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Due to the current lack of a sound ultimate theory in traditional psychology, human motivation has been – and still is in many ways – understood in terms of proximate explanations. To overcome this handicap, many psychologists resort to factor analysis of human dynamics which is consequently considered to be the foundation for motivational and interest tests today. The major difficulty in this dynamic field, however, is that in traditional psychology there is almost no agreement as to what the main dynamic variables are i.e. the number and nature of human drives.

 

Empirical, proximate exploratory research does not reveal the underpinnings of fundamental emotions as well as evolutionary psychology that aims to answer the ultimate causes of behaviour. Although there are many different psychological views available on the nature of motivation from Freud and his many predecessors onwards, no straightforward approach to the psychometric study of motivation has been developed yet (Kline, 2002). For measuring motivation, Kline distinguishes three possible methods: (1) Factor analysis; (2) Criterion-keying and (3) Tests based on fundamental theory.

 

Kline concludes that, as there is apparently no consensus on one particular theory, the selection of variables to measure results with psychometric tests in a field without theoretical clarity should be made through factor analysis. The only factor analysis that has made a concerted attempt to define the factor analytic structure of drives is Raymond

Cattell’s test (1975/2008). The factor-analysis based Vocational Interest Measure (VIM, 2008) test by Sweney and Cattell, measures the same variables as the majority of non-factored empirical motivation and interest test and could therefore be taken as an example of the most used variables.

 

Cattell (1957/75)distinguishes the following two variables:

Ergs: considered to be basic drives - or the innate reactive tendency - the behaviour of which is directed towards and cease at a particular consummatory goal activity (Cattell, 1957). Reciting McDougall's theory of innate tendencies, Cattell wrote that "Most psychologists would at least agree with McDougall that the things we are defining have three aspects to them, namely; (a) a tendency spontaneously to attend to certain objects and situations as being far more important than others, e.g. for the young male a pretty girl is initially more interesting than a book on Latin grammar; (b) a characteristic emotion, which is quite specific to the drive and its action, e.g. fear, anger, sexual feeling, etc.; (c) an impulse to a course of action which has a particular goal at its end, e.g. pursuing a fleeing animal and eating it, picking up and hugging and protecting a small child crying in distress" (Lamb, 1999). Consequently, Cattell included drives that humans share with other mammals such as food-seeking, mating, parental pity and escape to security to be basic drives.

 

Sentiments: considered to be culturally moulded type of drives. They are dynamic structures, visible as common reaction patterns to persons, objects or social institutions upon which all persons seem to have some degree of endowment. Among the sentiments mentioned are career, self-sentiment, sports and games, home-parental and sweetheart-spouse.

 

For our thesis, addressed from an evolutionary perspective, we argue that the variables should be based on Sexual Selection as the strongest drive for all organisms in which Costly Signalling acts as unconscious means of communication.

 

In this we follow Kline in his assessment (2000) that, for measuring motivation, any test measuring motivation, if possible, should be based on a fundamental theory. So far, motivation studies do not include: (a) gender difference; (b) reward and punishment systems and; (c) emerged societal behaviour complexities. Consequently we developed the following variables for our theory:

 

Gender difference: For our theory we take into account the different behaviour of females and males. Within the realm of sexual selection males and females have different goals and strategies and therefore different main drives. Over the years a wealth of empirical research has demonstrated the different selection problems of mating and the evolutionary strategies pertaining to female and male challenges in intersexual and intra-sexual competition (i.e. Buss, 2004). These strategies still have a fundamental impact on male and female motivation and behaviour today and consequently play an important role in our theoretical approach.

 

Reward seeking and punishment avoidance systems: For our theory we make a distinction between these two significant variables, drives explaining why individuals pursue pleasure or aim to avoid pain. The drives are linked to the persistent inherited (social) survival and sexual reward and avoiding punishment systems that evolved over evolutionary time and are encouraged during the individual learning period from early childhood onwards.

