21 Types of Motivation

Motivation refers to the underlying cause of any human action. In psychology, all human actions are seen to have a base cause, or motivation, that explain why we choose to do what we do.

We often create a hierarchy of motivations, whereby intrinsic motivation (the desire to do the task for the value of the task) is considered more valuable than extrinsic motivation (the desire to complete a task to achieve an external reward).

Most other forms of motivation fit somewhere along that spectrum. Examine the following types of motivation and see where you would put them along the intrinsic-extrinsic spectrum.

Types of Motivation

1. Extrinsic Motivation

The first type of motivation is extrinsic motivation. It sits on one end of our spectrum of motivations and describes the desire to do something purely for an external reward.

Children are often highly motivated by extrinsic wards such as a candy or a sticker. As we get older, we find that our extrinsic motivators change and we’re more discerning about what motivates us. Nevertheless, we remain extrinsically motivated throughout our lives, particularly for rewards that sustain us (such as food and money).

2. Intrinsic Motivation

Intrinsic motivation is the opposite of extrinsic. This refers to times when we’re motivated for the pleasure of the process of doing a task rather than a reward if we complete it. That pleasure is considered an intrinsic reward.

Intrinsic motivation is believed to be an ideal form of motivation and encouraged in therapy through models such as motivational interviewing.

It refers to times when we’re so excited to do something that we’ll literally do it for free. Often, these tasks may be challenging but fun and exciting. We may fall into a flow state when doing these tasks where we simply love being in-the-moment doing the task.

Read Also: Intrinsic vs Extrinsic Motivation

3. Achievement Motivation

Achievement motivation occurs when we feel the drive to feel like we’ve achieved something because of the rush we get at the point of mastery.

This might occur when we excel at a task, when we achieve noticeable improvements in our skill level, or we surpass our own personal best.

Achievement motivation is a powerful force that pushes us to set personal challenges and can help us to persevere in the face of difficulty.

Achievement motivation is considered a type of intrinsic motivation and people who are high in this type of motivation tend to have strong growth mindsets and feel high levels of pride in their own accomplishments.

4. Power Motivation

Power motivation occurs when someone is driven by the desire to influence others or assert their own authority.

This is common for people who have a strong psychological need for control. Sometimes, a person may also pursue power in order to achieve change (e.g. greater freedom or social justice). In these cases, the motivation is for a goal rather than power per se.

People with strong power motivation may pursue leadership roles, sales roles, or positions in politics.

5. Fear-Based Motivation

Fear-based (or survival) motivation is based on a psychological fight-or-flight response. All humans have this innate motivation, which kicks-in when we sense danger.

Survival motivation generally leads to two reactions:

• Fight: where you stand your ground and fight for yourself, and
• Flight: where your avoidance motivation kicks in and you try to escape a situation (see next example)

Scientists also argue that a third response – freeze – may occur, which can be seen as a motivation not to be seen, or an inability to make a decision.

The danger of this type of motivation is it is usually spur of the moment and is at times not the best decision for someone to make.

6. Avoidance Motivation

Avoidance motivation is the drive to steer clear of negative or unpleasant situations, experiences, or outcomes.

It is closely related to fear-based motivation but specifically focuses on the act of evading or circumventing potential problems or discomfort.

This type of motivation can be useful in some situations where the avoidance is temporary and you’re not missing out on much by avoiding a situation. However, avoidance may be damaging because many things that are difficult, awkward, or embarrassing are important for personal growth.

7. Competence Motivation

Competence motivation refers to the intrinsic desire to feel competent (i.e. good at) something.

It is related to achievement motivation. However, achievement motivation tends to be connected to extrinsic desire, whereas competence motivation tends to be about the intrinsic desire to be competent at something.

Competence is all about personal growth and improvement. If you’re driven by the desire to be competent, you’ll often be inspired to engage in lifelong learning, experiment, do regular research, and and push yourself to get better and better.

8. Curiosity Motivation

People motivated by curiosity are explorers. They are always looking to fix things, visit new places, or read new books just because they feel this deep-down desire to know more things.

