What counts as an answer to the question “Why did Person A do Action X?” Below is a first cut at a list of possible answers to that question. The fact that it has only thirteen elements would make it interesting if it were comprehensive. I’m quite deliberately eliding the behavior/action distinction here, looking for a list that will include intentional, unintentional, and truly involutary behaviors.
1. Reflex (jumping at a loud noise).
2. Compulsive behavior (tics, stammers, etc.)
3. Need (air, water, food, etc.), including acquired needs such as addictions. Defined by unpleasant sensation of lack, relieved by doing X.
4. Habit.
5. Custom (others do X).
6. Pleasure (X is enjoyable).
7. Advantage (perceived gain accruing from doing X: material or ideal, including status or relational gain, for self or other).
8. Fear (of the consequences - again for selff or another - of not doing X, including status or relational loss).
9. Duty (as distinct from positive or negative social consequences of doing or not doing X).
10. Role aspiration (wanting to be the sort of person who does X, again as distinct from the social consequences).
11. Novelty.
12. Inadvertence (e.g., stumbling over something, or being pushed).
13. Misperception.
What did I leave out? And who has done this analysis already?
Freeman says
Some of the most inexplicable actions are taken out of spite (She cut off her nose to spite her face).
Steve Davenport says
Sure, for instance, attempting to return a jacket. The obligatory Seinfeld clip follows: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fP0MXJAQhmo
kbarry03 says
Followed by obligatory Simpsons quote: http://deadhomersociety.com/2012/06/04/quote-of-the-day-1168/
Don A in Pennsyltucky says
For some neurotic reason of their own.
charming says
It is too complex to answer - but it was certainly pre-determined
Jay Livingston says
1. The list omits all external forces that influence behavior. I assume that this omission is intentional.
2. The list also omits the reason most people would give if you asked them why they did something: that the action is a means towards some goal. For example, if I asked you, “Why did you post this anyway?” would your answer be any of these thirteen? More likely your answer would be that you wanted to achieve some goal (though I can’t figure out what), and you weren’t sure if your list was complete, so you blegged it in order to get more ideas. I don’t see that answer as fitting into any of the 13. Maybe #7, but that stretches the concept of “advantage.” If asked the “why” question, I doubt that you’d say or think, “because it was to my advantage.”
Mark Kleiman says
Goal-seeking goes under “advantage.”
As to analyzing my own motives for posting, I’d say (1) I was in the habit of posting stray ideas to RBC; (2) It was both my duty (to readers and fellow bloggers) and to my advantage (to maintain readership) to post from time to time; (3) It was also my duty (as an academic) and to my advantage to generate, disseminate, and improve ideas. Role aspirations (both as an academic and a blogger) stand beside duty.
All of the outside influences (save custom, which is explicitly acknowledged) determine what someone needs, fears, desires, enjoys, perceives as advantage or duty, finds attractively novel, etc.
I like the suggestions of spite, revenge, dare, and contrariness, but my first impulse is to categorize them under pleasure, fear (of seeming weak by not taking revenge or refusing a dare), duty (of revenge), social advantage (by seeming strong and adventurous) and role aspiration (to be strong and adventurous).
Laertes says
Spite/revenge might more cleanly fall under category “3. Need (air, water, food, etc.), including acquired needs such as addictions. Defined by unpleasant sensation of lack, relieved by doing X,” excepting that the sensation isn’t relieved by doing X. Then again, isn’t it often a feature of addiction that the behavior doesn’t really relieve the sensation of lack anyway?
Laertes says
And now, embarrassed, I see that Steve Clay got there way ahead of me.
Steve Clay says
Revenge: not sure that would fall under pleasure, but maybe a “duty” to one’s own pride.
Steve Clay says
Hmm, Revenge might fall under an acquired Need as the act might be perceived (maybe wrongly) to allieviate pain.
Rick B says
I’d say that revenge is one of many social strategies intended to control the behavior of others.
kate says
I think a category for revenge, spite, and the like might be called for. I don’t think duty fits, because people can also seek revenge when they know they shouldn’t. It can be an acquired need in some people, but that hardly seems to be a universal element.
Pete Guither says
contrariness
dare
(Not sure if those fit in other categories)
James Wimberley says
Where do love and affection fit in? Eros is a need (3), but not agape.
