Existence Confirmationism: A Theoretical Framework for Human Behavioral Motivation

The question of why humans act remains a central issue in philosophy and psychology. This paper proposes a novel theoretical framework, Existence Confirmationism, positing that the fundamental driving force of human behavior is the continuous confirmation of one’s own existence through psychological feedback. Individuals obtain this confirmation through three primary pathways: Self-Confirmation, Social Confirmation, and Meaning Confirmation. Unlike traditional hierarchical models of needs, these pathways represent parallel and functionally equivalent sources of existential experience. Furthermore, this paper introduces the concept of "Existential Fixation"—driven by either over-gratification (path dependence) or over-frustration (compensatory seeking)—to explain why individuals may persistently remain within a single mode of confirmation, such as the indefinite pursuit of wealth, power, or validation. Existence Confirmationism seeks to establish an integrative explanatory framework bridging existential philosophy, humanistic psychology, and motivation theory, offering a reinterpretation of human behavior through the lens of psychological confirmation mechanisms.