What is Driver Theory? | Can We Express Human Behaviors with a Mathematical Formula?

Have you ever wondered that people always repeat certain things they do in the same way and what motivates us to repeat these behaviors?
For instance, imagine that you are sitting in your room and working. Then you get up and satisfy yourself by drinking a glass of water. No one asked you to do this, and maybe you weren't even consciously aware of your behavior.

What is the Driver Theory?

According to Wikipedia "In psychology, a drive theory, theory of drives or drive doctrine is a theory that attempts to analyze, classify or define the psychological drives. A drive is an instinctual need that has the power of driving the behavior of an individual; an "excitatory state produced by a homeostatic disturbance" " Hull based his theory on the concept of homeostasis, Homeostasis means "balance" and refers to the balance, stable state that it maintains to survive under difficult situations. For instance, your body regulates its temperature to ensure that you don't become too hot. Hull believed that behavior was one of the ways that an organism maintains this balance.

Hull's Mathematical Formula for Human Behavior

The theory of the driver, the attention to some flaws in the theory over the years, and the criticism brought by new studies put an end to this popularity. We can easily say that some of the criticisms are true.

For example, unlike primary impulses such as hunger, thirst, or sexuality, secondary impulses such as money do nothing to directly reduce biological needs. Although, it gives us the power to buy reinforcers that will meet the primary impulses, they have no effect when it comes to impulses. Despite this, money is a powerful enabler.

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