Mark Kleiman says
In the presence of affection toward another, an action could be movtivated by advantage to the other, advantage to self (in maintaining/improving a valued relationship), pleasure, duty, or role aspiration (e.g., wanting to be a good friend or mate or parent).
James Wimberley says
“In the presence of” emotions xyz, a lot of things fit into your boxes. But the emotions are doing the heavy lifting. Othello kills Desdemona by mistake, up to a point.
Herschel says
Othello kills Desdemona by mistake, up to a point.
This is certainly the best sentence I’m likely to read today.
James Wimberley says
(bask)
NCG says
Are we sure love (all kinds, even) is not also partly a reflex? Especially if you consider the unconscious, which intrigues me and about which I know just about nothing, other than that it’s “there.”
Also, why is need after compulsion? I would put breathing before a tic.
Mark Kleiman says
I didn’t intend a strong ordering, but I can choose not to eat, drink, or even breathe (for a while) though the discomfort of not doing so may mount. But a tic is genuinely involuntary: the victim can’t stop it, even if offered inducements to stop or threatened if he succumbs. It’s important that adddiction is like hunger rather than like, say, the tremor of Parkinsonism.
Greg Abbott says
What about poor reasoning, caused by mental illness or distress? This may fall under misperception, but perhaps the label for that category should be broadened.
Laertes says
Like misperception, poor reasoning may underlie any of these motives, but is it really a motive itself? You might incorrectly reason that doing X will produce some material gain. Your motive is that you’re seeking gain. The soundness of your plan affects your chances of success, but doesn’t really speak of your motive.
kate says
Principle? It may make sense to broaden duty, because principle may cause people to act when they don’t have a duty to act, but from similar motivations, namely “because it is right”.
Francis says
I’d add obligation. Duty, to me, is internal. Obligation is external. (That’s not terribly coherent but I expect most people here will understand.)
Most of my actions taken over the course of a work day are driven by my obligations to my employer.
paul says
A lot of these categories seem to overlap (where does habit or custom end and addiction begin, what’s the difference between advantage and pleasure, or aspiration and duty usw), but what concerns me most is that most of them are of “That and a couple bucks…” variety. If you’re thinking about reasons, it’s important to know what kind of advantage someone thinks they will gain, or why something gives them pleasure, or how they come to construe their duty in a particular way. Otherwise it seems un-usefully tautological to me.
Julian F says
“Who has done this analysis already?”
…Elizabeth Anscombe is the name you’re looking for :^)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._E._M._Anscombe
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/anscombe/
Laertes says
Maybe “Misperception” should be struck from the list? I can think of several examples where misperception leads to some action, but in each such case one of those other 12 factors is present as well. Misperception, as I’m imagining it, is operated upon by a motive, but isn’t a motive itself.
alan wertheimer says
It’s a bit (or more than a bit) nit-picky, but it would be more accurate to rename # 9 (duty) as “moral reason” or something like that. After all, one may do X for moral reason without thinking that one has a duty or obligation to do it.
BM says
Certain kinds of instruction-following. You’re sitting at the piano, sight-reading Well-Tempered Clavier. “Why did you play a C-sharp followed by a D?” asks Mark. Because the sheet music told you to, somehow, and you didn’t have to think about it. If it’s a conscious instruction-following (“Soldier, why did you leap out of your bunk and do 100 push-ups?”) it might fall under an “advantage” or “fear” category; if it’s totally unconscious (“Why did the pen make that loop when you signed your name?”) it might fall under habit, but it seems to be that there’s an intermediate case which fits neither category. (Zooming out, “Why are you sitting at the piano sight-reading Bach?” is pleasure, but “why was that a C-sharp” is not.) Other examples: Transcription typing, shorthand writing, simultaneous translation? The “follow” role in ballroom dance? Inking or coloring a comic-strip panel?
Mark Kleiman says
You might think of instruction-following as a subcagetory of custom.
Eli says
I’ve been studying behaviorism so I’d say that if its non-reflexive or random (#1,12), then as I gather it’s anything that’s been reinforced for in the past. That takes care of #2-11,13. The really crazy part is the theory that thoughts are simply internal - “verbal” - behavior, and operate according to the same rules.
I’ve yet to encounter any explanation as remotely systematic and empirically driven.
Eli says
** or non-random**
AnnE says
Curiosity.