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> Research | > Happiness | > Counterproductive Motives |
Happiness is generally achieved by fulfilling desires, which is the same as saying that you do those things your motives guide you to. Over the course of evolution, motives evolved in people that lead them to get the food they need, seek warmth, seek friendship, explore and discover, etc.
Earlier I asserted that "it's generally pretty safe to accept yourself as you are, and to pursue happiness by fulfilling your desires. There can be some exceptions to that, but we'll get to that later." That time has arrived.
Some motives have a down-side to them, whereby they can serve a useful purpose in some circumstances, but also they may create terrible misery. When we blindly take the instinctive response to the motive, we may bring misery upon ourselves! If our goal is happiness, we need to do something to address that problem!
A person's motives work together with the other elements of a thinking mind, so that include learning, imagination, reason, and actuating the body to take action. There can be some flaws in the motivational system, as well as medical conditions, where the motivational system gets in the way of happiness and of spreading happiness.
Image by Freepik
For a dramatic example, let's consider the case of the legendary werewolf. During a full moon, the person suddenly feels motives of hostility that cause him (or her) to turn into his "werewolf" form and attack any other creature he sees. The next morning, when he discovers what he did, he feels incredible guilt. What he could learn from that, is to stay inside whenever the moon is full!
Possibly there is a medical cure he could apply, but keep in mind that there isn't any particular part of the brain where he would likely find his werewolf motive. His brain is filled with billions of neurons that fire, very analogous to a computer that has billions of tiny microswitches that can be turned on or off. The functions of the mind might reside anywhere, not necessarily associated with any specific physical parts of the brain. So narrowing down the source of the problem isn't easy!
However, unlike a computer, the brain functions as electro-chemical system, and it can really be screwed up by mind-altering drugs or chemicals that impede functioning, such as alcohol. So if the werewolf turned himself that way by taking some drug, he would be wise to stop in the hope his brain would recover!
If a person has a medical problem that makes them excitable, or depressed, or having wide unpredictable swings in emotion, they would be wise to refer that matter to a medical professional, rather than experimenting with drugs on themselves! There is a big risk of making things worse, so any intervention must be done carefully.
If a person has one of these conditions, it is often apparent to them that it's a problem, because it tends to create unhappiness for them that they have difficulty to solve. They may need support from their friends, as mental health issues are matters that people don't like to admit to themselves.
In the list of human motivational needs, I included only "cooperation compatible" motives. Those are motives where multiple people can be pursuing satisfaction of those same motives, and all of them can be happy.
However, humans can also have "cooperation incompatible" motives The main ones that create misery are anger, bigotry, jealousy, and hatred. They have the characteristic that a person motivated by these will intentionally try to cause misery in someone else. Therefore they will inevitably be in conflict with each other.
 Example of a person who has motives that are incompatible with mutual happiness |
The interesting thing about these is that when a person feels these motives, they generally feel worse. That's why they are shown in the red categories in the above example. The person doesn't want to feel angry, or bigoted, or jealous, or hateful, but they are triggered into feeling that way, and then they act on the motive to relieve it.
There are two ways to relieve it: a) by hurting someone, or b) by calming one's self and applying self-discipline to not let it affect one's behavior.
Note that there may be times when a person is being attacked and a they need to defend themselves for other reasons than being angry. There is a difference between doing so for reasons that are compatible with the well-being of a group, as compared to doing so for malevolent reasons.
These motives arose in humans through the process of evolution, and they exist because they served a useful purpose in some circumstances. Let's consider various motives that produce conflict:
Anger can occur in a mild state or in a more intense self-preservation mode. Among animals, the mild state is manifest by actions such as growling or showing their fangs. Humans show it by raising their voice or saying harsh words. It is an instinctive way in which one creature demonstrates to another that they are not pleased, potentially leading the other to alter the action that they had intended.
However, it doesn't always have that effect. The other animal may react against it, which may result in a retribution or escalate into violence.
Among people, often one is quite pleased to help another, and a simple communication of what one wants is sufficient to get compliance. If a person quickly becomes angry whenever they are annoyed, it destroys that opportunity and produces conflict instead.
If the interaction leads to violence, then the anger intensifies. Their body will mobilize for defence, as adrenaline is released to bring the body to a state ready to fight.
If the person acts on their anger and successfully defends themselves by striking and inflicting damage on the attacker, there is a certain satisfaction associated with it. The person feels not just relief from fear, but also a brief joy from the fulfilment of the anger itself.
