Importance of Unconscious Motivation - Essay Example

Unconscious motivation is important since it forms innate ideas and desires. These are instinct behaviors out of any human control and are essential to human survival (Campbell, 60).

The pre-conscious or subconscious mind handles feelings and thoughts which an individual is not aware of but can be brought to consciousness. It forms an intermediate between the conscious and unconscious minds (Donohue, 57). It forms the available memory which involves quick remembrance of something once it is mentioned. There are some mild experiences, but shocking and powerful negative emotions are subdued and hence not experienced in this area. Together with the unconscious mind, the area influences our motives, decisions, and emotions through stored experiences and instincts respectively (Campbell, 74).

Freud's work on structuring the personality or psyche used these three systems. He coined the aspect of the superego, ego, and id for the conscious, subconscious, and unconscious respectively (Campbell, 63). The conscious and subconscious possess cognizant, preconscious, and unconscious features, while the id is entirely unconscious. The unconscious is regarded to be the largest part just as in an iceberg. He believed that dreams and tongue slips are influenced by the id and ego systems. Nevertheless, behaviorists, through their scientific approach have been unable to decipher the unconscious mind since it defies independent description and it is impractical to analytically test or measure (Donohue, 78-90).