Drives

Seeking describes the movement towards reward.

It is a general state of arousal through anticipatory joy, motivating us to overcome challenges and hardship to attain future reward.

When our physiological needs for survival are met, we often seek additional needs higher up the hierarchy.

Sexual Lust: Motivates seeking sex and procreation. Procreation, of course, is our mechanism for securing survival beyond ourselves – a form of safety. While sex itself is a core component of belonging and formation of the family unit.

Care: Motivates longer term feelings of love, belonging, and wanting to take care of others. It motivates us to understand others, empathize with them, and behave in ways that promote connection and mutual benefit. The failure to achieve care leads to a sense of loneliness, and threat to care (someone in a caring relationship leaving) leads to separation distress.

Fear describes the opposite of seeking – movement away from punishment.

Fear makes us avoid things, specifically pain and punishment. Fear therefore helps us learn and stay safe by avoiding bodily or emotional harm. When the cause of fear is known we usually just call it fear (e.g. fear of heights), but when it’s unknown, we call that anxiety.