Drive Ridd: Drive Theory Or Drive Reduction Theory
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Thirst causes you to grab a glass of water, hunger causes you to eat food and exhaustion causes you to sleep. Thirst, hunger and exhaustion are all drives that cause a person to perform an action in order to reduce or eliminate the drive. Drive theory or Drive Reduction theory explains that physiological need (for food, water or sleep) that occurs, which creates a state of tension, which then motivates the person to reduce the tension by satisfying their need. The action a person chooses to take however is based on the habits he or she formed in his or her past that best reduced the stimuli. For example, if a hungry homeless man finds food in the trashcan, when he is hungry again he will likely look in the trashcan again for food. Clark C. Hull (1943) postulated Drive Reduction theory, which combines motivation, learning, reinforcement, and habit formation to explain and predict human behavior. It describes where the drive comes from and how these behaviors are sustained. Drive refers to an increased arousal and internal motivation to reach a particular goal. There are two types of drives, primary and…show more content… Every action the characters took in the movie Mud was due to the characters’ need to reduce a stimuli or drive. Each character also develops their own unique response to drive due to their history. In today’s society, primary and secondary drives influenced by the culture we live in are causing us to make decisions and take actions in order to reduce these drive or stimuli. Like the characters in Mud, we take actions to reduce the stimuli and then learn which actions best reduce the stimuli. From this we create habits and repeat these actions until we find a better way to reduce the stimuli or find a different drive (Wolpe, J. 1950). Drive Reduction theory explains the actions people take in their lives and why take such