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Concept
Drive theory
Summary
In psychology, a drive theory, theory of drives or drive doctrine is a theory that attempts to analyze, classify or define the psychological drives. A drive is an instinctual need that has the power of driving the behavior of an individual; an "excitatory state produced by a homeostatic disturbance".
Drive theory is based on the principle that organisms are born with certain psychological needs and that a negative state of tension is created when these needs are not satisfied. When a need is satisfied, drive is reduced and the organism returns to a state of homeostasis and relaxation. According to the theory, drive tends to increase over time and operates on a feedback control system, much like a thermostat.
In 1943 two psychologists, Clark Hull and Kenneth Spence, had the first interest in this idea of motivation. They knew it was a sense of their motivation, drives, and an explanation of all behavior. After years of research, they created the drive theory. In a study conducted by Hull, two groups of rats were put in a maze, group A was given food after three hours and group B was given food after twenty-two hours. Hull had decided that the rats that were deprived of food longer would be more likely to develop a habit of going down the same path to obtain food.
In psychoanalysis, drive theory (Triebtheorie or Trieblehre) refers to the theory of drives, motivations, or instincts, that have clear objects. When an internal imbalance is detected by homeostatic mechanisms, a drive to restore balance is produced. In 1927, Sigmund Freud said that a drive theory was what was lacking most in psychoanalysis. He was opposed to personality systematics in psychology, rejecting it as a form of paranoia, and instead classified drives with dichotomies like Eros/Thanatos drives (the drives toward life and death, respectively) and sexual/ego drives.
Freud's Civilization and Its Discontents was published in Germany in 1930, when the rise of fascism in that country was well under way, and the warnings of a second European war were leading to opposing calls for rearmament and pacifism.
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