Whereas a person with competency motivation might do things to try to be good at them, a curious person likely doesn’t care so much about being good at something. They just want to know about it.

Curiosity can lead to new discoveries that can open new doors for you down the track, but generally, simply gives you the internal satisfaction that you learned something new today.

9. Altruistic Motivation

This refers to the desire to help others, seek social justice for others, improve society, or contribute to something bigger than yourself.

This desire is seen within people who have strong measures of empathy and compassion. They are pulled to help people in need. Similarly, people who are awake to social injustices might embrace altruism because they believe there’s a need to make the world a better place.

10. Growth Motivation

This refers to people who have a deep-down desire to achieve personal development and self-improvement.

This desire drives them to read self-help books and constantly think about ways to do better.

These sorts of people have a growth mindset and are always looking for ways to improve. They might regularly engage in self-reflection and have strong metacognitive skills (meaning they’re able to reflect on their own thinking processes or behaviors and consider how to improve them over time).

11. Purpose Motivation

People who have purpose motivation are driven to find meaning and direction in life. Often, this isn’t developed until much later in life.

According to David Brooks (2020), the first half of our lives is often driven by achievement motivation. But once we achieve many of our key financial and family goals, we realize there is a second bigger thing to achieve in life: a purpose.

People who are driven by a purpose often work in jobs that are less about money than about giving deep personal satisfaction and a sense of contributing to something bigger than you.

12. Status Motivation

Status motivation occurs when someone has the deep-down desire to be loved or respected by their community.

Status motivation usually appears within people with a strong sense that their self-worth is based on their social status .

Generally, a desire to belong and contribute to community is healthy. Similarly, motivation to achieve upward social mobility is natural and healthy.

However, excessive desire for status for the sake of status is often seen as a reflection of a person’s insecurity, immaturity, or social anxiety.

13. Autonomy Motivation

This refers to people who have a strong urge to be in complete control of their lives or decisions. They are people who value independence, freedom, and self-determination.

This type of motivation is far down the intrinsic side of the spectrum. These people tend to make decisions that align with their values and interests. They don’t tend to be overly concerned with external factors or the opinions of others who they see as restraining their free will.

Autonomy tends to be highly encouraged in individualistic western societies, while collectivist societies such as some in Asia tend to discourage this form of motivation.

14. Sensation-Seeking Motivation

This form of motivation is driven by the desire to experience new sensations, excitement, or novelty.

It may also go by the name of arousal motivation, describing the chemicals that are released in the body when you are exposed to new sensations.

However, often arousal motivation is also driven by the drive to reduce arousal as well as increase it.

Sensation seekers may engage in activities that provide intense or thrilling experiences, such as extreme sports or travel, or intense physical arousal such as delicious food.

15. Conservation Motivation

This is the drive to preserve something such as your wealth, culture, status, or environment.

Often associated with conservatism, this type of motivation tends to be higher among people who are situated higher-up on social ladders or wealth ladders because they have more to benefit from maintaining the status quo.

A conservation motivation when it comes to the environment may refer to engaging in activities that support sustainability or environmental protection. When it comes to conservation of wealth, it often refers to maintaining the economic structures of a society.

16. Revenge Motivation

Perhaps the darkest example, revenge motivation is all about getting back at someone who you feel has done you harm.

It might be considered a sub-category of justice motivation, with the other sub-category being altruistic motivation that was explored early.

But revenge is all about feeling the strong urge to get back at a person or people who you feel have done harm to you, your family, culture, or community.

Maslow’s Hierarchy Motivations

The final five motivations are all based on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. This is a hierarchy that demonstrates the five fundamental categories of needs that each person must pass through to achieve self-actualization.

According to this hierarchy, people will be intrinsically motivated to pass through each stage of the hierarchy in order to achieve the state of self-actualization. However, not many people achieve this state – in fact, Maslow’s hierarchy was created by studying just a handful of extremely successful people.

Below is Maslow’s Heirarchy visualized:

17. Physiological Motivation

Physiological needs refers the first of five types of needs we are motivated to pursue based on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

This is the drive to satisfy basic biological needs such as hunger, thirst, and sleep. According to Maslow, we can’t pass through to any other stage if we haven’t got our physiological needs satisfied. For example, a child will not have a desire to learn if they are tired or hungry.

