity the leading motive will affect the quality of that activity and its meaning to the person carrying it out. As a person learns to evaluate the complex and often contradictory motivations which caused activity (rationalization) and establishes a definite hierarchy of motives, then principal motives are subordinated to social or spiritual motives and activities are carried out with reference to ideals rather than material requirements.