Monday, December 18, 2006
Changing gears…Maslow’s theory of Driving Needs and Motivation
It’s that time of the year, the end of the year, when we start thinking about the year that just went pass by, some of us think it was as good as it could have been, others look forward to a better year to follow and make necessary changes. Personifying this blog, there is a need to change gears. The branding of this blog has come under severe pressure, owing to a series of serious posts! It’s time to get back to the basics of the blog, get back to the drawing board and make necessary adjustments to the portfolio of serious and funny posts featured on this blog!
Over the last couple of days, I have dwelled about funny topics for this post. As always, I struggled for topics, it's much easier to write serious stuff, I suddenly realised! Finally, I decided to amalgamate two topics in the hope that something funny would pop up. Here is an attempt at this. Let me introduce Maslow’s theory of driving needs and motivation!
For those who need to refresh the original theory that Maslow proposed, please see this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs
With all due regards to Mr. Maslow, let me now mutate the genetics of this theory that has withstood the test of time and apply it to driving needs and motivation:
Physiological needs: At the very first stage, you drive to meet the basic transportation needs. As such, you don’t care whether you drive a BMW or a bullock-cart to help you change your coordinates on the surface of earth!
Safety needs: You probably consider to be safer than local train/ auto/ taxi/ air travel. It’s probably all about having confidence in the seat-belts, the air-bag, the anti-collision bars, etc, etc. However, driving here sounds more like a compulsion and you would rather have a chauffer than drive yourself.
Belonging needs: This is when things start to get interesting and the real motivation starts to show up, when you feel the strong need to belong to the driving fraternity! Call it peer pressure, driving at this stage is all to prove a point ‘so can I’
Esteem needs: This is a fairly high-up need, when one starts thinking of driving as a career, when one thinks of driving in terms of achievements be it distance covered in a day or a how far did the speedometer stretch, etc. This stage is probably all about the 'drive to drive'!
Self-actualization: The ultimate level of motivation, when you drive not to attain something, but simply ‘coz you strongly believe that driving is what life is all about. This is the highest level of motivation, when distance, speed, power, etc loose relevance - it’s all about enjoying the feel of steering wheel, the gear, accelerator, brake and clutch!
Well, that's it for this post, didn't come out as funny as I once thought it would. But who cares!
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2 comments:
nice one to read.... hv a few questions unanswared though....
1. all these stages that u've mentioned, do u think they always come in the same order?
2. is it necessary for every individual to go thru all these stages, example can an over enthued driver directly go from stage 1 to stage 3!!!!????
3. how far a driver goes, does that to a great extent depend on who trains an amature driver when s/he starts driving for the first tiem?
@Samar: Oye, it was supposed to be a funny post, I know it didn't come out that way. But the funda is I simply stuffed driving into Maslow's theory, without any real thought behind it. Anyways, keeping the post aside, lemme try answering some of the questions you posed:
1) No, not really. Maslow's theory is for general motivation in life, a broad picture view. While driving is a specific thing, I would say, some people would probably see these 5 stages, while those with real passion would probably start at stage 3 or so. Much the same for most specific things in life, I would imagine.
2) Exactly, yes, I don't think I ever went through stages 1 and 2.
3) Yep, yep... if u have a passion for driving, then it doesn't matter. But, otherwise, the first couple of experiences might just determine the inclination and the resulting long-term motivation. It is so much like learning to play guitar. I haven't received any formal training, nor do I have that inclination, so right now, I know zuk ab't guitar-ing.
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