Question

READ AND ANSWER COMPLETLY

(1) Try applying the drive-reduction theory of motivation to your experience of having the munchies in the middle of the night. Be sure to include need, drive, behavior and homeostasis. Using this example, comment on why the concept of "drive" is critical. Why not just assume we go directly from need to behavior? Can you give an example?

(2) In the 50's Clark Hull developed a remarkable variant of the drive-reduction theory that included incentive as well. He said that we can determine the likelihood of a particular behavior of a person (such as eating a hot dog or going to meet a friend) if we know the strength of the drive, the strength of the incentive, and how realistic the goal is. All three are expressed as percentages. You just multiply them together and you get the likelihood of the behavior. For example, say your hunger is 80%, the incentive of a hot dog is 50% and an estimate of how realistic it is for you to find a hot dog to eat is 90%. The likelihood of eating a hot dog then is 80% x 50% x 90% = 36%, therefore you have a 36% chance of going to eating a hot dog. So, given perfect knowledge about the three factors for all possible behaviors, we could perfectly predict what someone will do. Thoughts? Examples?

Answer 1

A) According to Hull, a drive is a biological state of arousal that makes an individual somewhat restless.To reduce the drive, humans and animals repeat behaviors that reduce these drives. In this case, having the munchies in the middle of the night is the drive, eating a bag of chips is the behavior and feeling full after eating the bag of chips is a return to homeostasis.

Drive has a direct impact on behavior. Reducing the drive serves as a form of reinforcement for behavior. Reinforcement leads to the behavior being repeated, which in turn causes learning to take place. If the drive for hunger was not reduced after you ate something, you would seek out other types of behavior to help reduce the drive.

B) While the possibility of perfectly predicting behavior might seem accurate, factors apart from the ones mentioned should be considered. If the drive is only hunger, then food, in general, would be sufficient to reduce the drive. Even if the chance of finding a hotdog to eat is 90%, say the person finds a McDonalds before they find a hotdog cart. If his drive is at 80%, he may as well have Big Mac and get an increased incentive from it.