 

psychologists Vasudevi Reddy and others have shown, children less than a year old exhibit embarrassment and what looks very much like shame, as if they are actually aware of how they might have failed to meet the expectations of someone else. These infants are not just afraid of punishment (other animals-dogs for example-when caught doing something they were traines not to do can act “embarrassed”). Rather, at a much earlier age than previously realised or even considered possible, and long before they acquire language, human children appear to monitor what others think of them and care deeply what others feel and intend. By age four, around the time a child in a foraging society would be weaned, modern children begin to use their intersubjective gifts and growing language skills in quite sophisticated ways, not only to intuit what others want but also to intuit what they want to hear. Four-year olds are already able to use such knowledge to flatter others and to ingratiate themselves with the sort of people upon whom children’s survival once depended” (Hrdy, 2009, p. 283).

 

In human evolution, selection was for understanding one’s own behaviour better and that of others. The origin of human self-awareness reflects, according to Humphrey (1986) our ancestors need to understand, respond to and manipulate each other’s behaviour (Focquart & Platek, 2007, p. 457). Anticipating future events and ‘mind-time travel’ allows an individual to avoid unrewarding or dangerous situations. Brain systems involved in rewards and punishment are important because they are involved in emotion and motivation (Rolls 1999a) whereby emotions are (also) elicited by reward or punishment and classified in terms of the rewards and punishments being received, omitted, or terminated. A reward or punishment is something that humans strive (or crave) for or are avoided by making a goal-directed effort. Rewards and punishment can be defined as stimuli or events. Some stimuli are primary such as fear, hunger, and sex or disgust whereas others may become reinforcing by learning, through their association with primary stimuli, and become secondary stimuli.

 

As (part of) the reward and punishment system, certain learned life experiences may elicit or diminish a particular response urging an individual seeking or avoiding a specific experience. Recent publications (i.e. Rudebeck, Bannerman & Rushworth, 2008) have revealed an important role for the Ventromedial Frontal Cortex (VMFC) in this. It throws a light on how parts of the frontal lobe contribute to emotion, motivation and social behaviour and interacts with the amygdala and superior temporal sulcus.

 

Evolved bandwidths: From our research it becomes apparent that evolutionary drives in concert with social interaction developments that occurred over time during the Holocene period gave rise to three different evolved bandwidths in which three human drives are

emphasized. Hrdy (2007) refers to a basic tenet of evolutionary biology by David Lahti (2005) stating that “the removal of an agent of selection can sometimes bring about rapid evolutionary consequences”. Assuming this is the case in our evolved bandwidth theory, we have named these drives: (a) Empathic drive; (b) Coalition drive and (c) Hierarchy drive.

 

We suggest that these drives, that emphasise involved evolutionary evolved brain functions and chemicals, relate to both inherited and learned behaviour and are primarily socio-psychological in nature. While some of the typical characteristics have been retained, some drives are induced by social variance from the early Holocene onwards.

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Empathic Drive

Anthropological and archaeological findings show that food sharing, gift exchange, child caring, ‘storing social obligations’ (Hrdy, 2009) and looking for reciprocation were essential for survival and reproduction success in ancestral times. This type of social interaction implies extreme empathy traits that are emphasised in females and males with (slight) female propensities. Human empathy is tightly linked to human Theory of Mind (ToM) skills (Focquaert & Platek, 2007, p. 464). According to Michael Tomasello and his colleagues humans are, more so than any other animal, able to participate in collaborative activities with others with shared goals and intentions. Consequently we hypothesise that individuals driven by empathy, particularly women are emotionally and socially to be considered the closest to their ancestors from the late Pleistocene period.

 

 

 

We suggest that individuals from this group are driven by empathy and have a profile that is linked to the small, egalitarian nomadic hunter-gatherer groups of the Pleistocene. They retained the creative and collaborative traits from their ancestors needed to improvise while foraging and the empathetic ability necessary for living in close proximity with small, kin related groups. Consequently this group represents what we have labelled the ‘ancient’ or ‘ancestor’ individual as they resemble most our distant ancestors.

 

The empathic drive results in individuals that are inventive, innovative, nonconformist, aversive to dominance and creative, have a social disposition but tend to avoid large crowds and communities. They are averse from hierarchy and stratified societies and function best on an egalitarian level.

