MOTIVATION • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Motivation

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/mˌoʊtəvˈeɪʃən/ Listen

noun

motivation n.

The act or process of motivating.

The mental process that arouses an organism to action; as, a large part of a teacher's job is to give students the motivation to learn on their own.

Synonyms: motive, need.

The goal or mental image of a goal that creates a motivation (2); as, the image of a peaceful world is a powerful motivation for only a rare few individuals.

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Etymology of 'Motivation'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Motivation" Quotes from Famous Books

... emphasized by the recent writers upon the art of study is the necessity for some form of motivation in the work of mastering the text. We all know that if a pupil feels a distinct need for getting information out of a book, the chances are that he will get it if the book is available and if he can read. To create a problem that will involve ...

— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley

... an easy lesson to learn. In the first place there must be motivation involved in racial preservation. Yet we derived no pleasure out of the things that make the Builders wish to continue to live. We did not sleep; we did not eat, and we were not able to reproduce ourselves. (And, besides, this ...

— B-12's Moon Glow • Charles A. Stearns

... murder, and cunning of savagery, why should it be shocking that the female should equal the male in callousness? Why should it be shocking should she even surpass the male? It is quite possible that, since for physiological reasons she is nearer to instinctive motivation than the male, she cannot help being more ruthless once deterrent inhibition has been sloughed. But is she in fact more dangerous, more deadly as ...

— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure

... assuredly keep all who engage in them from treating themselves too tenderly. They demand such incredible efforts, depth beyond depth of exertion, both in degree and in duration, that the whole scale of motivation alters. Discomfort and annoyance, hunger and wet, pain and cold, squalor and filth, cease to have any deterrent operation whatever. Death turns into a commonplace matter, and its usual power to check our action vanishes. With the annulling of these customary inhibitions, ranges of new energy ...

— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James