What type of motives are hunger and thirst?

Motives are classified by where they originate. An intrinsic motive arises from an organism's own internal biological state and drives behaviour to restore physiological balance, without needing an external reward or something learned through experience.

Hunger and thirst are built-in physiological drives that are present from birth and push an organism to eat or drink so the body can maintain homeostasis. Because this urge originates inside the body itself rather than from an outside incentive or from something learned through experience, hunger and thirst are classified as intrinsic motives.

• Extrinsic motivation depends on an external reward or punishment attached to a behaviour, which does not describe a built-in bodily urge like hunger or thirst.

• Acquired motives are learned through experience over a person's lifetime, whereas hunger and thirst are present from birth and need no learning.

• Social motives, such as the need for affiliation or approval, develop through interaction with other people, unlike hunger and thirst, which are purely physiological.

Hunger and thirst are therefore intrinsic motives.