 

Coalition Drive

Group living is a critical part of human adaptation. Evolutionary psychology theory suggests that the human mind evolved many mechanisms to deal with the problems of group living

(Buss, 2004). Altruism and reciprocal altruism are only a few of the problems that humans faced during evolution. The evolutionary Social Contract Theory (Cosmides & Tooby, 1992) predicts that humans can benefit by engaging in cooperative exchange and form cooperative coalitions. This ability became extremely useful when humans increasingly had to turn to reciprocal altruistic behaviour from the time that pastoral, kinship based life in small community’s ended and sedentary living and population density increased. Obviously these abilities are not equally distributed amongst all humans or have not similarly been developed in all humans. As these abilities have a (certain) degree of heredity, especially when both parents possess these abilities, some humans have an enhanced command over this ability than others. Consequently, these people prefer to cooperate, like family life and live in large groups, are conscientious and attentive while males prefer male companionship whilst women prefer female companionship. They like kids and are not averse towards hierarchy.

 

Coalition driven female representatives have a profound preference to act within social groups and taking care of all kinds of responsibilities for either children or adult females and males.

 

Typical propensities of the coalition driven male is an intense family life, an ongoing search for collaborative opportunities and enjoying large groups of – predominantly male - friends and allies to engage in social and commercial activities.

 

Hierarchical Drive

We propose that individuals in this group are fundamentally motivated by relationships based on hierarchies. Their lives revolve around status and reputation.

 

The drive of these individuals that are less empathetically inclined, evolved with the emergence of cities, city-states and urbanisation in general. They prefer a stratified, hierarchical society with clear-cut responsibilities and well defined tasks. They tend to be on their own and prefer a steady, uninterrupted life. Possibly males and females may show an extra testosterone component and resorting to aggression or dominance.

 

While females tend to ingratiate themselves to males, males either submit to dominance or may resort to violence in order to defend their reputation. Male characters are emotionally primarily motivated by hierarchical ‘follower-leader’ principles, meaning that they either assume leadership or show submissive behaviour when confronted by physically stronger males or with a higher status.

 

Conspicuous social signalling: Human beings communicated and sent their messages by non-verbal language only, probably for millions of years. Recent studies showed that language may not be much older than some 50.000 years, probably due to a mutation in the FOXP2 gene. Therefore none of the traditional methods is ideal for measuring, mapping and categorizing the predictability of human behavior in an unbiased or manipulated way by the respondent. Furthermore, the human sensory system has been primarily designed for visual detection. Spoken and written language is a rather recent acquired ability which makes language an inadequate method for questionnaires, tests and surveys.

 

Introducing the term ‘conspicuous social signalling’ we argue that human beings advertise their main drives (motivation) as a social being, communicating their preferred interacting with the group.

 

We discovered that as fitness indicators in the process of costly signalling clothes, accessories and other attributes can be analysed and translated as a sign system for our social mental traits and therefore a reliable indicator for our (unconscious) motivation or drives.

 

Besides our body language for thousands of years human beings have communicated with another in the language of clothes. They decorated their body, bought and created attributes as an extension of themselves. Today, long before they are near enough to talk to each other on the street, in a meeting, or at a party they communicate through what they

 

are wearing, their cars, interiors and even their pets. Scientists studying psychological and sociological aspects of clothing like Alison Lurie (1981) describe how are clothes, accessories, hair styles, make up and other body decoration communicate about or occupation, origin, personality, tastes and opinion. Lurie compares elements of our outfit with words and our complete outfit with sentences. Furthermore the language of clothes, like speech, includes modern and ancient words of native or foreign origin, dialect words, colloquialisms, slang and vulgarities.

Psychology and sociology has been trying to translate the language of clothes (including accessories and other attributes) to communicate power and status as well as attract the opposite sex by enhancing or concealing specific physical features. Art historian James Laver (1953) followed the theories of Veblen and Flugel (1950) and distinguished three layers of motives for why we wear clothes: the utility principle (warmth and protection), the hierarchical principle (to indicate one’s position in society) and the seduction principle (to attract the opposite sex).

Signalling only works within a species and in a social context where the receiver recognizes the indicators as fitness indicators. If not, the receiver will either not understand or dislike the indicators and the sender will not be successful.