However, we would not describe anger as a "human need" and nor is it a "target motivator" that a person would plan to have in their life. If a person lives in a peaceful, civilized society, he might never have cause to feel anger ever in his life. He could have a very happy life, and he would never feel like there was anything missing in his life.
To clarify further, I point out that if a person is attacked, it makes sense for the person to defend himself whether he feels anger or not. Anger is a primitive "frustration response" left over from evolutionary development, in which survival sometimes depended on lashing out instinctively. In most modern kinds of confrontation, perhaps involving weapons, the person will defend himself more effectively if he (or she) remains calm. This issue here is not on how one defends ones' self, but rather on whether it makes sense to intentionally seek out opportunities to invoke the anger motive.
Likewise bigotry isn't useful in the modern world. In ancient times, people were tribalistic and if a person encountered another tribe it could be dangerous. Bigotry may support cohesion in a tribe but it is counterproductive to widespread peace and cooperation.
Jealousy may arise out of a sense of fairness, when a person feels that they were treated unfairly, except that the emotion is primitive and lacks intelligence. A person may be jealous merely because they have less than someone else, without any unfairness.
Hate can arise from any of these other motives, or it can be a reaction from being treated badly by someone else. Again, it is a primitive emotion that tends to evoke a violent response. This one can keep a war going, blind the people to the true causes of the war, and make them unwilling to consider any peaceful solution that would enable them to live happy lives again.
None of these are a "human need" that must be put into a person's life plan, with the intent of creating outcomes to satisfy them. They give rise to conflict between people, so that the person who acts on such motives may be subject to retaliation. Moreover, they are counterproductive to the vicarious joy that a person can achieve by spreading happiness.
A person would do well to avoid acting on those motives if they feel them. As a matter of caution, they should watch for signs of those motives in other people, as it can be a danger signal.
This one is a special case, because unlike the ones above, it isn't triggered; the person seeks out opportunities to be cruel. Moreover, the person doesn't feel any distress because of it. They get joy from it, and they seek to make others suffer without any provocation whatever.
It would be extremely unusual for a person to be born with that characteristic. When it occurs, the person is often emotionally crippled. It could infect their mind if they were treated cruelly when they were young. Instead of vowing to never be like that themselves, they may wait for the day when it is "their turn" to be the giver of cruelty rather than the recipient.
In such cases, people might truly become monsters, but it is a state that people would not choose for themselves at the outset if they could foresee it happening.
For any people who have strong, cruel motives that outweigh their cooperation-compatible motives, and if it is not an abnormality that can be cured, then there is only one place where a civilized society could safely keep them: in a cage. That would be a very sad life indeed, because they would neither be able to satisfy their malevolent motives, nor many of their other motives.
In addition to the above motives, sometimes people might be considered lazy or greedy. However, laziness isn't really a motive by itself, as any person generally prefers to achieve their objectives with less work rather than more. Laziness is a judgement made of a person when they are doing a task cooperatively with other people, but are unwilling to do their share of the work. Greed is a similar situation, in which they seek to get more than their share of the reward. Greed and laziness may be symptoms of weak empathy rather than being motivators of their own, but it still creates problems for people as it ruins their ability to work cooperatively with others.
Another cause of conflict is inadequate empathy. Empathy is very important, as it is a motive that is necessary in order to prevent conflicts, including war. This is demonstrated by the NewWorld simulation that shows the effect of behavior on populations. The simulation also models a few simple motivators, so that motivations can be linked to behaviors. The "warrior" behavior in the simulation is typified by a lack of caring for others. Warriors don't have malevolent motives against the people they attack; they simply do so for personal gain when they have an upper-hand in strength.
If all people had the motivational characteristics of warriors, you can be sure there will be wars whenever a balance of power shifts sufficiently. Each warrior is ready at all times to stab any other warrior in the back, to take whatever he can from that person, if he can get away with it. There is one exception however, which is that a warrior will have empathy with his own offspring. Otherwise, the species would not survive at all.
Empathy is not an all-or-nothing kind of motivator. It can be a strong or a weak motivator. Moreover, it can have a range: some people only have empathy for family members or others who are very close to them. In humans, the range can be increased if a person has opportunities to become familiar with people far away. Education helps a lot. This also tends to reduce the intensity of tribalistic bigotry.
Conceivably a person with a warrior mentality could be happy, for as long as he continues to win. However, his behavior acts as a vote for a very dangerous world. It's a world in which there will inevitably be suffering caused to those who are exploited. It's a world in which each warrior is likely to have some anxiety, even among those who are "winning."
