MOTIVATION IN US ARMY

Motivation in US Army

Motivation in US Army

Three sets of phenomena have traditionally been of concern in the field of human motivation:

The choice or selection of a certain course of action

The energization of the implied behaviors

The regulation of these behaviors (Kellett, 2007).

Accordingly, research on motivation focuses on the determinants of what type of goals people choose, and how they go about implementing them (i.e., when and how goal-directed behavior gets started, is energized, sustained, and stopped). Taking this broad and comprehensive perspective, it is evident that any field in social psychology (e.g., helping behavior, aggression, intergroup relations) may potentially be analyzed from a motivational point of view, and this extends not only to how people behave in social situations, but also to their social thoughts and feelings.

The layperson's understanding of the concept of motivation reflects an important insight (Cohen, 2006). People are referred to as unmotivated when they do not live up to their potential, because they fail to exert respective efforts. Issues of what people can do, that is, their cognitive capabilities and limitations (see social cognition) are just the starting point of a motivational analysis, which commonly attempts to discover the determinants and processes that underlie a person's willingness to use his/her potential (Cohen, 2008).

The history of motivational theorizing can be summarized in terms of an evolving conception of the basic nature of human functioning and development. Early theories portrayed the human as a machine-like, reactive organism driven by internal and/or external forces that are beyond people's control (e.g., instincts, needs, drives, incentives, reinforces, and so forth) (Cohen, 2006).

When American soldiers stand to attention in the presence of an officer and salute, they are not only showing deference to their superiors in rank; they are also acknowledging that the origins of the U.S. Army (and for that matter the Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force) are to be found in Europe. The result of this European parentage is that, even today, the ethos of the American military shows the strong influence of European military culture. This martial culture was the prenational, pan-European culture of “the wars,” the international military world that developed during the European wars of the 16th, 17th, and early 18th centuries (Clark, 2006). European soldiers shared a common way of life, with shared values, ideas, and traditions that were passed on, by way of the British Army, to the Army of the United States.

From the beginnings of the United States, even before the American Revolution, two different and, in many ways, mutually exclusive models of an army were available. One pattern saw soldiering as a special type of occupation, recruited largely from the economically depressed and other marginalized groups, and motivated by appeals to espirit de corps and military honor. Strongly hierarchical, this military model selected its leaders from members of an elite social group. The other model saw soldiering as every citizen's duty. In this case, the military recruited from a relatively broad cross section of the population, used patriotism as a ...