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| FIGURE 4.2: NEED-REDUCTION THEORY (LEFT) AND
ACTIVATION THEORY (RIGHT) (b) The person is conditioned from the outside in If the person has only extrinsic needs, then the person is conditioned from the outside in. There are two types of conditioning - classical and instrumental. Classical conditioning was demonstrated by Ivan Pavlov and elaborated by J. B. Watson, who tried to explain all behavior within this paradigm. Instrumental conditioning was demonstrated by Edward Thorndike and elaborated by B. F. Skinner, who tried to explain all behavior within this paradigm. Since those conditioning paradigms are very familiar (in contrast to the extrinsic motivation paradigm described above on which they are based), they are simply summarized here, side by side, in Figure 4.3.
(c) The person is not responsible for behavior If the person is conditioned from the outside in, then the person is not responsible for behavior. A person totally at the mercy of the environment is not free to act and thus not responsible for actions. Your behavior today is determined by your conditioning in all your yesterdays. You are a victim of your past. You are depraved because you were deprived. The compulsive consumer who buys a new car every year is not responsible, then, for the ultimate impact of this consumption on our planet. Nor is the person who sells them, nor is the person who produces them, nor is the person who drives the bulldozer that gouges the required metals out of the earth. None of them is any more responsible than the bulldozer itself. They are all as extrinsically motivated as it is. |
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