If you want to be a ‘better’ person, understand and accept your ‘dark’ motivations
Most of the time, we have multiple desires and motivations that motivate a particular behaviour or action. When an underlying desire doesn’t fit with our sense of identity, this can create cognitive dissonance and therefore discomfort, so we are incentivised to deny that these motivations exist. For example, we may deny the fact that an action is mostly driven by a desire to get our own needs met (even at the expense of others) if this doesn’t fit with our view of ourselves as a kind, compassionate, caring person. To avoid this pain and confusion, we might search for a more palatable narrative.
For example, you may be motivated to work in a typically altruistic profession by a genuine sense of compassion and wanting to reduce suffering in the world. You may also be motivated by wanting admiration from others or by gaining power, status and control. These motivations may be present concurrently, even if a certain motivation dominates at any one time.
Having dark’ motivations (motivations that are mostly about fulfilling our own needs, with risk of some negative consequences for others) is part of being a multi-faceted human being with complex needs and desires. I think it is dangerous to deny this. It might sound paradoxical, but accepting that we are less ‘good’ than we think, can actually make us better people by bringing more awareness, and therefore more control, of our ‘darker’ desires. And exploring this may even reap rewards in terms of wellbeing: by an increased ability to accept all parts of yourself, and a reformed sense of identity that is based on what is realistic and feasible to achieve as a human being.
Unfortunately, motivated reasoning can make it next to impossible to identify what really motivates our behaviour. In the past, I have attempted to find (very imperfect but helpful) strategies to do this: I recently came across a document from a few years years ago named ‘understanding my motivations’, in which I set out various questions to ‘test’ underlying motivations of a particular behavior. As below, I had set out the particular behaviour, hypothesis regarding a (dark) motivation I had for this behaviour and alternative hypotheses. I then asked myself a number of questions to ‘tweak’ the situation, to help to understand the main motivator:
Example of behaviour: I am avoiding telling a friend that I am not romantically interested in them
Hypothesis regarding motivation for behaviour: I am avoiding this conversation because I do not want them to change their behaviour towards me. Even though I am not attracted to them, I find it validating and fear they might spend less time time with me/pay me less attention
Are there any alternative theories?
I hate awkward conversations
I don’t want to hurt or disappoint them
It might seem presumptuous-they are probably not attracted to me anyway
I like the thought of them liking me and don’t want to dis-confirm that
Examples of questions to test hypothesis:
If an aspect of their behavior changed would I be disappointed? (Which aspect would bother me the most? For example, they still wanted to spend time but weren’t as complimentary? How much am I really enjoying that aspect of the friendship?
How would I feel if they got into a romantic relationship?
If somehow I was certain that they would not be disappointed (eg if they weren’t romantically interested), would I feel different?
If they brought up the conversation in a way that did not feel awkward, would I feel relieved or still anxious?
Imagine that I could be confident that the conversation would not be awkward, would I still avoid it?
If I somehow felt confident that their behaviour would not change post-conversation, would I still feel some hesitation?
Questioning myself in this way helped me to understand my underlying motivations to a certain extent. But I think this needs to be combined with developing a realistic view of what it means to be a ‘good’ person. After all, it may be hard to be honest in an exercise like this, if the process uncovers too many inconsistencies with your self-view. It can be useful to identity as a person who values being altruistic and kind, but I think there are risks in being too rigid in our view regarding what this means. If we hold ourselves to such high standards (for example, being a good person means that I don’t ever have mean thoughts, or never act in a way that is selfish), this can lead to suffering, denial and/or confusion when we don’t live up to these expectations. The more we are able to accept these parts of ourselves, the easier it is to be aware of these motivations: sometimes we only allow ourselves to see what we are able to tolerate.
The understanding that I do not ask to have certain selfish thoughts and desires, helps me to come to terms with being an imperfect human being who despite hugely valuing compassion, kindness and altruism, is ultimately still quite selfish and has many other (competing) needs and values. Ultimately, I have limited control over my own mind. I have all sorts of thoughts that I am not proud of, sometimes even wishing harm to people, but did I ‘decide’ or ‘ask’ to put those thoughts there? I have been attempting to bring more kindness and compassion to all parts of myself, even the parts I don’t particularly like. This doesn’t mean giving these parts of myself permission to control my behavior, but rather this understanding helps to prevent them from controlling my actions.
Our ‘dark’ desires and motivations are part of being human and nothing to be ashamed of. Understanding and accepting them is not the same as indulging or encouraging them: it can give them less power, rather than more. The alternative is that they will probably go about their business, unseen and masquerading as something else, impacting our actions. It seems important to understand all our desires and motivations -after all, it might lead to a more accurate understanding of our own needs and reduce the risk that we act in a way that has adverse consequences for others. Even if it requires facing some painful truths in the short-run, it may even lead to more self-love and self-acceptance, and therefore more happiness, in the long-run.