What's your motive?
Some people have to be backed into decisions instead of enticed. The definition of motivation is the need or desire that serves to energize behavior and to direct it toward a goal. Motivation is what gives you energy. It is that need, desire, or both. Is it motivation if you don't care?
There are several biological theories on motivation. The first theorist was William James (1890) when he wrote the Principles of Psychology. He wrote that people inherit social behavior, like love/modesty/honesty/jealousy, as well as survival instincts. But knowing Darwin and society, we know that this is not true. The problem is that instincts are supposed to be programmed, fixed, unlearned, genetically programmed patterns of behavior. So, if we are all homo sapien sapiens, then William James would not be true. There are complex behaviors that must have a fixed pattern throughout a species and be unlearned. There is a fine distinction between drive, motivation, and instinct. William McDougal came up with the idea that there are 18 instincts, and he extrapolated migratory behaviors in birds from birds. There seems to be human instincts such as rooting, sucking and grasping, and these are all behaviors that infants come with. Rooting is searching for a nipple.
Motivational concepts - Charles Darwin's evolutionary theory. He said that all behavior is instinctual, or at least connected wtih instinctual behavior. So what Darwin looked at was the instinct to learn, he would back the behavior down to its root instinct. Instincts, by their nature, are adaptive (see the adaptive neurosci). Some people started to classify 5759 behaviors after Darwin -- but they were wrong.
Drive-reduction theory (Clark-Hull theory). A drive is a fundamental biological motivation. Think about the itch that you were not able to scratch at some time ... drive is where you just can't possibly scratch the itch, but your entire focus is translated to that very itch. Try this the next time you have to scratch yourself. Your brain chemistry is being altered by the drive. A drive keeps on recurring no matter how much you try to avoid it, although an urge can be eliminated. The Drive-Reduction Theory said that all behavior originates from physiological needs. Physiological need creates an aroused state (drive) that motivates an organism to satisfy the need. Puckett claims that there are behaviors that are unrelated to satisfying hunger/shelter/sex --- but this is not what I see. Anything you do can be linked back to a drive -- everything, even learning something completely useless; your behavior to go do that thing can be linked back to the Drive. This behavior, my typing, is not a direct implementation of a behavior to get food/sex/shelter, but it still is -- it's like the brain is able to navigate down very complex paths to get resultant behaviors that are needed.
incentives (!= DRIVE)
instinct != DRIVE.
DRIVE = physiological only.
Breathing != instinct ?
You don't always consciously breath -- but you consciously eat.
Drive is what pushes you, and then you alter your behavior by choice.
Drive-reducing behaviors (when you act on the drive, the drive is switched off)
"So you ask a kid to clean his room. He doesn't have the motivation or drive to do that." - Puck
"OCD." - Clint
This is all terribly vague and ambiguous. I do not like these definitions and words. They are useless. Genetic expression of biological processes, versus the genetic expression influencing the development of the brain, versus the genetic basis of neurometabolism in learning, versus how the content that you learn influences your brain (certain content influences certain structures of the brain?), ...
Maslow - hierarchy of needs. Physiological needs -> safety needs -> belonging needs -> esteem needs -> self-actualization needs (internal successful; sense-of-self, wholeness; this is where you are connected to people in a nonzero sum game) -> transcendance (Ghandi?)
They are working off of 'normal' men/women ... but normal is half-penis, half-vagina. Normal is assuming the model that you already have!
You cannot take a scalpel and find the substrate of these 'needs'. This is not useful. There should be a way to link behavior to its biological substrate, even after the fact to some extent. They are trying to classify different behaviors into a sort of ontology. This sort of ontology has a biological substrate in the actual brain itself ... not an external ontology. Any external ontology would be trying to find meaning across billions of humans and their actions, and in many cases actions are sometimes for opposite goals (they have opposite meanings, so to speak), so in this case the behaviors of the entire human race should cancel out (Babylonian physics). So, discovering the ontology of an individual likely involves either digging into the brain or using brain imaging technology, or hacking the brain in such a way that you can see the slips of the tongue and ascetic reading of the face, to reveal how the brain was 'designed' or the design of the 'thought'.
Caloric restriction - you start to focus too much on food. Puck says that in prisons they tried this, and the prisoners that received reduce caloric energy became increasingly more obsessed with food. Exercise over deprivation works, although habituation of self-limitation works.