Chapter 7
IMPLICIT MOTIVES
Implicit motives are enduring (trait-like), nonconscious needs that influence what the
person thinks about, feels, and does, and these needs motivate the person toward the
pursuit and attainment of specific social incentives (Schultheiss & Brunstein, 2010).
Implicit means unconscious—without conscious awareness. An implicit motive is a
psychological need that is implied or inferred from the person’s characteristic thought,
emotions, and behavior.
Implicit motives stand in contrast to explicit motives. Explicit motives are people’s
conscious, readily accessible, and verbally stated motivations. For instance, if someone
asked you, “Do you have a strong need for achievement?” “Do you love challenges?” and
“Will you persist in the face of failure?” the answers to these questions represent explicit
achievement motivation. Explicit motives are assessed with self-report questionnaires.
Implicit motives for achievement are different, as they are based on one’s emotional
reactions during a challenging task and whether you really emotionally want to persist in
the face of failure. One way to think about the difference between implicit and explicit
measures is that with explicit measures people describe themselves (e.g., “I like
challenges” and “I do not fear failure”), while implicit motives are inferred from what
people write in response to the picture cues on the PSE (Schultheiss, Yankova, Dirlikov,
& Schad, 2009).
When it comes to predicting people’s behavior, implicit motives do a better job than do
explicit motives (McClelland, Koestner, & Weinberger, 1989). Hence, the topic of this
chapter is not on what people say their motives are but, rather, it is on the unconscious
forces (implicit motives) that arise from situational cues that cause emotional reactions
that then predict, guide, and explain people’s behavior and lifestyle.
What a person “needs” within an implicit motive is to experience a particular pattern of
affect or emotion. For instance, a person with a strong need for achievement typically
experiences strong interest, enthusiasm, joy, and pride while engaging in a challenging
task. A person with little or no need for achievement, on the other hand, does not
experience this same pattern of affect. Instead, this person typically experiences negative
affect, such as anxiety, shame, and embarrassment while engaging in that same
challenging task. Hence, people with a strong implicit achievement motivation
emotionally “need” to challenge themselves, because challenges are the vehicle to
generate a highly desirable pattern of affect and emotion.
Similarly, people with a strong affiliation or a strong power implicit motive “need” to
involve themselves in close relationships and in opportunities for social impact,
respectively, because close relationships are the vehicle to generate positive affect and
positive emotion for the person with a high need for affiliation while opportunities for
social influence are the vehicle to generate positive affect and positive emotion for the
person with a high need for power. With that said, look back at the three pictures at the
beginning of the chapter. Which one conjures up within you the most positive gut-felt
emotion? Why is that? Alternatively, which picture does nothing for you emotionally?
Why is that?
It might be difficult to really grasp what a person needs with an implicit motive, so
imagine that you are a participant in this illustrative experiment (Dufner et al., 2015). In a
laboratory situation, the experimenter shows you a series of pictures and each individual
picture is closely associated with one of the themes of achievement, affiliation, and
power—like those pictures on the first page of this chapter. Before asking you to view the
pictures, the experimenter tapes a sensor to the zygomaticus muscle of your face (the
smiling muscle, see Figure 13.2). Such a sensor can pick up very subtle smiles, even
one’s that cannot be seen by the human eye. If you have even the slightest pleasure
reaction to the picture, the sensor will pick it up. Also, after each picture, the
experimenter asks you to agree or disagree with the question: I had a positive feeling
while viewing this picture. The point of the experiment is to understand what makes you
tick—what sort of situations give you pleasure.
In many ways, life is like this—a series of situations, such as personal challenges, social
interactions, and influence attempts. Encountering and being in these various situations
generates either positive, neutral, or negative emotional reactions and the positive
situations feel emotionally rewarding while the negative situations feel emotionally
punishing. The more rewarding such situations are, the more we desire them and seek
them out (i.e., they motivate us).
David McClelland was a pioneer researcher in the field of implicit motives. He traced his
doubts about the validity of self-report motivations from his youthful experiences in
which he observed consistent contradictions between what people said they would do and
what they later actually did. His own example of this contradiction was best represented
by listening to what people who attended church on Sunday said they would do during
the week and then observing what they actually did and did not do on the other six days
of the week (McClelland, 1984). He believed that people’s thoughts, feelings, and
behaviors were affected by forces that were unknown even to themselves—that is, to
unconscious motives. His twofold conclusion was that (1) implicit motives are
unconscious and cannot be measured by self-report and (2) implicit motives predicted
people’s behavior and performance, whereas explicit motives predicted only people’s
attitudes and values (McClelland, Koestner, & Weinberger, 1989).
