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INTERACTION (BIOLOGICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL)

Motivation: Interaction Between Biological and Psychosocial

Siti Nurfathini binti Muhammad Azrie (MP2212101T)

Faculty of Psychology and Education (FPP)
PT10103: Introduction to Psychology
MPC Section 9, Semester 1 2022/2023
Dr Getrude Cosmas
11th December 2022
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INTERACTION (BIOLOGICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL)
Contents
Content Page
Introduction 3-4
My Story 4-8
My Future Study 8-9
Conclusion 9
References 10
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Motivation: Interaction Between Biological and Psychosocial
The word motivation is derived from the Latin word ‘movere’ which means ‘to move’. Goyal
(2015) define motivation as the process that initiates, guides, and maintains goal-oriented
behavior. Motivation acts like a catalyst for someone who is taking action striving towards their
goal. With motivation, people will go to the gym to lose weight, they will work hard at work to
gain promotion, and they will do their best in their study to strive in it excellently. Motivation
helps people in achieving their full potential in life.
Motivation is important as it offers us goals that we will work towards. It also helps us to
develop new good habits that are beneficial for ourselves. With motivation, we will do our very
best in solving whatever problems that we are currently facing. It helps us to grab every
opportunities that are available in order for us to achieve our goals, and we will accept all
challenges that we faced throughout the journey.
Each and everyone of us has different motivation in achieving our goals. They can be
intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation refers to the drive that are fully
internal, such as satisfaction of solving a problem. Extrinsic motivation on the other hand is the
drives that arises from the outside of an individual that is rewarding to them, such as money,
recognition, and praise. My motivation in pursuing my study into this Master’s programme is
the desire to learn counselling knowledge and skills which will help me to contribute to the
society and helping them in pursuing their life with whatever decision that are best for them.
Although motivation helps people in striving their goals, there are times that people have
lost their motivation, be it due to failure, burnout, change in condition such as loss of family
member, or the thing that they are doing is not meeting their expectation. I, myself has
experienced loss of motivation as I experienced burnout from my previous work, which led me
to quit the job.
Even in our day to day lives, we may have our ups and downs in motivation. For
instance, there are days that I woke up in the morning feeling motivated and energized to start
the day productively. I even have planned on what I want to do throughout the day and fills it
with beneficial activities. On another day, I feel unmotivated to get out from the bed, not wanting
to face the rest of the days. I only wanted to stay in bed, not having the energy to do work on that
day.
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Souders (2019) in her writing stated that motivation when measured by science, in can be
seen and detected through one’s behavior, level of engagement, neural activation, and
psychophysiology. One’s motivation is visible via their facial expressions, intense effort, and
immediacy. Motivation can also be seen by one’s level of engagement. For example, when I am
motivated in a class, I will pay a deep attention in the class (cognitive engagement), contribute to
the discussion (agentic engagement), express my excitement and interest (emotional
engagement), and do the assignment in the class persistently (behavior engagement). In each
motivation and emotion, a different pattern of neural activity is present. For instance, thirst will
activates the hypothalamus, and insular activity rises when we feel disgusted.
Psychophysiological expressions can be seen as follows:
Hormonal activity: rise in cortisol level during stress
Cardiovascular activity: rise in heart rate when excited
Ocular activity: Dilated pupil when focused
Electrodermal activity: Electrical changes on the surface of the skin (as in response to a
significant or threatening event)
Skeletal activity: Facial expression and bodily gestures

