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Transcript Provided by YouTube:
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You’ve probably heard this story.
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Aron Ralston was out climbing in Utah’s Bluejohn Canyon when a giant rock shifted under his
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feet, and he fell, pinning his right arm to the canyon wall. He was stuck, and worse,
00:11
he hadn’t told anyone where we was going.
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For the next five days, Ralston tried to move and chip away at the rock. He ate his remaining
00:19
food, drank the last of his water. Eventually he drank his own urine, and started videotaping
00:24
his goodbyes.
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But then something happened. Ralston had a dream. He saw himself as a father, picking
00:30
up his son, and with that vision, an overpowering will to survive kicked in. He broke his arm
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bones, sawed through his flesh with a dull pocket knife, and freed himself.
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Ralston harnessed some of our most powerful psychological forces — hunger, thirst, desire
00:45
to be part of a family, need to return to the human community — they ignited his tenacity,
00:51
which allowed him to do an incredible thing.
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He harnessed the power of motivation.
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Obviously, in a big, big way.
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[INTRO]
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In its most basic sense, motivation is the need or desire to do something. Whether that
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need is biological, social, or emotional, and whether that something is making dinner,
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going to college, or cutting off your arm, motivation is what gets you moving.
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But the big question is, why? Why do we do anything? I mean, why ever bother changing
01:28
out of my sweatpants?
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Psychologists often view motivation in one of four ways. On their own, none of these
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theories is perfect, but taken together, they help us understand what drives us. Let’s start
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with the first theory: an evolutionary perspective.
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For a while in the early 20th century, it was popular to think of all behaviors as instincts,
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or innate drives to act a certain way. But this so-called Instinct Theory was misguided,
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in part because the presence of a tendency doesn’t always mean it’s supposed to be there.
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Like, we can imagine why a bunch of people might start rioting at a heated soccer match,
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but to say that they’re supposed to — a little short-sighted.
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Evolution is a far more complex, chaotic, and interesting process than that. Plenty
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of behaviors could just be accidents of evolution — late paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould called
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these accidents “spandrels,” or traits that rather than being “adaptive” just stuck around
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as byproducts of other processes.
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Today we define instincts as complex, unlearned behaviors that have a fixed pattern throughout
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a species. For example, dogs instinctively shake their fur when wet, salmon return to
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the stream in which they hatched, and human babies know how to suckle just minutes after
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being born.
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These are true, genetically-predisposed instincts that do not require learning.
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But today we understand that while certain tendencies may be genetic, individual experience
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plays a major role in behavior and motivation, as well.
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So another theory of motivation suggests that a physiological need, or drive, simply compels
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us to reduce that need. This is called the drive-reduction theory. This can be as simple
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as hearing my stomach growl, and looking for a burrito. My need is food, my drive is hunger,
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my drive-reduction behavior is burrito.
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Drive reduction is all about maintaining your body’s homeostasis — the physiological balance
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of its systems.
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As much as we’re pushed to reduce our drives, we’re also pulled along by incentives — the
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positive or negative stimuli that either entice or repel us. The mouth-watering smell of that
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burrito pulls me toward it, just as much as my hunger pushes me there.
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However, we’re also clearly more complicated than our homeostatic systems, and drive-reduction
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theory may over-simplify a lot of our behavior. For example, a person may fast for days, ignoring
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their body’s hunger to honor some spiritual or political cause; and I know I’m not the
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only one who sometimes eats when I’m not actually hungry.
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So a third theory — the theory of optimal arousal — attempts to fill in some of those
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gaps. It suggests rather than just reducing a drive or tension, like hunger, we’re motivated
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to maintain a balance between stimulation and relaxation.
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Say you’re holed up in your house all weekend studying. You’re bored and lonely and gettin’
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weird, so you call up some friends to go mountain biking or to a karaoke bar or whatever you
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like to do to for stimulation.
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The idea here is that you want to hit the right level of arousal — which, take note,
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psychologists often use in a non-sexual sense — without getting overstimulated and stressed.
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So if you nearly break your face on that bike ride, or if the Journey covers at karaoke
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start getting too intense, you may need to back off and take a nap.
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Of course everyone has a different level of optimal arousal, and I’m guessing Aron Ralston’s
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was fairly high. Adrenaline junkies may jump out of planes to hit their ideal level, whereas
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others might be satiated by an engaging book, or new knitting pattern. No matter which,
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the optimal arousal theory suggests that we’re motivated to avoid both boredom and stress.
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And obviously not all needs are created equally. If I’m suffocating and can’t catch a breath,
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I’m not going to be thinking about eating that burrito. And if I’m about to be ravaged
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by lions, I’m not going to worrying about my paycheck.
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American psychologist Abraham Maslow illustrated this shuffling of priorities in the mid-1900’s
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with his famous hierarchy of needs.
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Down at the bottom of the pyramid you’ll find our most basic physiological needs for food,
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water, air, and moderate temperatures.
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The next rung up speaks to our need for safety, then comes love and belonging, followed by
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esteem or respect, and finally, once all those needs have been met, we have the relative
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luxury of being motivated by self-actualization and spiritual growth, and yoga retreats and
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stuff.
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Of course there are problems with Maslow’s vision. Empirical research hasn’t really supported
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his hierarchy. We tend to skip around on that pyramid all the time, and the importance of
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those higher-level needs may vary depending on our culture and finances and personalities.
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But still, everyone is restricted by the lowest levels of the pyramid. So, regardless of the
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theories about why we have them, most schools of psychological thought agree that we are
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driven by at least three big motivators: sex, hunger, and the need to belong.
