Motivation in Design as a Driving Force for Defining Motives of Design - Principia Designae: Pre-Design, Design, and Post-Design - page 75

6.2.1 Motivation as a Trigger for Motive in Creative Design
A distinction can be made between motivation defined as “a desire to do; interest or
drive” (Collins English Dictionary 2013 ), and motive, referring to “the reason for a
certain course of action”. A motive is a major object of interest that can be used as
an argument in favour of, or a justification for doing something. Both, motivations
and motives can be internal (personal), i.e., related to the inner reality of the self, or
external (social), i.e., concerned with an external reality that can embrace social, or
environmental aspects (e.g., Taura 2014 ) .
Motives and motivations are interrelated, so it is not possible to carry out certain
acts for whatever reason, without the existence of a relevant wish or goal. For
example, the motive for designing a house is intimately related to the beliefs and
understanding of the designer with regard to how people should dwell. Neverthe-
less, the relation between the motives for generating certain creative outputs, and
the underlying motivational disposition is not symmetrical. Thus, the same moti-
vational disposition may serve or implement different design motives. In contrast,
different motivations can be triggered by similar motives.
While motives are expressed intentions to act or do something in a specific
manner, motivations are generally unconscious (Freud 1957 ) . So designers are
generally unaware of the motivations affecting the implementation of their design
motives. This may be due to the fact that it is easier to refer to the design motives
than to the design motivations. This applies both to design practice and education.
For example, design briefs are generally based on a programme with a list of
functional needs, rather than on the explicit desires of the designer. Moreover,
observations from the design studio show that teachers and students mainly focus
on the creative outcomes and the motives leading to it, disregarding thereby the
underlying motivations for engaging in creative acts. Lack of awareness of the
motivational disposition of the designer may have negative consequences since, on
the one hand, it discourages approaching motivation in a systematic manner, and on
the other hand, it hinders the potential development of his/her creative skills.
Ignoring motivational disposition might also limit the capacity to understand why
certain decisions are taken instead of others.
6.3 Cognitive Orientation Theory and Method:
Motivation and Motive
In this study, the conceptual and methodological approach grounded in the Cogni-
tive Orientation (CO) theory (Kreitler and Kreitler 1982 ; Kreitler 2004 ) was used
for exploring motivation for creativity in design, and its relation to design motive.
The CO theory is a cognitive-motivational approach that deals with the identifica-
tion, understanding, prediction, and change of behaviours in different domains,
such as cognitive, emotional and motor (Kreitler and Kreitler 1976 , 1987a , b ) .