ABSTRACT
It is evident that most motivational psychologists have accepted the belief that behavior is in service of the pleasure-pain principle. That is, organisms seek to maximize pleasurable stimulation and to minimize painful experience. This should come as no surprise for, as Freud (1922) noted: “The impressions that underly the hypothesis of the pleasure principle are so obvious that they cannot be overlooked” (p. 1). Freud often is considered the staunchest advocate of the hedonistic position, although both the drive and the expectancy-value theorists also assume that pleasure seeking and pain avoidance are the “springs of action.”