Fortunately, most humans don't function that way under normal conditions. They do have empathy, which can give them solidarity in very large groups. It is what I call Peacemaker behavior, and it can be a significant advantage to a species. It's the kind of behavior we all need for "mutual happiness."
Each person needs to think about the kind of world he (or she) wants to live in, and cast a vote for that kind of world. How he behaves is his vote. Choosing behavior compatible with mutual happiness is a vote for a world that offers happiness for each person, that has lower risks of suffering from violence, and that offers amazing discoveries and capabilities achieved by cooperation.
If a person aspires to that, he may also feel that some of his counterproductive motives or weaknesses get in the way. No person is a perfect blend of the motives he might wish to have, but if he (or she) has ways to compensate for unwanted characteristics, he might still fulfil his aspiration. He can imagine the ideal kind of person he would like to be, and work toward it.
Image by Mohamed Hassan from Pixabay
Here are some strategies to resolve internal conflicts between motivators, so that the positive cooperation-compatible motives guide behavior, and regret and guilt are prevented:
In a conflict between desires, one satisfaction or dissatisfaction would occur in a short time, but it has a consequence of another satisfaction or dissatisfaction that occurs later.
A typical situation is a "temptation," which is an action that has a short-term satisfaction but which has an undesirable consequence occurring later that outweighs the earlier satisfaction. There is a tendency to satisfy the earlier desire regardless. But by taking the tempted action, the person becomes more unhappy than they were before.
A reverse situation can also occur, in which the earlier action is undesirable and the later consequence is desirable. The person must weigh them to determine which is more significant. Depending on the situation, it could be either one.
People gain time-independent judgement by experience. In a case of temptation, the person remembers how it turned out last time. If they take a moment to apply their imagination, to bring back to their mind how that will feel, that can counter the temptation.
Although that method may help, the person may also need to apply some self-discipline. The worse consequence may feel uncertain or less vivid, so the person may need to simply insist to themselves that they "won't fall into that trap!"
Sometimes it takes falling into a trap multiple times before a person finally builds up enough resolve to prevent the next occurrence. Despite past failures of this kind, a person should never give up!
A person could feel anger at a loved one because of some perceived transgression of that person. A typical scenario is "jumping to conclusions", where they make the judgement with little or no investigation of why their loved one acted that way.
An obvious solution is to avoid being so hasty, but there is also another way to prevent this from occurring: build a deeper understanding between each other, so that there is more caring, less likelihood of thoughtless actions, and less suspicion of malevolent motives.
Avoiding the trigger is preventing the cause from occurring that sets off an unwanted emotion.
Unwanted emotions include anger, bigotry, hate, and jealousy, but they can also include other emotions that are invoked at an inappropriate time. If we go back to the werewolf example, "avoiding the trigger" means staying inside during a full moon.
We should keep in mind that with any motive, there is typically more than one way to fulfil the desire. People develop "ideals," which are preferred ways of fulfilling each desire that don't have adverse effects on other motivators, and which enable cooperative solutions. These ideals also include strategies to prevent triggers at inappropriate times.
Consider, for example, why humans wear clothes. Most people probably haven't thought about that, except that it's a societal norm, and they may feel embarrassed to break that norm. But it has an origin, and it didn't arise just for warmth or fashion. Adults keep their "private parts" covered as a way of controlling mating behavior.
Unlike animals that only desire to mate in mating season, humans can mate any time of year. But humans are very selective, as raising a child is a multi-year labour-intensive project. So adults don't want to mate with just anybody. Keeping covered up removes a stimulus to sexual desire in others around them, and it effectively communicates without words that they don't wish to mate with those people at that time.
Avoiding the trigger is a strategy that is also used in other circumstances. If a person really loves the taste of candy and they wish to solve a problem of being overweight, then they should stay out of the candy shop!
The last strategy is to find an alternate way of satisfying the motive. One very good example of that is team sports. In the ancient world, young adults with a tribal instinct who sought some excitement might go to war. But in the modern world, they can get the same thrill from team sports without the misery that a war brings.
The method of finding solutions to satisfy desires in a cooperation-compatible way, and of preventing unwanted side-effects, is described further under the topic Ideals Based Decisions.
The bottom line: To spread happiness, plan your life around satisfying the cooperation-compatible motives, take action to help others to satisfy those motives too, and use creative ways of making choices that don't have unwanted side-effects.
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