Conscious and Unconscious Motivation

Greek philosophers explained motivation.  With their insight, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle believed that knowledge, rationality, wisdom, and virtue was associated with good behavior. In fact, Aristotle believed that the highest achievement for life was happiness and that it could be reached through reason.  While Aristippus, perhaps the originator of hedonism, believed that pleasure, in the moment, was necessary for happiness to occur. Then, Epicurus advocated pleasure but disapproved of sexual intercourse. Instead, he believed that friendship was to be advocated. These Greeks were smart.

Later, St. Augustine considered the will as the most important aspect of life and that it was separate from knowledge. He believed will and virtue would rule the body. Yes, that was how he controlled sexual passions. Years later, Machiavlli blamed bad education and religion as affecting poor government. He saw power, egoism, along with fear and love as effective tools for manipulating the masses. Later Rosseau’s belief was that man was essentially good but was spoiled by a bad society and poor government. These intellectual giants believed in conscious determinants for action.

Another philosopher Spinoza, postulated that man was influenced by his unconscious for determining behavior. The idea that consciousness caused behavior was challenged. Could man be influenced by an area of the mind that was hidden from him? Later, Freud postulated and incorporated the idea of interaction between a conscious, pre-conscious and unconscious mind.

Freud’s model of the mind was very detailed and complex. Let’s start with his idea that “the child is the father of the man” as history was important. Further, the qualities of the unconscious or primary process of the mind included: being unorganized, illogical, and timeless, coupled with an absence of good, an absence of evil, and an absence of morality as unconscious components. In the conscious or secondary process model of the mind or executive functions, we find: ability to perceive, remember, judge, discriminate, abstract, generalize, think, reason, feel and act.

To begin, it was believed that unconscious forces work along with the occurrence of developmental crises which have either been resolved or not. The developmental process continues along with individual needs and various conflicts, coupled with anxiety .These interact and point to the why or the driving forces of behavior. When asking someone to explain their actions, conscious explanations are given. However, according to the unconscious model, one looks into the unconscious to find meaning. The presented conflict did not begin nor originate in the present, but belongs to the past within the repeated history of the individual. A current response would be colored by history within the unconscious.

This brief overview provides a limited interpretation, at best, of the workings of the mind. What goes on in the mind motivates actions. Let’s use an example of a male figure denying a rape or sexual assault charge. There are a large number of people that would support the accused and discount the female in question. One way to explain the remarks or explanations follows. More than likely, a denial about the male behavior and blaming the female would generate anxiety in the mind of the individual. Therefore, the emotional overlay would relate to a previously caused conflict occurring from that individual’s past. The past conflict might be associated with a verbally or physically controlling aggressive male; perceiving females to be property, being in a vulnerable situation with a powerful male; being fearful of females, being fearful of aggressive males; having some sexual difficulty; dislike and conflict with females; some impaired interpersonal interaction; experiencing guilt or something that she/he did, did not, or wanting it to happen etc. With that being said, the current thinking reduced the unpleasantness of the anxiety of the prior conflict in order for the mind to reach homeostasis. The mind created defensive options in order to do just that.

 In other words, the supporting individual might verbally reply defensively as follows: She deserved it because of her flirtation; she should’ve fought back and defended herself; since it happened a long time ago, she doesn’t remember fully or correctly; she probably consented in some way; she’s doing it for the money; what took her so long to report this; she’s lying. Statements like these are called defense mechanisms and place blame on the female. Statements that exonerate the male include the following: Males are just aggressive and she “no” really meant “yes”; he’s honorable and trustworthy; look at all the support he has from males and females, they believe him; he was young and that’s how men act. Essentially, a defense mechanism reduces anxiety and allows the individual to overlook, dismiss, give the benefit of the doubt, and distort by creating a defense or protection for self.

Within Freud’s thinking, a mental explanation, of the above, would also be part of an emotional connection with that individual identifying with a particular tribe, group or certain individual.  With an anxiety producing statement or idea, that anxiety or tension has to be reduced. The degree or importance of the attachment or symbolization of the present or person can be traced back to one’s early history. Defense mechanisms and identifications surface.

A Defense Mechanism is an attempt, unconsciously, to alleviate or protect self from emotional conflict pertaining to instinct, affect, disagreeable situation and anxiety by employing some cognitive explanation to mask it. Explanations can be creative, rational or extraordinary. The focus or purpose is to operate unconsciously – the individual is not aware of what’s taking place and second, to reduce anxiety through justification, denial and distortion of reality. The particular defense mechanisms used are related to the individual’s particular identification, personal meaning of the crisis, and conflict which produced the danger or anxiety. There are 10 defense mechanisms available for the ego for utilization. A more complete description can be found in Anna Freud’s” The Ego and Mechanisms of Defense.”

We live life by consciously justifying or explaining our behavior or the behavior of someone else. It doesn’t appear to matter whether the behavior- is good, bad, moral, amoral, rational, or irrational. We are very sophisticated and continue to fool ourselves by employing conscious explanations, rational, or reasons for all our actions. Just listen to the tribal politics of cable news and hear their simplistic reasons, opinions, generalizations or their predictions about situations or world events. Thank you Socrates, Machiavlli, Rosseau and other philosophers for your wonderful, insightful and explanations for conscious behavior. These intellectual giants made significant contributions with their thought provoking ideas. However, that’s only part of the story. Yes, human behavior is complicated and defense mechanisms, identifications, and history make it more so.