Answer:
The important development and diversification of the works in Motivation Psychology, two great moments are distinguished: before and after Darwin's work in 1859, or, what is the same, pre-scientific stage and scientific stage. These facts considerably hinder a generally accepted conceptualization of "Motivation", since, on the one hand, in the scientific stage pre-scientific terms are still used, and, on the other hand, Darwin's influence is reflected in various currents, each of them using a particular terminology.
During the pre-scientific stage, Motivation was reduced to voluntary activity, while, in the scientific stage, talking about Motivation implies referring to instincts, tendencies and impulses, which requires the necessary energy; but, in addition, there are also clear references to cognitive activities, which direct the behavior towards certain objectives. Therefore, the concept of Motivation today must consider the coordination of the subject to activate and direct their behavior towards goals.
An added difficulty has to do with the large number of needs described by the different authors. In this regard, Madsen (1980) grouped the needs into two categories: primary and secondary reasons. The primary, innate and biogenic motifs are central motivations (needs) that, from birth, are functionally related to the subsistence of the individual and the species. The secondary motives, acquired and psychogenic, are central motivations (needs) that, after a learning process, are related to the general growth of the subject. This differentiation is essential to understand the Psychology of Motivation in its entirety, since, although it is true that primary motifs are common to all species, secondary motifs, although also present in many of the lower species, seem be fundamental heritage of the human species
The issue of interaction between biological and cultural aspects has led some authors (Munro, 1997) to suggest that it is the most attractive perspective in the field of New Ethology. Indeed, the author says that, from the psychological orientation, the study of Motivation has been carried out from the biological, behavioral or cognitive perspectives. From any of these perspectives it has been assumed that the most scientific orientation is that which is based on biological parameters; that is, one that tries to understand the motivated behavior of an individual, from the perspective of the needs that the organism needs to satisfy in order to survive. At the other end of the hypothetical continuum, Munro continues to argue, is the cultural orientation, which proposes the impossibility of understanding the motivated behavior of the human being without resorting to social variables, and fundamentally to cultural variables: motivation is the result of cultural influences. In this second perspective, the individual as such is not important, since what counts is the group as a whole, with its inescapable influences on each and every one of the members that make it up. These theoretical orientations have been empirically verified in the applied field, particularly in the labor field (Erez, 1997), highlighting how it seems essential to consider cultural factors to understand the motivational dimension of employee and boss behavior. Even, as Geary, Hamson, Chen, Liu and Hoard (1998) have recently pointed out, cultural influence is unavoidable when one wants to understand how biases in cognitive functioning occur, referring to motivational preferences, to the choice of objectives attractive, etc. The interaction between evolutionary and cultural factors is present and exerts its impact from the first moments in which an individual interacts with others. However, the effects of such influence begin to become apparent when that individual begins his training and learning in the school environment.
