Construct · 2 fields · 2 citations

Where does drive collide?

One name. Different field. Different construct. One map.

● jingle · one word, two constructs Nearest construct by meaninginstinctcompare the meanings
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Every construct on the map is compared with every other by the meaning of its definitions, and the closest one is surfaced here. The nearest construct to drive is instinct.

Hold this as a prompt, not a verdict. Two constructs sitting close in meaning is a reason to read them side by side and decide for yourself whether they are one idea under two names. It is not proof that they are. Compare the meanings in the Collider.

drive2 CONSTRUCTSDrive (Hull)HULL · NEED-STATE ENERGYDrive (Trieb)FREUD · TRIEB / LIBIDO

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2026

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Psychology of motivation

an internal state of arousal produced by a physiological need, such as hunger, that pushes an organism into activity.

In Clark Hull's theory of motivation, a drive is an internal state of arousal produced by a physiological need, such as hunger, thirst, or pain, that energizes an organism and pushes it into activity. Hull's 1943 Principles of Behavior set out drive-reduction theory, in which behavior that lessens a drive is reinforced, so that learning is built on the reduction of need-generated tension. In this account the drive is a pool of general activation, often written D, that combines with learned habit strength to decide how vigorously a response is made. The referent is a motivational force inside a behaving animal, gauged from deprivation and response vigor, not a stored file on a disk, a shaft carrying power to a wheel, or Freud's psychic energy of the instincts.[1]

Unit
A need-driven state of activation that energizes behavior
Recovery means
The drive falls as the underlying need is met, and its reduction reinforces the behavior that came just before it
Measured by
Inferred from hours of deprivation and from the vigor, speed, or persistence of the behavior that follows

Psychoanalysis

a demand on the mind arising from a bodily source, pressing toward an aim and seeking an object.

In psychoanalysis a drive (German Trieb) is a demand made on the mind for work as a result of its link to the body: a pressure that arises from a somatic source, presses toward an aim, and seeks an object through which it can be satisfied. In his 1915 paper Instincts and Their Vicissitudes, Freud broke the drive down into its pressure, aim, object, and source, and treated its energy, the libido, as something that can be displaced, dammed up, or turned round upon the self. The English Standard Edition rendered Trieb as instinct, but many readers hold that drive is the better translation, because Freud meant a malleable inner urge rather than the fixed, inherited behavior pattern that ethologists later called an instinct. The referent is a construct of mental energy inside a theory of the mind, not a state of physiological deprivation, a storage device, or a mechanical transmission.[2]

Unit
A quantum of psychic energy, the libido, pressing from a bodily source toward an aim
Recovery means
Its tension is discharged when the aim is satisfied, though the drive may instead be repressed, displaced, or sublimated
Measured by
Not directly measured; inferred clinically from symptoms, dreams, and the shifting of desire in analysis

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Nearby collisions

motivation6 fields · 18 citationsjingle · one name, six constructsarousal3 fields · 4 citationsjingle · one word, three constructsdriver2 fields · 2 citationsjingle · one word, two constructs

References

  1. Hull, C. L. (1943). Principles of behavior: An introduction to behavior theory. Appleton-Century-Crofts.
  2. Freud, S. (1957). Instincts and their vicissitudes. In J. Strachey (Ed. & Trans.), The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud (Vol. 14, pp. 109–140). Hogarth Press. (Original work published 1915)

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