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We’ll do a whole lesson later about all sorts of sex-related stuff, including how it motivates
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us. There’s a lot there. For now, let’s just say that sexual motivation is how we promote
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the survival of our species through recreation and/or procreation – both of which help human
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communities bond and expand. Without it, none of us would be here today, thinking about
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burritos and severed arms and sex and stuff.
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Internally, we are biologically driven to knock boots by our sex hormones. We’re also
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motivated by psychological and sociocultural influences – ranging from suggestive external
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stimuli plastered all over billboards, magazines, and TVs in the form of, you know, scantily-clad
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bodies sprawled out on beaches to more genteel desires like love, family, or adherence to
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personal, religious, or cultural values.
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Sex is a big motivator, but it isn’t precisely a need, no matter what anyone has told you.
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People do not die without it.
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Hunger, though…
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After air and water, food is our body’s greatest need, and thus obtaining food is one of our
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greatest motivations.
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Hunger may seem pretty simple. Eat food, stay alive. But physiologically and psychologically,
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there is a lot going on. And like so many things, it starts in the brain.
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The sensation of hunger usually begins with a drop in your blood-sugar level. Glucose
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is our body’s primary source of energy, and while you might not initially feel it drop,
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your brain will.
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Your hypothalamus monitors your blood chemistry, and responds to both high levels of the “hunger
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hormone” ghrelin, and low levels of glucose by triggering that feeling of hunger reminding
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you to eat something. I am in fact experiencing it right now!
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Once you’ve eaten that burrito, your metabolism takes over, converting that food into energy.
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But while our physiological need for calories varies depending on our body size and composition,
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your gender, and your age, our hunger is also shaped by our psychology, culture, and mood.
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And these factors don’t just rule when we’re hungry, they also guide what we’re hungry
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for.
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Biologically speaking, most humans, and many other animals, have a genetic taste for sweets
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and fatty foods, because they’re typically high in energy. But other taste preferences
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are conditioned through experience and culture.
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I may have an aversion to oysters because they once made me sick, and love gingerbread
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cookies because my grandma used to make them. Although popular in Cambodia, I’m not too
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keen on eating fried tarantulas, just as lots of folks around the world think that the very
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idea of peanut butter is gross.
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Still, the feeling of hunger affects us the same.
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During World War Two in the US, some conscientious objectors volunteered for medical research
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as an alternative way to serve their country.
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Perhaps the most famous of these studies was physiologist Ancel Keys’ Minnesota Hunger
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Experiment, which measured the effects of semistarvation, by partially starving its
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volunteers.
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While ethically dubious, the experiment was geared toward understanding the many small
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and large effects of hunger, which was plaguing Europe at the time.
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The study started in 1944, by feeding 36 young, healthy men a normal diet for three months,
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then halving their caloric intake for six months, then slowly rehabilitating them to
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normal weight during the last three months.
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They ate mostly wartime-foods like root vegetables, bread, and pastas, and were required to walk
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22 miles, and participate in various work and educational activities, for 40 hours each
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week. The goal was to see a 25 percent drop in body weight during the starvation period.
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As you can imagine, the changes were dramatic. The men became gaunt and listless, and showed
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a decrease in strength, heart rate, and body temperature.
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But the psychological effects were perhaps even more dramatic. The men became totally
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obsessed with food. They dreamed about it, talked about it all the time, read cookbooks.
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They lost interest in sex and jokes and social activities. They were irritable, anxious,
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and depressed.
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In the end, they were all rehabilitated, but the study gave us some understanding of the
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devastating psychological effects of starvation. It also showed us something of the social
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effects, as the men withdrew from one another and isolated themselves. As one fundamental
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need was frustrated, these men experienced the decline of another – the need to belong.
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Humans are social animals. Evolutionarily speaking, it’s fair to say that social bonding
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has helped us survive. It’s a tough world out there, and we’ve got a lot better shot
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at thriving if we’re sharing resources and responsibilities, protecting and supporting
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each other in groups.
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That isn’t say you need to be joined at the hip with everyone–our social needs have to
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be balanced with our autonomy, or sense of personal control, so we feel both connected
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and independent.
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But sometimes we’re denied that sense of belonging. We’ve all experienced the pain of being ignored
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or rejected at some point in our lives. It’s worse than just about anything.
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The evidence for this is abundant – one recent study suggested that teenagers who had a sense
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of belonging to their community had better health and emotional outcomes than those who
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didn’t feel like they belonged.
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Cultures all over the world actually use ostracism, or social exclusion, as a type of punishment.
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Whether it’s kids in time-out, adults in exile, or prisoners in solitary confinement, separation
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feels like a punch in the gut.
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Never underestimate the power behind what motivates us. The need to survive, the need
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to belong… if you can harness that motivation, you can do just about anything. Just ask Aron
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Ralston.
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If you were motivated to learn today, hopefully you took in four theories of motivation including
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the evolutionary perspective, drive-reduction, optimal arousal, and Maslow’s hierarchy of
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needs, and how sex, hunger, and the need to belong motivate us.
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Thanks for watching, especially to our Subbable subscribers who make this whole channel possible.
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If you’d like to sponsor an episode of Crash Course or even be animated into an upcoming
10:54
episode, just go to Subbable.com/CrashCourse.
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This episode was written by Kathleen Yale, edited by Blake de Pastino, and our consultant
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is Dr. Ranjit Bhagwat. Our director and editor is Nicholas Jenkins, the script supervisor
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is Michael Aranda, who’s also our sound designer, and the graphics team is Thought Café.
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This post was previously published on YouTube.
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Photo credit: Screenshot from video.