Wednesday, October 5, 2016

Motivation for Love

In my last posting on “Love, Sex, Creativity and Life” many of my friends have criticized me that I have reduced down the level of love to the level of sex only. They used to ask me that whether sex is the only parameter of measuring love? Or is it not possible to have love without sex?

I don’t want to indulge into this debate without understanding some basics related to motivation for doing any activity including falling in love. Like any theory of motivation, love is also an act and it also need some motivation. Maslow’s need hierarchy theory needs special mention here. It says that people performs certain actions due to some motivations. Fulfilment of their needs are motivation for them. There are different level of needs. According to Abraham Maslow, a great psychologist, these needs follow a hierarchy and once a need is fulfilled, it no longer remains a motivator. 

Love also has many stages. The first stage is fulfillment of physiological need. At this stage, people normally used to get attracted by the opposite gender. Sex is primary thing at this stage. People try to satisfy their sexual needs through different acts of theirs. It may be talking, touching, kissing, hugging etc. once this need is satisfied then this need remains no longer a motivator for them to get indulge into any kind of relationship. According to one estimate, almost 80% of the relationships and love affairs die just after this need is satisfied or they feel that this need cannot be satisfied with this person and start looking for some other alternatives.

But the remaining 20% of the couples normally use to move ahead into their relationships. But the important question is what motivates them to be in any relationships? The answer is fulfillment of security need. In order to satisfy their security need they normally remain into the relationships. Security for getting love today as well as tomorrow. Many of the institutions like marriage, live-in relationships and commitment also to some extent etc. are created to satisfy this need.  Here also sex is an important component. And once this need is satisfied it is no longer a motivator like previous need. And most of the relations finish at this level. In India, we have the culture that marriages are forever, and though we are not satisfied in our marriage life and many people do not feel motivated to love their spouse because they are secured that they are going to get love irrespective of its desirability.

Then the next need is social need. Here people try to socialize themselves. They try to look beautiful so that the person to whom they love will feel comfortable. They try to excel in their work so that their partner will feel proud of them and will feel proud in realizing that such and such person is their love in the form of husband/wife or gf/bf. For example, it is due to this need only people used to go to their official parties and celebrations and celebrate their success with their spouse/gf/bf. Sex becomes secondary at this stage. But like previous two needs, once this need is satisfied, it is not a motivator. And almost all the relationships end at this stage except a few. Here the connection between two persons are not only at physical level rather it becomes at mental level. And from this level onward, gradually it becomes more of mental level and less of physical level. 

Then the next motivator for the few people who remain in love even after fulfillment of ‘social need’ is the ‘esteem need’. People want to excel in love. And most of the creations in the world are out of this need only. It was a few people who have excelled in love have gifted the world with their creations. May it be ‘Tajmahal’, Monalisa, or some scientific inventions? At this level, the association and connection between two persons is of mental level. The physical association is very low.   

There is one more need which is the last in the order of hierarchy is ‘self-actualization need’. In fact this need is never achieved and people (who have somehow able to achieve esteem need) always have the notion that they can achieve and capable of doing something more than their present state of affairs. But definitely it is above the ‘esteem need’. At this level the world has seen some of the all-time best pairs like ‘Laila-Mazanu’, ‘Seeri-Farhad’, ‘Romeo-Juliet’ etc. At this level the connections between two persons does not remain at the physical or mental level. Rather it goes beyond that and it becomes at the spiritual level. All the previous needs become meaningless at this point. May it be physiological needs including sex, or societal needs? At this point the people falling in love start looking the face of GOD in his/her sweetheart’s face/eyes.

There is another theory of motivation which is called two factor theory propounded by Herzberg, another great psychologist who has significant contribution on motivation. He has classified the needs in two categories as maintenance factors and motivational factors. As people move on and continue into a relationship then the previous level needs become ‘Maintenance factors’ and the higher level of the needs become ‘motivators’. Now one might ask what is ‘maintenance factors’ and ‘motivating factors’? Maintenance factors are those factors that are required to maintain the existing state of affairs or in this context the existing relationship. For example, if a person is in his/her third stage of satisfying needs that is societal needs then performing sexual activity is no longer a motivator for him/her, but if they are deprived of their sexual preferences then this may lead to their dissatisfaction.

So if a couple are good in making love, then it will not be a motivator for them to remain loyal to their partner but if they are not getting opportunity to make love to their partner then it may create dissatisfaction in them and it is a kind of disincentive to them to remain loyal with their spouse or partner.


The points raised here is an attempt to explain the motivation for indulging into relationships. But it is to be noted that this is not a theory which would work exclusively in all situations. There may be exceptions to this explanations. But at the preliminary level this was just an attempt to justify the existence of physical relationships in any kind of love especially that of husband/wife or gf/bf. 

1 comment:

  1. Dr. Ranjit I as a layman believe that the word love is very vast and inclusive in nature. If you mean to confine with personal relationships between a man and a woman than its okay with special inclusion of SEX. Though sex is the culmination of whole affair of love between man & woman but one man love his mother & sister also. So where is the existence of sex in this love? And belive me their is more motivational factors than what their in the relation between a husband and wife. Anyway your present article is nice one and kindly keep writing to motivate us.

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