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Personal Motivation: A Model For Decision Making

Robert P. Cavalier

2002 Westport: Praeger, 
pp. 160 ISBN 0-275-97576-6 (pb) £11.95

Practical Philosophy  (Book Reviews) Autumn 2002 Volume 4.2

Reviewed by: David Arnaud 

‘May not (sometimes at least) an acquired world-outlook constitute the central motive of life and, if it is disordered, the ultimate therapeutic problem? May not a person’s philosophy of life, here and now, be a functionally autonomous motive? Need we always dig deeper than the presenting phenomenology?’

 So wrote the psychologist Gordon Allport, quoted by Cavalier (p. xiv) as the main intellectual influence for this work. Cavalier seeks to provide an account of human motivation, that explains why, and to what extent humans are functionally autonomous. In doing this, he seeks both to reshape psychology’s conceptualisation of personality theory and to build a theoretical structure that explains the proper role of different kinds of therapeutic intervention. 

We are driven, Cavalier contends, by three motivational systems, the formative, the operational and the thematic. The formative is concerned with the past, with what influences there have been on me to become the person I am today. The kinds of theory that can help illuminate this question are Freudianism, behaviourism, and biology. If we ask the question, ‘What motivates me?’ with the formative system in mind, we will answer it in terms of what has happened to us in the past, what personality traits we have, and our organic condition. So Watson, who was afraid of the dark, might answer the question of what motivates his keeping the light on at night in behaviouristic terms. The operational system is to do with day-to-day living. The answer to ‘Who motivates me?’ within this system is our current issues such as career and finances. Neither of these two systems though, Cavalier contends, provides the best perspective on the question ‘What motivates me?’. Watson’s life is not understood best in terms of current concerns or past conditioning (or Freudian defences, personality types, and biological givens), but instead from the perspective of his thematic system, which is concerned with the meaning he finds in his life, and what his purposes and values are. There are basically three types of thematic motivation, Cavalier contends, although most lives will be a mixture of all three. Theses are: ego-gratification, where we seek the kick from pleasure, power and praise; self-actuation where we seek to fully express our interests, talents and potentials and find joy in doing, creating, performing, and accomplishing; and altruism where we seek to serve others through love and self-sacrifice. 

As we are, in general, ‘functionally autonomous’, the past does not constrain our future so we are free to decide who we want to be. Within the formative system the ego can protect, deceive and placate itself via various Freudian defence mechanisms. However, these are not opportunities that are open to us thematically. Unless our formative influences are so strong that we are completely debilitated thematically, the ego can decide between seeking opportunities for self-indulgence, expanding itself by seeking opportunities for self-actuation, or expending itself in a cause or purpose beyond itself. No account is given of why these are the only three kinds of thematic motivation we can decide between (another possible life is one dedicated to religious contemplation, for example) or of differences within these motivational systems. 

The distinguishing of motivational systems, Cavalier contends, calls for an eclectic approach to counselling, ‘since different methods can be more effective with problems within different motivational systems’ (p. 49). Where the problem is within the formative system, and manifests itself in problems such as defence mechanisms, phobias and a malfunctioning central nervous system, the appropriate forms of therapy are the ‘depth’ therapies, behaviour modification and drugs, with the goals of insight and symptom removal. If the problem is within the operational system, cognitive therapy and directive counselling can be used to problem-solve faulty thinking and sort out issues such as marriage, education, career and finances. If the problem is within the thematic system, the person will be experiencing a loss of meaning, life experienced as without purpose, and feelings of emptiness. In cases like this the client needs to grow through person-centred therapy and logotherapy. 

I welcomed Cavalier’s reframing of personality theory, and was convinced by his claim that one of the most fruitful ways to understand people is in terms of their thematic motivations. I would have welcomed more development of these ideas. Questions I wanted the author to take up were, for instance: ‘How, and to what extent, does the thematic develop out of the formative?’; ‘What factors constrain us from being thematically autonomous?’; ‘On what basis do people decide between, and within, the different thematic motivations?’; and ‘How are the operational (which I take it should be based upon the thematic motivations) and thematic motivations to be reconciled in counselling?’.

 Instead, I found the book rather too often taken up with analyses of issues such as free will and determinism, the nature and possibility of altruism, the Milgram experiments and work psychology. It is easy to see why the author felt he had to cover some of these topics (for some others I saw little to recommend their inclusion). In adopting an essentially existentialist position about the autonomy of thematic motivation, he needs to respond to the claim that humans are determined, in suggesting one main thematic motivation is altruism, to the claim that humans are inherently selfish. The resulting impression is of a loss of focus. Many of these topics are also covered more fully and better elsewhere.

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