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ROLAND P. MACKAY, M.D.

AMA Arch Neurol. 1959;1(5):535-543.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

The Nature of Motivation

"Behavior," as defined in Webster's, is the "mode of conducting oneself," and, as the word "oneself" denotes, includes activities of the total organism in relation to its environment. Now these activities, to constitute behavior, must be characteristically purposeful, goal-directed, or "motivated." To walk is not to behave, but to walk to a political meeting and to take a position on the issues is to behave. The purpose or goal determines the quality of the behavior. To shoot a gun, again, is not to behave, but to shoot a gun in war and to shoot it in murder, although quite the same in motor mechanism, are nevertheless vastly different kinds of behavior. I think we may agree that any biological science of behavior must therefore consider goals or motivation as the unique hallmark of behavior.

For centuries the philosophy of science has been deterministic and has had . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Author Affiliations
Chicago

Professor of Neurology, University of Illinois College of Medicine, and Attending Neurologist, Presbyterian-St. Luke's Hospital.

Footnotes
Accepted for publication July 9, 1959.

Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society of Biological Psychiatry in Atlantic City on June 13, 1959, as the Academic Lecture.

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