In this topic, I will discuss on how Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs correlate with
the motivation of an individual. Through this topic, I would like to know how people gains
motivation in everything they do. I would like to know if motivation is the only thing that helps
people striving in life.
My Story
Based on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, an individual will not achieve a higher need if the lower
basic needs is not met. Initially, Maslow came up with his hierarchy of needs theory with a
proposal that people are motivated by five levels of needs namely: (1) Physiological needs, (2)
safety needs, (3) belonging needs, (4) esteem needs and (5) self-actualization needs. Later,
he introduces two additional levels of needs which are understanding needs and aesthetic needs,
making the hierarchy into seven levels of needs: (1) Physiological needs, (2) safety needs, (3)
belonging needs, (4) esteem needs, (5) understanding needs, (6) aesthetic needs, (7) self-
actualization needs (Ciccarelli & White, 2021). This hierarchy can further be divided into
deficient needs (level 1-2) and growth needs (level 3-7).
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I realised that my motivation does influenced by the level of needs that I have achieved,
and it may change from time to time. Physiological needs include the need of food, water,
clothing, and shelter. For instance, when I am hungry, I will not have the motivation to do other
things even-though there is a need for revision as there is exam around the corner, rather, I will
look for food to fulfil my physiological needs. This basic need is very important for survival and
sustainability (Aruma, 2017). A community needs to achieve their basic needs of essential
community services which includes water, health services, sanitation, educational services, and
public transport services. If a country unable to meet the basic human needs of food, water,
health, shelter, clothing, and reproduction among others that it is a clear indication of
underdevelopment (Aruma, 2017). Physiological needs are compulsory. If they are not met to a
certain extent, then other needs will not occur to a great extent (Uysal, Ademir, & Genc, 2017).
The second needs based on Maslow’s hierarchy of need is safety needs. Safety needs or
security needs deal with protection and survival from chaotic situations, social disorder, social
disturbance and physical dangers in human environment (Aruma, 2017). This needs is crucial for
infants. During infant, we feel unsafe when we are ill. For example, when an infant fall ill due to
bad food consumption, for a day or two, he/she will develop fear, nightmares, and a need for
protection and reassurance never seem in him/her before his illness. During childhood, we seek
protection from harms and dangers through our parents. Adults have little awareness of their
security needs excepts in times of emergency of periods of disorganization in the social structure
(Azizi Hj Yahaya, 2008). In view of current economical inflation, our society are more aware of
the needs to have economical stability, driving them to save more money in preparation for
further economical crisis.
The next level of needs that need to be achieved is belonging needs. As a child, after we
feel safe within our family, we will then seek for acceptance and sense of belonging in the
family. This is because we would like to overcome feelings of loneliness and alienation. In a
relationship, we will anticipate to be loved as how we love the person. In a community, we
would like to seek for acceptance from the society in order to feel belonged in the society.
After belonging needs is fulfilled, we will strive to achieve esteem needs. It is always
natural that people seek for esteem and prestige in human environment when it is obvious that
they feel secure in their respective social groups such family group, social group, communal
group, working group, group of colleagues, group of friends among others in their various
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communities in the society (Aruma, 2017). There are two components in this needs, which are
self-respect and the need of respect of others (Azizi Hj Yahaya, 2008). Self-respect includes the
desire for confidence, competence, adequacy, and achievements, whereas the need of respect of
others includes the desire for acceptance, appreciation, reputation, status, and prestige. For
example, I work as a Sales Representative, thus, in order to function well and strive in work, I
need to feel confident of myself when discussing on the product that I am selling to my clients. I
also desired to be appreciated in my work, which will motivate me to keep on working.
Moving up the hierarchy of needs, the following needs that required to be fulfilled is
understanding needs. People will have the desire to satisfy their curiosity, acquiring new
knowledge and skills, finding solutions, and to seek intellectual challenges. This will help people
to function very efficiently and effectively in various social settings in human environment
(Aruma, 2017). This can be seen in myself, whereby even after I have obtained my Bachelor’s
degree, I desire to gain more knowledge, thus, making the decision to pursue into Master level.
While studying in this Master programme, I realised that the more I study, the more things that I
have lack knowledge of, thus, increasing my desire to explore more of the knowledge.
Aesthetic needs is the next level of need in the hierarchy. It is a need where people desire
to enjoy and promote the beauty of human environment (Aruma, 2017). It helps people to find
relaxation in it. For instance, whenever I am feeling sad or stressed out, I would make time to go
to the beach to help me relax and calm down as the beauty of its view and the sound of the waves
offers a calming effect to me.
The uppermost level of needs in the hierarchy is self-actualization needs. This refer to the
desire of people in achieving their full potential in what they are doing. Self-actualization is a
continual process of becoming rather than a perfect state one reaches of a 'happy ever after'
(Hoffman, 1988, as cited in McLeod, 2007). For me, I aspire to develop my knowledge and skills
to be a successful counsellor that can contribute widely to the community to guide them to what
they want to achieve in their life.
Based on Medical News Today (n. d.), unmet needs in each level of the hierarchy may
cause specific effects. This can be seen as follows:
Physiological needs: physical illness, hoarding behavior
Safety needs: anxiety, physiological trauma
Love and belonging: loneliness, antisocial behavior
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Esteem: Feeling worthless, feeling invisible or unappreciated, low self-confidence, depression
Self-actualization: boredom, cynicism, lack of meaning in life
As much as Maslow’s hierarchy can be applied in life, it faces a numbers of criticism.
Firstly, the order of the needs within the hierarchy is arbitrary (Medical News Today, n. d.).
People’s needs does not necessarily follow the order in this hierarchy. Some people may feel that
knowledge is more important than having esteem. Maslow himself have met people who valued
self-esteem more than love (Medical News Today, n.d.). Human Performance Technology by
DTS (2016) stated that this hierarchy is ethnocentric bias in which it focuses only on highly
educated Americans. The higher-level needs cannot be globalised and easily transferred to
Eastern cultures. There is no clear evidence of whether different age and socioeconomic
background have association with their needs. Another criticism that Maslow obtained is that his
theory of self-actualization is not easy to be tested scientifically (Cherry, 2022). This is because
his definition of this needs is based on a very limited sample of individuals, including people he
knew as well as biographies of famous individuals who Maslow believed to be self-actualized.
Motivation may come and goes. Many factors contributes to the persistence of one’s
motivation. Throughout time, people may lose their motivation. As mentioned by Cherry (2022),
there are a few causes in lose of motivation, which includes all-or-nothing thinking, believing in
quick fixes, and thinking one size fits all. One may lose their motivation when they slip up on
what they thought they can perfectly achieve, causing them to giving up on achieving the goal.
Besides that, one may also lose their motivation as they sees that everything must have an
immediate result, thus, when what they desire took a long time to achieve, they feels that it is
non achievable. This can be seen in a lot of younger generation when they expect that their
business will be successful in a short period of time, instead it progress slowly, causing them to
give up their business midway. Another cause of lose of motivation is when one is generalizing
others successful approach on one thing will also be successful if he/she uses the same approach,
thus, when it fails, he/she will blame and criticize himself/herself is incompetent.
It is important for us to improve our motivation from time to time. Cherry (2022)
suggested a few methods to help in improving motivation. Firstly, we can adjust our goal by
focusing on the things that we really matter to us. Besides that, when the goal that we set is to big
and overwhelming, we can break the goal down into smaller, more manageable steps. It is also
important to improve our confidence. When we have higher confidence, we will be able to
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achieve our goal better. Other than that, we can remind ourselves on what we have achieved in
the past and where our strengths lie. Through this method, we will not let our self-doubt limiting
our motivation. We can also work on making improvements in the area that we feel insecure of
so that we will feel more capable.
My Future Study
In the future, I would like to conduct a study on association of motivation and performance in
work. I would like to identify if motivation really affecting the performance of employee
significantly. Nduka (2016) in his study stated that ‘motivation can be specified as a
management process, which encourage people to work better for the overall benefit of the
organization, by providing them motives, which are based on their unfulfilled needs’. Amabile
(1993) stated that (as cited in Nduka, 2016) unmotivated employee will contribute little effort in
their job, avoiding workplace as much as possible, thus, producing low quality work. The
research questions would be as follows:
1. Does motivation affect the employee performance?
2. Does reward system motivates employee?
3. How do the different forms of motivation influence employee performance?

