The research objective is to define the main distinctions in understanding motivation. It was revealed that the majority of psychological concepts of motivation either is identified with the concepts “motive” and “motivation”, or subordinate “motivation” from “motive”, or on the contrary. Anyway the motive in the theory is directly connected with motivation, however, as well as requirement. However diverse ideas of structure of motivation and sequence and the maintenance of those mechanisms which make it are composed of such various сonceptions of a ratio of motive and motivation. Various tendencies of this sort became the basis for definition of the following approaches in psychology concerning understanding of motivation: 1) subjective which is focuced directly on the subject and those conditions and rules according to which it can develop, or the science tries to investigate the elements which were put in the person and are present at a permanent type; 2) the objective - a factor of external character has priority importance, the motivation is defined and depends on a subject essence of the reality and need found in a concrete situation; 3) subjective and objective - the attempt to generalize achievements of those scientists which united dynamic and static beginnings in the sphere of motivation formation.