Physiological motivation helps ensure survival and maintain physical well-being.

18. Security Motivation

Once you have satisfied your physiological needs, you will begin to be motivated for safety and security. This will deliver the protection that will prevent you from needing to fall back to satisfying your physiological needs.

Security can refer to protection from wild animals or other humans who might be fearful to you. Or, it can refer to the desire for a safe house to live in where you’ll be protected from those animals, humans, and the elements.

You may also desire emotional security, such as a child desiring to be close to their parents at all times.

19. Belonging Motivation (aka Affiliation Motivation)

Belongingness or affiliation motivation is the desire to build and maintain strong social connections, be part of a group, and contribute to its success.

According to Maslow, this type of motivation tends to emerge after a person has successfully achieved personal safety and security. As humans, we all tend to experience the need to belong to a group or community. Maslow calls these our social needs.

A downside of affiliation motivation is that excessive fixation on this type of motivation may lead a person to set aside their personal ethics in order to be part of the in-group. We call this deindividuation.

20. Esteem Motivation

Esteem needs on Maslow’s hierarchy are said to be only desired once you have secured security and physiological needs.

Esteem needs are split into two.

On the lower level, we have status needs (see also: status motivations). On the upper level, we have self-esteem needs.

Generally, higher-level esteem needs are connected to intrinsic motivation whereas lower-level esteem needs are connected to extrinsic motivation.

21. Actualization Motivation

According to Maslow, very few people reach self-actualization. It requires having all of your other needs fulfilled, and then you can focus your motivations on actualizing your dreams.

People who are motivated to achieve self-actualization will have the desire and drive to work toward big dreams and passions. Their dreams will likely be directed toward something far bigger than themselves and a goal that will far outlive their time on earth.

Many of these goals are spiritual, such as with Buddhists, whose idea of self-actualization is transcending feelings of greed or self-interest. Similarly, a politician could strive for self-actualization for effecting positive change for their nation.

Conclusion

The above types of motivation are just a handful of the many possible categories that exist, but they are the most common ones. The two most important in both pop psychology and educational research are intrinsic and extrinsic, and many of the others sit on a spectrum between the two.

For more, I recommend reading up on the various motivation theories, and most notably for types of motivation, the self-determination theory of motivation by Ryan and Deci (2000).

References

Brooks, D. (2020). The second mountain: The quest for a moral life. New York: Random House Trade Paperbacks.

Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2008). Self-determination theory: A macrotheory of human motivation, development, and health. Canadian psychology/Psychologie canadienne, 49(3), 182.

Donald, J. N., Bradshaw, E. L., Ryan, R. M., Basarkod, G., Ciarrochi, J., Duineveld, J. J., … & Sahdra, B. K. (2020). Mindfulness and its association with varied types of motivation: A systematic review and meta-analysis using self-determination theory. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 46(7), 1121-1138. doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167219896136 

Guay, F., Chanal, J., Ratelle, C. F., Marsh, H. W., Larose, S., & Boivin, M. (2010). Intrinsic, identified, and controlled types of motivation for school subjects in young elementary school children. British journal of educational psychology, 80(4), 711-735. doi: https://doi.org/10.1348/000709910X499084 

Jun, E., Hsieh, G., & Reinecke, K. (2017). Types of motivation affect study selection, attention, and dropouts in online experiments. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 1(CSCW), 1-15. doi: https://doi.org/10.1145/3134691 

Katz, I., Eilot, K., & Nevo, N. (2014). “I’ll do it later”: Type of motivation, self-efficacy and homework procrastination. Motivation and Emotion, 38, 111-119.

Mahadi, T. S. T., & Jafari, S. M. (2012). Motivation, its types, and its impacts in language learning. International Journal of Business and Social Science, 3(24).

Ryan, R. M., Huta, V., & Deci, E. L. (2008). Living well: A self-determination theory perspective on eudaimonia. Journal of happiness studies, 9(1), 139-170.

Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. American psychologist, 55(1), 68.