[Abstract] Based on the investigation of psychological needs and motives, this paper analyzes the principle that uncertainty has an incentive effect on economic actors under market conditions from two aspects: structural uncertainty and non-structural uncertainty, and explains its significance to economic development.

Key words: demand motivation, structural uncertainty, economic development.

1 just know what we don't want? This old adage not only reflects the new uncertainty in knowledge production, but also reflects the infinite pursuit of the unknown world.

It is this nature that has made the continuous progress of mankind for centuries. Until today when the market economy is highly developed, uncertainty still plays an important role in the progress of the whole society. Exploring this law is of great significance for further rational utilization and promotion of economic development.

First, the investigation of demand and motivation.

Humans have always had the spirit of exploration and the desire for control. Our ancestors constantly discovered and transformed the environment in this uncertain world, and at the same time transformed themselves. It seems to be human nature that this is still the case in the uncertain economic environment of modern society.

Uncertainty is usually regarded as the object to be avoided, which is more closely related to risk and has negative psychological effects. Indeed, the basic need for a sense of security determines that people are more dependent on familiar things, and controllable environmental factors provide a stable psychological state, thus ensuring freedom of action according to their own wishes in a limited space, while releasing more attention to explore and pursue new things. This kind of exploration and pursuit is not so much the result of seeking security as the reason. People always tend to expand their scope of cognition and control endlessly, and this process itself is intertwined with people's desire for free action. Compared with the field that human beings could influence and control a century ago, the field of free action has been greatly expanded.

It can be seen that human progress is not accidental. People will always have a higher level of freedom of action after meeting the basic security needs, and part of this action itself is to continue to expand the field of cognition and control, thus strengthening people's sense of security, while people are satisfied with self-realization in this process, and so on. It can be said that in a completely certain world, the result of any action is so certain that people will lose all motivation.

Similarly, in the market environment, people pursue uncertainty while avoiding it, and they are full of illusions and hopes. This kind of motivation will become an important factor in the behavior of micro-subjects under the condition of market economy.

Second, the connotation of uncertainty.

When Keynes noticed the key role of uncertainty in the operation of capitalism at that time, he tried to distinguish uncertainty from risk. Keynes believed that uncertainty was a state.

Individual actors find it impossible to give a reasonable and clear probability of the expected results they choose (Keynes, 1937). In comparison, the risk can be calculated. Therefore, in the range of probability theory, risk is a controllable island of uncertainty in the sea of Wang Yang.

If risk is an event with negative possibility in uncertainty, then correspondingly, there must be a positive possibility event, that is, the possibility of obtaining benefits from it. We can think that it is this part of uncertainty that has become the main incentive source for micro-subjects. However, this distinction seems difficult. Under complicated circumstances, it is often difficult for people to judge the development direction of the situation, and even it is difficult to determine its positive or negative direction as a whole. This kind of uncertainty mixed with unpredictable events is obviously its greatest harm, which will make people's behavior lose motivation or even completely stagnate. Therefore, whether the final result is positive or negative, when uncertainty occurs, people's behavioral motivation is suppressed.

Another case of uncertainty is that we know what will happen, but we can't determine the degree of it, and we can't give it a clear probability. This is equivalent to limiting uncertainty within a framework or corresponding rules, thus making the possible situations that the parties need to deal with more clear. It is this uncertainty that can easily lead to positive behavior motivation under certain conditions, that is, uncertainty has an incentive effect on people in the market environment.

Therefore, it seems appropriate to call the former unstructured uncertainty and the latter structured uncertainty.

Third, uncertainty analysis of the incentive effect of market players.

1. Structural uncertainty analysis.

The important feature of structured uncertainty is that it embeds uncertainty into a specific rule or framework, so that there is a specific connection between behavior and result, although the probability and intensity of its occurrence are unknown. Under this uncertainty, the orientation of behavior results is still uncertain. Before the corresponding definite probability can not be allocated to various favorable and unfavorable situations, the actor thinks that the possibility of suffering losses and gaining benefits is equal, and the parties will not take action or have no motivation to take further action.

However, if the possible risks in structural uncertainty are further clarified, the situation will change. As defined above, risk can be calculated within the range of probability. This quantification may be enough to show that the actor has a rich source of information about the risk and can deeply understand it. In this way, the information about positive possibility and negative possibility contained in uncertainty changes from symmetry to asymmetry, and the information itself provides a kind of security utility, which meets the actor's certain security needs, thus further stimulating his motivation to explore unknown interests. In other words, compared with the known possible loss space, the possible gain space is much larger. It is this positive and unpredictable income that inspires the actor's infinite motivation and urges him to actively explore different possibilities to increase his income.

The principle of incentive can be simply summarized as the pursuit of unknowable interests under the condition of controllable risks. Although this analysis method is still not beyond the explanation scope of the rational man hypothesis, it already contains some irrational factors, such as the behavioral motivation caused by unrealistic hopes.

2. Unstructured uncertainty analysis.

As mentioned above, unstructured uncertainty is a mixture of possible events in different directions, and the parties will be unable to take further action because of their loss of judgment, because the relationship between behavior and income is completely lost. This will completely inhibit people's behavioral motives. This uncertainty is a huge obstacle to the market economy, and it is also the object that actors need to avoid. It has a negative psychological effect on people, and at the same time, because individuals take complex evasive measures, it increases the transaction cost of the whole market and reduces the efficiency of market operation.

Fourth, the impact of uncertainty on market efficiency and economic development.

1. The influence of uncertainty on market efficiency.

The discussion of uncertainty naturally leads to its role as a part of market economy and how to build a reasonable and effective market from the perspective of uncertainty. A market without uncertainty cannot be called a market, and a market full of uncertainty cannot be called a sound market. While the market rationally allocates resources through the price mechanism, it also provides a possibility for stimulating micro-subjects, but the problem lies in how to define the uncertainty that an effective market should have as one of the standards to measure market efficiency.