In the early 1970s, psychologists Edward Deci and Richard Ryan developed a concept called self-determination theory that forever changed how the scientific community viewed motivation. Deci and Ryan found that, contrary to common wisdom (both then and, to a large extent, now), one’s drive to pursue activities is not predominantly reliant on

In practice, I prefer Clayton Alderfer’s version of Maslow’s hierarchy, which he called “ERG theory”: people seek existence, relatedness, and growth, in that order.

For one, intellectual curiosity (the need to understand) and deprivation sensitivity (the need to know) are only moderately correlated with each other, and compared to intellectual curiosity, deprivation sensitivity is less tied to well-being and the ability to cope with the stress of confronting new situations.76 This raises the interesting