MOTIVATION
Millionaires may be motivated to make even more money, movie stars to become even more famous, politicians to achieve even more power, daredevils to seek even more thrills. Such motives seem not to diminish when they are fed. The more we achieve, the more we may need to achieve.
As you might expect from their persistence and eagerness for realistic challenge, people with high achievement motivation do achieve more. When achievement motivation increases, so does achievement.
SOURCES OF ACHIEVEMENT MOTIVATION
Highly motivated children often have parents who encourage their independence from an early age and praise and reward them for their successes. Such parents encourage their children to dress and feed themselves and to do in school, and they express delight when their children achieve. Theorists speculate that the high achievement motivation displayed by such children has emotional roots, as the children learn to associate achievement with positive emotions. They may also be cognitive roots, as children learn to attribute their achievements to their own competence to their own competence and effort and to develop higher expectations.
The Need to Belong
As social creatures, we are deeply motivated not only to eat, to procreate, and to achieve, but also to bond with important others. There now exists wide-ranging evidence of our need to belong.
WANTING TO BELONG
The need to belong colors our thoughts and emotions. People spend much time thinking about their actual and hoped-for relationship. When relationships form, we often feel joy. Falling in mutual love, people have been known to get cheek-aches from the irrepressible grin. Most people mention that, before anything else, satisfying close relationship with family, friends, or romantic partners, are more important for happiness and make life meaningful. “The sun looks down on nothing half so