Based on previous studies, the hypothesis that I can make for this study is ‘If employee is
motivated, then their work performance will be better’. This study will be a survey study as the
performance of employee is obtained by supervisory ratings and asking each employee on what
motivates them to work.
Target Population
The target population for this study will be Gleneagles Kota Kinabalu Hospital employees, The
reason for this is because Gleneagles is one of the well-known private hospital that has good
reviews in terms of services and sales.
Sampling
For this study, I will do a stratified random sampling approach whereby each employee is chosen
based on their department and assigned to a single number randomly which then will be selected
randomly. The sample size will be 10% of the total population of the hospital.
Strength and Weaknesses
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This study is useful as it helps in obtaining detail information on what motivates the employee.
However, the downfall of this study is that the employee might not give the accurate answer as
there is a tendency for them to only give socially acceptable answers, for instance, an employee
might not say that they are motivated to work because the person that they like is working there
even though that might be the actual truth as they are afraid to be judged and worried that their
job will be put at risk.
Conclusion
In conclusion, each and everyone of us are unique, thus, having different motivation from one
another. Although Maslow proposed his theory on the hierarchy of needs, people needs does not
necessarily follows the order that was stated. With motivation, one will strive better in
everything that they do.
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References
Aruma, E. O., & Hanachor, M. (2017). ABRAHAM MASLOW’S HIERARCHY OF NEEDS
AND ASSESSMENT OF NEEDS IN COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT. International
Journal of Development and Economic Sustainability, 5(7), 2053–2202. www.eajournals.org
Azizi Hj Yahaya (2008). Abraham Maslow: The Needs Hierachy. Core.
https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/11782195.pdf
Cherry, K. (2022). Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Verywellmind.
https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-maslows-hierarchy-of-needs-4136760
Cherry, K. (2022). What is motivation?. Verywellmind. https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-
motivation-2795378
Ciccarelli, S. K., & White, J. N. (2021). Psychology (6th, Global Edition ed.). Pearson Education
Limit.
Goyal, P. K. (2015). Motivation: concept, theories and practical implication. International
Research Journal Commerce Arts, 6(8), 71–78.
https://www.academia.edu/19739571/MOTIVATION_CONCEPT_THEORIES_AND_PRAC
TICAL_IMPLICATIONS
Human Performance Technology by DTS (2016). Praise & criticism: hierarchy of needs
(Maslow). Human Performance Technology by DTS. https://blog.hptbydts.com/praise-
criticism-hierarchy-of-needs-maslow
Medical News Today (n. d.). Maslow’s hierarchy of needs: uses and criticisms. Medcial News
Today. https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/maslows-hierarchy-of-needs
McLeod, S. (2007). Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Simply Psychology.
https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html
Nduka, O. (2016). Employee motivation and performance. [Bachelor’s degree thesis, Centria
University of Applied Science]. Core. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/80992496.pdf
Souders, B. (2019). What is motivation? A psychologist explains. PositivePsychology.com.
https://positivepsychology.com/what-is-motivation/
Uysal, H. T., Aydemir, S., & Genc, E. (2017). Maslow’s hierarchy of needs in 21st century: the
examination of vocational. In H. Arapgirlioğlu, R. L. Elliott, E. Turgeon, & A. Atik (Eds.),
Researchs on Science and Art in 21st Century Turkey (Vol. 1, pp. 211–227). Gece Kitaplığı.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/32126730Z