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Motivational State

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Encyclopedia of Animal Cognition and Behavior

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Introduction

Motivational states are physiological internal states in the organism that play an important role in initiating behavior, selecting actions to perform, and orienting the actions to achieve desired goals. Motivational states are critical because they help the organism prioritize behaviors oriented to obtain access to resources that are required to maintain a balanced well-being and, in extreme situations, for survival. Some of the better known motivational states include the states of hunger and thirst, and they can activate specific behaviors oriented to obtain food and drink.

In the laboratory, a motivational state can be inferred by assessing the effect it has on the performance of certain actions. For instance, we can restrict access to food for some animals (food deprivation) and compare how this manipulation affects the performance of pressing a lever that delivers food, relative to animals that were not food-deprived. We can also study the motivational state at a...

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Chile, Santiago, Chile

    Daniel E. Alarcón

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  1. Daniel E. Alarcón
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Correspondence to Daniel E. Alarcón .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Oakland University, Rochester, MI, USA

    Jennifer Vonk

  2. Department of Psychology, Oakland University Department of Psychology, Rochester, MI, USA

    Todd Shackelford

Section Editor information

  1. Department of Psychology, Southern Oregon University, Ashland, OR, USA

    Mark A. Krause

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Alarcón, D.E. (2021). Motivational State. In: Vonk, J., Shackelford, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Animal Cognition and Behavior. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47829-6_1063-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47829-6_1063-1

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