From an evolutionary perspective we therefore argue that the primary goal of visual language of clothes and other attributes like accessories is part of the intra sexual competition of the process of sexual selection.

Females are primarily interested in female clothes and fashion and read the language of other females and likewise males are primarily interested in male clothes and attributes and read the language of other males. The willingness to spend time, money and effort on specific clothes is primarily driven by the competition with potential rivals. Therefore male and female use different fitness attributes in the process of costly signaling, like cars for men and handbags for women. Rules, regulations, trends and fashion in clothes and other attributes all contribute to this intra sexual competition.

Therefore the visual language for male and female in the process of costly signaling is different and determined by their drives or motivation both as an individual and a member of a group. As with speech, the meaning of clothes depends on circumstances. It is not ‘spoken’ in a vacuum, but a specific place and time. The visual language supports the competition within the in -group, but at the same time helps to keep out people from the

 

out-group. In language we distinguish between someone who speaks a sentence well and someone who speaks it badly or not at all. The same goes for the language of clothes (Lurie, 1981). To wear the costume considered ‘proper’ for a situation acts as a sign of involvement in it, and the person whose clothes do not conform to these standards is likely to be excluded from participation (Goffmann, 1959). Specific costly signals, conspicuous consumption, are directed toward one’s peers rather than toward the world in general. They are intended not to impress the multitude but to identify one as a member of some in-group. 

Again as with describing personality scientist, sociologists, psychologist and anthropologist, mainly focus on the what and elude on the why of specific dress behavior. As Davis (1992) describes it, as in the voiceless play the actual symbolic content that elicits such interpretation eludes us.

For this thesis we argue that every bandwidth has its own visual language to communicate and stress a specific ability in social interaction linked to either a hierarchical, coalition or empathic drive. The language principles coincide with the specific principles for social interaction.

Furthermore we argue that on an individual level avoiding pain (punishment avoidance) and seeking pleasure (reward seeking) also determines the visual language people prefer. The language of punishment avoiding individuals will be more controlled, concealing, austere and conventional, while the reward seeking individuals will be more passionate, explicit and trend sensitive. For reward seeking people changing style is a characteristic of conspicuous waste. They value novelty for its own sake, are early adopters and followers of fashion. The punishment avoiding people are just the opposite and prefer traditional products that have traditional features and design. They do not switch styles often and sometimes even wear the same kind of attributes for many year or even a lifetime.

Hierarchical driven groups focus on signaling power and status or the lack of it. They prefer more strict rules in their language of clothes than groups driven by coalition and empathy. They prefer established styles and outfits that are either standardized or prescribed by the current fashion. The extreme form of a conventional standardized dress is the costume totally determined by authorities, like the military, civil or religious uniform or the pin-striped suit. The uniform is the most obvious, explicitly consciously and deliberately symbolic of all clothes. It identifies its wearer as a member of some group and locates him or her

 

within a hierarchy. Just as the oldest languages are full of elaborate titles and forms of address, for thousands of years clothes have indicated ranks. Until about 1700, societies passed decrees known as sumptuary laws to prescribe or forbid the wearing of specific styles, clothes, fabrics, colours or attributes. Later, when class barriers weakened the evident cost of the clothes and accessories came to indicate the high rank: rich materials, superfluous trimmings and difficult-to-care for or to get styles and fabrics, described by Veblen as conspicuous consumption. As Miller (2009) describes high-maintenance pets and products as fitness indicators signaling costly punctuality and conscientiousness that is presumably difficult to copy and hard to afford.

Coalition driven groups focus on signaling sociability and friends-and family care. They advertise elements of a perfect husband or wife, a peoples manager and negotiator. Miller describes it as a display of high agreeableness signaling the potential as a long-term mate, thoughtful and gentle to children and animals, concern for the environment, social justice and family values. Within the realm of Veblen’s Conspicuous Consumption we like to describe this as Conspicuous Sociability. Expensive attributes are advertised not as luxuries or status symbols, but as ‘good and responsible investments’ giving a sense of long term security.

