What are the major theories of motivation?
The term motivation is defined as the process of inducing a person to function actively in order to achieve certain goals. The influence of motivation on people’s behavior depends on a number of factors. It is very individual and changeable relative to various stimuli and feedback reactions to people’s activities. By motive we normally mean the factor that causes a person to undertake certain activities, as well as her internal and external driving force. Motives determine what has to be done and how it will be done in order to satisfy a person’s needs. Stimulus plays an important role in the process of satisfying needs. Although the usual understanding of the word stimulus considers it to be a rewarding mechanism, the initial meaning of the word can be interpreted as either an incentive or a reason for a person’s activities. There are four major types of stimuli to be considered : forcing, material incentive, influence, and self-actualization. Theories of motivation started to be deve
