Content and Process Theories essay

Motivation is what explains a person desire to do something or to achieve some goals in his or her life. This is the answer to the question: why do we do what we do? A good motivation is the best leading point in any action taken. Nor the money, or recognition or any incentives will persuade a person to get the best of what he/she is doing, only a strongly created motivation can. Mainly we divide motivation theories to content and process theories of motivation. The combination and application of these two theories in a modern life will lead to great achievements of any one who implements them on a daily basis.

Content theories focus on the question what motivates people and regulates the behavior which leads to goal achievement. These theories are often described as classic and static theories approaches to which were taken by Maslow and McGregor. Process motivation theories investigate the process of motivation and make attempts to describe how the motivation starts to direct the behavior. These were studied by Vroom, Adams and Handy. Combining the Hierarchy of Needs of Maslow, The Two Factors Theory of Herzberg, the Incentive Theory, the Expectancy Theory of Vroom and the Goal Theory of Lock it is possible to develop a plan of behavior for sustaining the motivation of a student, worker or volunteer. Content motivation describes the main needs that any person in a society wants to appease. The process theory describes which goals need to be achieved by the person to get a certain satisfaction. Content motivation sets a more broad goals before a human, such as: to have a place to leave, to have a good job, to raise good children. On the other hand the process theory explains these goals in a more concrete way: what kind of house would suit me? Which job I would like to have? What do I want for my children? Different personalities need different approaches to motivate them. For someone it is easier to have a broader view on the subject and be satisfied with any result within his boarders and some need a specific goal to reach something.

The best combination of these two theories in practice is a mixture of the ways of goal's achievement in each of the theories and setting them according to each persons needs. These theories best can be combined in one Equality theory where any kind of motivation is considered to be a good one as long as it helps a person to reach his goals.