Emphatic driven groups focus on signaling creativity, individuality and the ability to understand other peoples beliefs and desires. Their focus is on advertising originality, personality and creation. We like to label it Conspicuous Creativity. They are closest to accepting, profiling and accentuating our basic drives and general and sexuality in particular. In this group there are no specific laws like in the hierarchical groups.

For our test we decided not measure the preference for certain fitness attributes but the dislike.

 

We argue that the dislike (disgust) factor for specific signals or fitness indicators is more important for both sender and receiver than like. Dislike is a much stronger emotion than like to help us avoid dangerous situation and confrontations. Therefore we argue that dislike for specific signals will help us to distinguish people from the out-group with main social drives that differ from ours and is part of the inclusive fitness.

 

 

 

Not to be recognized by people from the in-group could mean expulsion and ignored by possible ‘right’ mates. If signal receivers ignored these messages, they would be useless - and signalers would eventually evolve not to send them.

 

So far evolutionary biologists and psychologist describe costly signaling as advertising your best traits to attract mates, but we argue that human beings invest most in signals stressing the fact that they do not have the ‘opposite’ social motivation to avoid disgust.

 

We named this reversed approach the ‘White Queen Theory’ after the White Queen in Lewis Carroll’s book ‘Through the Looking Glass’, who, like everyone and everything else in her mirror-world was living backward.

 

We also argue that the dislike factor for specific signals or fitness indicators is more important for both sender and receiver than like. Dislike is a much stronger emotion than like to help us avoid dangerous situation and confrontations. Therefore we argue that dislike for specific signals will help us to distinguish people from the out-group with main social drives that differ from ours and is part of the inclusive fitness.

 

As individuals have fewer constraints to express their preference when reviewing attributes in terms of risk avoidance as expressed in disgust (Darwin, 1872) we propose to have respondents express their risk avoidance in choosing for particular attributes. As taking risks threatens the survival and reproductive success of an individual, evolution has led to risk avoidance behaviour of humans in ancestral times. We argue that disgust is behaviourally linked to risk avoidance and rejection behaviour. Disgust has become a basic emotion with distinct behavioural, cognitive and physiological dimensions (Levinson, 1992) that functions to prevent contamination and disease (Olatunji et al, 2007). The primary function of disgust is to protect the self from physical and psychological contamination (Woody, 2000) and appears to exist on a continuum in which individual differences may be observed (Haidt, McCauly & Rozin, 1994).

 

From an evolutionary perspective, humans evolved a risk avoidance that is expressed in disgust to protect us from ingesting toxins that could be potentially harmful to our survival and ultimately to our ability to pass on our genes. As Haidt proposes (2000), disgust may also be intimately involved in moral, intuitional decision making. As was shown in two studies (Ditto, Pizarro, Epstein, Jacobson, McDonald, 2006), modern society with its diverse proximity of objects of desire may lead individuals to be disproportionally influenced by the anticipated rewards and immediate gratification. Although humans live in a “constantly

 

changing world far removed from the Pleistocene” (Chiappe & McDonald, 2005), even in contemporary times, risk avoiding behaviour may have obvious reproductive advantages. Poethke & Liebig (2008) developed a risk-sensitive foraging model that demonstrates a reproductive skew may not only be a by-product of competitive hierarchies in groups but may also be a mechanism that strongly increases the expected reproductive success of individuals within cooperative breeding groups.

 

Haidt (2000) maintains that disgust, along with fear, is a primary means for socialization and can be characterised as a rejection. We agree with risk avoidance as hypothesised by Riadh & De Pauw (1998) in that the human neurobiological system has the function of generating risk scenarios without conscious intervention, “[...] saving the individual to experience physical and social dangers in vivo but instead produces the same learning response in total physical safety. Therefore, the ability of some organisms to learn to avoid common dangers without the need to experience them in real life would have conferred a clear advantage on the individuals who possessed this trait over those who did not.”

All social animals have the tendency to make sharp distinctions between in-group and out-group. In-group members are treated more benevolently, being credited with their successes and excused for their failures. Out-group members are treated less charitably, their successes attributed to luck, their misfortunes attributed to enduring personal failings. So pervasive are these negatively biased out-group attributions that Pettigrew (1979) dubbed this phenomenon the ultimate attribution error.