Ageing: 3. The motivation factor

Personality is said to determine characteristic behaviour and thought. It is an important influence in the motivational process that drives the individual towards a certain goal.

The common interest in ‘personality’ has led to immense popularity of different tests identifying them. The tests base on several different theories of personality. For example, the type approach classifies people in categories involving one or more qualities (e.g., the person-job fit theory), while the trait approach tends to cut across situations accounting for permanent and enduring behaviour (e.g., the big five model).

The belief is that in the process, behaviours associated with a particular personality may also be identified, and by extension, their future actions predicted.

However, with the various theories in use, we may be left with information overload in place of the comprehensive understanding of personality. At the end of the elaborate testing exercise, we may be no closer to knowing all the psychophysical systems within the individual that constitute the dynamic organization of personality than before.

The common assumption made has been that personality is static, something that we have inherited, are stuck with and have to get used to. People are wont to say that they are ‘too old to change’ and that ‘you cannot teach an old dog new tricks’ - a perspective now held open to question.

What may be inferred instead is that their motivation is weak. The word ‘motivation’ is derived from the Latin emover, meaning ‘to move’. It refers to the stimulus, the psychological processes that arouse, direct and maintain the goal-directed action.

Theories of motivation emphasize nature (the biological basis of inheritance) or nurture (the social basis of learning). Motives have been classified as primary (e.g., physiological, like pleasure or pain), secondary (e.g., psychological, like power or independence) or general (e.g., curiosity or competence). Operative influences on people tend to be a mixture of these motives.

Theorists have postulated that in reality, personality grows, develops and changes over time influenced by several factors. Argyris articulated at least seven personality changes that may occur in personality development over the lifespan. These reside on a continuum from immaturity to maturity:

Immaturity-Maturity Continuum (From Accel Team 2004)

• Passive ------------------------------Active
• Dependence -------------------------Independence
• Behave in few ways -----------------Capable of behaving in many ways
• Erratic shallow interests ------------ Deep and strong interests
• Short term perspective ------------- Long term perspective (past & future)
• Subordinate position ----------------Equal or superordinate position
• Lack of awareness of self ----------- Awareness and control of self

It may be argued that the direction of movement of personality change on this continuum may not be constrained in one direction only, i.e., from immaturity to maturity. Depending on the motivating factors, the change may just as well proceed from maturity towards immaturity with advancing age as defence mechanisms against increasingly challenging situations.

In any case, individuals are active, constructive processors of information, continually organizing, summarizing and accounting for their own behaviour. Schemas are cognitive representations based upon experience and specific events in life. Their usefulness is that they influence input and output of information quickly and efficiently.

In consequence to various schemas built and stored in memory over the years, people develop mental maps not only with respect to themselves and similarly to others, but also with regard to how to act in various situations. This involves the way they plan, implement and review interactions.

These maps actively guide people’s conduct, although all this is not always done with conscious awareness. On the downside, once established and experientially consolidated, the schemas become increasingly resistant to change.

Next…nurture and nature