Can Satisfaction Reinforce Wanting? A New Theory About Long-term Changes in Strength of Motivation

The purpose of this chapter is to provide a preliminary, speculative statement of a new motivational theory. We propose that motivation for a certain outcome can gradually change in strength over time as a function of whether it is satisfied or frustrated. Specifically, we propose that satisfaction will increase the strength of the motivation, whereas nonsatisfaction will gradually weaken it. This theory runs directly contrary to the standard motivational theories, which have long held that satisfaction will reduce drive (Hull, 1943; Spence, 1956). However, we do not present the new view as a contrary or rival view, but rather a compatible one. The difference lies in the time frames. In the very short run, satisfying a motivation will decrease the drive. In the longer run, however, satisfaction will ensure that when the drive does come back, it will do so with increased strength. Satisfaction reinforces desire, and so when desire emerges again, its strength will be increased. Conversely, to want something without getting it is at best an absence of reinforcement and quite possibly is punishing, and so that experience will gradually diminish and perhaps ultimately extinguish the motivation. STATEMENT OF THEORY From our perspective, the field of motivation theory is hardly full of metatheory or other integrative, overarching theories. The main — and often implicit — integrative model is what we call the satiation cycle, which is the presumption that motivation conforms to a standard pattern: The person desires something, pursues satisfaction, achieves satisfaction, whereupon the motivation diminishes substantially. At some point, and for possibly unexplained reasons, the motivation re-emerges, and the cycle of seeking and getting starts again. We have no quarrel with the satiation cycle. We propose, however, that if one adopts a longer temporal view, there is another pattern that motivation theorists have overlooked. The idealized form of the satiation cycle (wanting, seeking, getting, not wanting, then wanting again) is not a steady state. Rather, when it occurs on a regular basis, the latter wanting may become stronger than the initial wanting, which is what the current theory suggests. Conversely, if the satiation cycle is frustrated, such that wanting and seeking do not meet with satisfaction, the subsequent wanting may be diminished. Hence our theory proposes two central hypotheses. The first, which we have dubbed " getting begets wanting, " holds that when a motivation leads to satisfaction or some other form of reward and then …