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It's bigger on the inside: mapping the black box of motivation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 January 2025

Marco Del Giudice Open the ORCID record for Marco Del Giudice [Opens in a new window]
Marco Del Giudice*
Affiliation:
Department of Life Sciences, University of Trieste, Trieste, Italy marco.delgiudice@units.it https://marcodg.net
*
*Corresponding author.
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Abstract

Many motivational constructs are opaque “black boxes,” and should be replaced by an explicit account of the underlying psychological mechanisms. The theory of motivational systems has begun to provide such an account. I recently contributed to this tradition with a general architecture of motivation, which connects “energization” and “direction” through the goal-setting activity of emotions, and serves as an evolutionary grounded map of motivational processes.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 48 , 2025 , e30
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press

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