We can divide our motives into two basic types: internal, intrinsic and external or extrinsic motives. Some are more intrinsic than others, but basically a motive or motivator is external if someone controls the means for you to satisfy the need or desire.
It is important to understand the current state of unfulfilled desires or need states that exist in your audience in order to select the appropriate motives for your appeal.
You can use Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs to select an unsatisfied need for your motivational appeals. The lower level needs such as Physiological and Safety needs will have to be satisfied before higher level needs, such as achievement or self-actualization can be addressed.
Monroe's Motivated Sequence is one method to organize your appeal to the listeners. The five steps in order are: Get Attention, Explain Need, Satisfaction (how your solution will met the need), Visualization (picture audience living with solution in place), and Action (what audience can do now).
Motivation is the psychological feature that arouses us to action toward a desired goal and prompts us to want to continue behaviors toward the goal. If you have not eaten, then you are motivated by your hunger and you respond by seeking out food and eating. Motivation may be rooted in a basic need to minimize physical pain and maximize pleasure and it may also include specific physical, cognitive, and emotional needs or desires, too.
We can divide our motives into two basic types: internal, intrinsic and external or extrinsic motives. There is no a clear cut distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic motives. Some are more intrinsic than others, but basically, a motive or motivator is extrinsic if someone controls the means or directs you to satisfy the need or desire. For example, if you are motivated to study because a professor says you will fail the class if you do not, then you are extrinsically motivated and passing the class is the desired reward.
Here are sixteen basic desires that motivate our actions and define our personalities:
It is important to remember that only an unsatisfied need or desire can be used to motivate the listener. You need to understand the current state of the audience to select the appropriate motives for your appeal.
Abraham H. Maslow developed a Hierarchy of Needs, consisting of five hierarchic classes that can be a useful method to selecting needs for motivational appeals. The lower level physiological and safety needs must be satisfied before higher level needs can be addressed. According to Maslow, if you are trying to motivate your listeners to satisfy a particular need, you want to make sure the lower level needs are being met before you can motivate them to address an upper level need. The basic requirements build on the first step in his pyramid. If there is any deficit on this level, the whole behavior of a human will be oriented to satisfy this deficit. The second level awakens a need for security; it is oriented on a future need for security. After securing those two levels, the motives shift to the social sphere, which form the third stage. Psychological requirements comprise the fourth level, while the top of the hierarchy is the need for self-realization. The needs, listed from basic (lowest-earliest) to most complex (highest-latest) are as follows :
Now we can apply this knowledge to motivate our listeners. This is a strategy for organizing a speech using motives. Alan Monroe's motivated sequence is a method for organizing persuasive speeches. It consists of these steps on how to organize a motivational appeal to the audience:
The advantage of Monroe's Motivated Sequence is that it emphasizes what the audience can do. Too often the audience feels like a situation is hopeless; Monroe's motivated sequence emphasizes the action the audience can take.
Source: Boundless. "Motivating Listeners." Boundless Communications Boundless, 17 Mar. 2017. Retrieved 23 May. 2017 from https://www.boundless.com/communications/textbooks/boundless-communications-textbook/methods-of-persuasive-speaking-15/motivational-appeals-80/motivating-listeners-308-6835/