本文简述了动机理论，指出动机驱动行动，且与愉悦和痛苦的体验相关。动机由情绪产生，如饥饿、口渴和欲望等，不同情绪会引发不同行为，行为可分为回避和追求两类，情绪还能识别问题并产生解决问题的动机。

🎈动机是行动的驱动力，其增减会带来不同的体验，增加时会感到痛苦，减少时会感到愉悦。动机由诸如饥饿、口渴和欲望等情绪产生，这些情绪具有生物学功能，相应地驱动着特定的行为，如饥饿促使人进食，口渴促使人饮水，欲望促使人追求性行为。

😮一些情绪会对刺激做出反应。例如被针扎时，皮肤的感觉受体（伤害感受器）会被激活，向大脑发送信号，从而产生情绪反应，这种反应会促使人们采取行动以避免有害刺激。

🚶行为可分为回避和追求两大类。恐惧等情绪会引发回避行为，而饥饿等情绪会引发追求行为，如寻找食物。引发追求的情绪往往会随着时间积累，而引发回避的情绪通常是对刺激的即时反应。但由于人类具有复杂的、目标导向的行为，我们可以提前行动以预防未来的危险和伤害，而不仅仅是对其做出反应。

🧠情绪是启发式问题识别器，它们能够识别生物学问题，并产生解决这些问题的动机。但在某些情况下，刺激会直接产生行动，如寒冷时颤抖或手被烫时迅速抽回，然而这种刺激-反应机制只能产生简单行为。

Published on August 8, 2024 5:05 AM GMT

This is a brief sketch of a theory of motivation.

Motivation drives action. It also causes the experiences of pleasure and pain. We experience pain when motivation increases, and pleasure when motivation decreases.

Motivation is generated by emotions, such as hunger, thirst and lust. Emotions generate motivation, and motivation generates action. Each emotion has a biological function. Hunger motivates eating. Thirst motivates drinking water. Lust motivates sex.

Some emotions react to stimuli. For example, if you are pricked with a pin, then you will experience pain. The pin activates sensory receptors in the skin (nociceptors), which send a signal to the brain, where it generates an emotional reaction. That reaction will motivate you to act in a way that avoids the noxious stimulus.

Behavior can be divided into two broad categories: avoidance and pursuit. Some emotions generate avoidance behaviors. Fear is a generic emotion that motivates avoidance. Other emotions, such as hunger, generate pursuit behaviors, such as seeking food. Emotions that motivate pursuit tend to build up over time, while emotions that motivate avoidance tend to be immediate reactions to stimuli. However, because we have complex, goal-directed behavior, we can act in advance to prevent future danger and harm, rather than just reacting to it.

Emotions are heuristic problem recognizers. They recognize biological problems, and generate the motivation to solve them.

Why do emotions generate motivation instead of action? Why is there an intermediate step? In some cases, a stimulus directly generates action, such as shivering when you are cold, or jerking your hand away from a hot stove. However, that stimulus-response mechanism can only generate simple behaviors.

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Although I'm not the author of this post (a friend of mine wrote it), I have created a PDF version of the essay that has a table of contents and headers to make it even easier to read.

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