Functional Autonomy of Motives
Allport was one of the first researchers to draw a distinction between Motive and Drive. He suggested that a drive formed as a reaction to a motive may outgrow the motive as a reason. The drive then is autonomous and distinct from the motive, whether it is instinct or any other. Allport gives the example of a man who seeks to perfect his task or craft. His reasons may be a sense of inferiority engrained in his childhood but his diligence in his work and the motive it acquires later on is a need to excel in his chosen profession. In the words of Allport, the theory "avoids the absurdity of regarding the energy of life now, in the present, as somehow consisting of early archaic forms (instincts, prepotent reflexes, or the never-changing Id). Learning brings new systems of interests into existence just as it does new abilities and skills. At each stage of development these interests are always contemporary; whatever drives, drives now." We also can see functional autonomy (the notion that motives can become independent of their origins) in the drive associated with making money to buy goods and services when it becomes an end in itself. Many obsessive and compulsive acts and thoughts might be manifestations of functional autonomy.
Read more about this topic: Gordon Allport
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