Motivation and Emotion, Vol. 5, No. 3, 1981
A Categorized List of Motivation Definitions,
with a Suggestion for a Consensual Definition
Paul R. Kieinginna, Jr. 1 and Anne M. Kleinginna
Georgia Southern College
A major difficulty in the psychology of motivation has been the lack of
consensus on its definition. In an attempt o resolve the terminological
confusion, 102 statements defining or criticizing the concept were compiled
from a variety of sources. The definitions were classified into nine
categories, on the basis of the phenomena or theoretical issues emphasized,
with a tenth category containing the skeptical statements. Two categories of
definitions emphasized internal mechanisms (phenomenological nd
physiological); three emphasized functional processes (energizing,
directing, and vector); two restricted the scope of motivation (temporal
restrictive and process-restrictive); and two emphasized the comprehensive
nature of motivation (broad~balanced and all-inclusive). These categories
identify concepts or variables that traditionally have been considered
important aspects of motivation. Finally, suggestions were made
concerning usage of the term motivation in a way consistent with both the
academic psychological approach and the nonpsychologist's informal
concept.
Several writers have recognized the problems of defining motivation. Ac-
cording to Littman (1958), "it is evident.., that there is still no substantial
agreement about what motivation is. I think there is something wrong when
something like this persists for as long a time as it has" (p. 115). Brown
(1961) complained that "the ubiquity of the concept of motivation, in one
guise or another, is nevertheless surprising when we consider that its
meaning is often scandalously vague .... We thus find ourselves in the posi-
'Address all correspondence to Paul R. Kleinginna, Jr., Psychology Department, Georgia
Southern College, Statesboro, Georgia 30460.
263
0146-7239/81/0900-0263 $03.00/0 © 1981 Plenum Publishing Corporation

264 Kleinginna and Kleinginna
tion of trying to deal with an allegedly vital factor in the face of violent
disagreements as to its origins, its essential nature, and its particular ules as
a behavioral determinant" (p. 24). As recently as 1975, Bolles reported:
"There is little agreement among different proposals bout what the defining
criteria [of motivation] should be .... What one proposes as a definition of
motivated behavior seems to depend more on his theoretical commitments
than upon anything in the behavior itself" (p. 1). It is not surprising that
some psychologists (e.g., Bunnell, 1973; Dewsbury, 1978; Verplanck, 1957)
have advocated abandoning the concept of motivation altogether.
However, considering the ubiquity and apparent usefulness of some motiva-
tional concepts and theories, the authors do not accept hat position. We
hope that the following analysis will facilitate future agreement on a useful
definition of motivation.
Previous attempts have been made to classify definitions of
motivation. Littman (1958) discussed several approaches to defining
motivation, five of which emphasize specific defining characteristics:
energizing, directive and selective, persistence, motivational physiology,
and the motivational phenomena of consciousness. Concluding that none
of these characteristics by itself was sufficient o define motivation, he
presented a long and exasperated definition that included all his categories.
However, he regretted that this definition made motivation difficult to
distinguish from other psychological processes. Atkinson and Birch (1978)
described four different languages of motivation that psychologists have
emphasized in their definitions: experiential, neurophysiological,
behavioral, and mathematical. Atkinson and Birch suggested that each of
these languages has value, and that each should be evaluated on the basis of
its usefulness.
Littman's (1958) and Atkinson and Birch's (1978) categories are a
good starting place. However, additional characteristics of motivation can
be derived from reviewing a larger number of definitions. Of those reported
in the present article, 36 have been published since 1977 and thus were not
available to the earlier writers.
We began with a collection of about 140 statements defining or
skeptical of the concept of motivation, taken mainly from well-known texts
or articles on motivation, physiological psychology, animal behavior, and
introductory psychology. The list then was reduced to 102, excluding defini-
tions either because they were too vague or because a better or more recent
definition by the same author was available. The sources of the final 98
definitions and four skeptical statements are listed in Table I.
After selecting the statements, we classified them on the basis of
common emphasis, and developed nine categories of definitions and one
category of skeptical statements ( ee Appendix). The definitions are listed