Emily Jorgenson

PSY1010
Hansen

Narrative Identity and Motivation/Emotion

As I went back through our previous chapter on motivation and emotion, I noticed that
there were quite a few concepts discussed that I could relate to my Narrative Identity Essay. We
had discussed one of these concepts in our last chapter as well as in our lectures that I found
particularly interesting: Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs. The other, the need to belong as part of
motivation, was discussed in another lecture. Although they are concepts that generally apply to
everybody, I felt both stood out the most in my essay out of everything else we had discussed in
this chapter.
I was surprised at how well I could relate Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs to my essay, but
what was more interesting was how I could relate that concept. The chapter discussed how
Maslow’s model was and is still highly debated. The book gave examples of situations that defy
Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs, and based off of my essay I can definitely give a few more. For
one instance, in my essay I wrote about my experience with leaving the LDS church having
been one of the biggest decisions I’ve ever made. It was a very hard decision, especially
because my needs of safety as well as belongingness were put at risk by my decision to leave.
By making that choice, I put my needs of esteem and self-actualization over those needs,
because they were greater needs for me at the time. This example shows again that Maslow’s
model isn’t infallible.
Another concept I really connected with was the need to belong, which was a part of our
section on motivation. The need to belong is something that is of top importance to me, and I
demonstrated that when I wrote about a turning-point experience of mine. To summarize, I
wrote about a concert I went to when I was 17. I was self-conscious about the way I had
dressed because I was showing skin and referred to myself in a derogatory way, but this new
group of friends endlessly reassured me. This was very surprising to me because of the way
friends have torn me down in the past. I felt a sense of safety and belonging, and because of
that I felt motivated to keep hanging out with those people. I ended up being friends with that
group for a long time afterward.