Abstract

PALMERO, Francisco; GOMEZ, Consolación; CARPI, Amparo  and  GUERRERO, Cristina. Historical perspective of the Psychology of motivation. Av. Psicol. Latinoam. [online]. 2008, vol.26, n.2, pp.145-170. ISSN 1794-4724.

The psychology of motivation has a long tradition and history in psychology. In fact, we consider that, to a certain extent, understanding the history of the psychology of motivation is understanding great part of which has been psychology itself, since the main target of psychology was, and is, to try to explain behaviour, and the aim of psychology of motivation is to find out the causes of behaviour. In its long passage to the present time, there have been three perspectives that have monopolized most of the investigation: the biological, the behavioural and the cognitive. They are not excluding. Each one of them has been predominant in certain stages, although the same attention was paid to the other two. Nowadays, the biological and cognitive perspectives are those that receive greater attention from the investigators. The historical direction in the study of the psychology of motivation represents an important solution to know how the events that have given rise to the present consideration about the psychology of motivation were forged. To know the past helps us to understand the present, at the same time it allows us to hypothesise with great probability of success which will be the future in the study object.

Keywords : psychology of motivation; history of psychology; biological perspective; behavioural perspective; cognitive perspective.

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