As shown in Box 7, the study of implicit processes extends beyond unconscious
motivation to include unconscious attitudes as well.
BOX 7 Implicit Attitudes
Question: Why is this information important?
Answer: It expands unconscious processes to include not only motivation but also
attitudes.
Implicit means implied or inferred. Implicit motivations are inaccessible to conscious
awareness and are only inferred from some source of evidence, such as our behavior or
psychophysiology. Explicit means fully revealed. What is explicit is known directly and
is fully consciously accessible. Just as the implicit–explicit distinction applies to our
motivations, it applies to our attitudes (Greenwald, Nosek, & Banaji, 2003; Greenwald,
Poehlman, Uhlmann, & Banaji, 2009).
An attitude is an evaluation of an object, person, place, thing, or idea. It is a judgment of
good versus bad, like versus dislike, pleasant versus unpleasant. Like motivations,
attitudes are both implicit and explicit, and we can have conflicting implicit and explicit
attitudes toward the same object. It can be hard to accept the idea that the attitudes we
hold are anything but explicit and consciously chosen and filtered. Nevertheless, implicit
attitudes do predict our behavior (Greenwald et al., 2009) and well-being (Leavitt, Fong,
& Greenwald, 2011). For a demonstration of how pervasive and important implicit
attitudes can be, I invite the reader to spend some part of this afternoon interacting with
the following website: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/.
This website offers the Implicit Association Test (IAT; Greenwald et al., 2003). The IAT
measures attitudes that people are unable (or unwilling) to report, and the IAT is
especially insightful when it reveals an implicit attitude that you did not know you had.
On this website, you take a 15-minute online test to assess your implicit attitudes toward
gender (female–male), weight (fat–thin), sexuality (gay–straight), race (black–white),
disability (disabled–abled), skin tone (light skin–dark skin), various world religions,
various ethnicities (Asians, Native Americans, Arabs-Muslims), or various people
(presidential candidates).
In taking the IAT, attitude objects appear on the screen (young people, old people) and
the person presses a key to classify those attitude objects into value categories (good,
bad). All pairs are presented (young-good, old-good, young-bad, old-bad), and the
computer records the person’s reaction time to make each separate categorization. The
IAT essentially measures the strength of the association between an attitude object and its
evaluation. Fast (easy, quick) reaction times imply a strong association between the two,
while slow reaction times (i.e., you have to think about it) imply a weak association.
Typically, the reaction time data show that some pairs (old -good, young-bad) are weakly
linked while other pairs (old-bad, young-good) are strongly linked. This difference
implies a prejudice, or at least a preference for one object over the other. With these
reaction times data in hand (the IAT provides individualized feedback), you can compare
your implicit attitude with your explicit attitude, as in answering the explicit attitude
question, “Which statement best describes you?” (from Greenwald et al., 2003):
•
__ I strongly prefer young people to old people.
•
__ I moderately prefer young people to old people.
•
__ I like young people and old people equally.
•
__ I moderately prefer old people to young people.
•
__ I strongly prefer old people to young people.
Sometimes implicit–explicit attitudes agree. But sometimes they conflict. In those latter
cases, explicit attitudes tell us only half the story about how we really feel about an
attitude object. For the other half of the story, we need to become aware of our implicit
attitude. A good place to start is to spend some of your afternoon interacting with the
aforementioned website.
ACQUIRED NEEDS
No one is born with a need for achievement, a need for affiliation, or a need for power.
Yet each of us develops some or all of these strivings, at least to a degree. Personal
experience, socialization opportunities and demands, and our unique developmental
history teach us to expect a more positive emotional experience in some situations than in
other situations. The anticipation of experiencing such positive emotionality is what leads
us to organize our lifestyle around further activity in these domains rather than in other
domains. Over time, because of these repeated emotional experiences, we acquire
preferences for those particular situations, hobbies, and careers that are associated with
our acquired needs. Some of us learn to prefer and enjoy situations that challenge us with
explicit standards of excellence (i.e., achievement needs). Others learn to prefer and
enjoy situations that afford warm relationship opportunities (i.e., affiliation needs). And
others learn to prefer and enjoy situations that allow them to exert influence over others
(i.e., power needs).
Chapter 6 presented the motivational literature on inherent psychological needs. All of us
need autonomy, competence, and relatedness, because these are universal human needs.
In contrast, implicit needs have a social (rather than an innate) origin. Social needs
originate from preferences gained through experience and socialization. These needs
develop within us as acquired individual differences—as an acquired or a learned part of
our personality. So the way to think about these needs is to adopt an individual
differences approach. Everyone has some level of each need for achievement, affiliation,
and power, more or less. This chapter traces the social origins of the need for
achievement, affiliation, and power and discusses how each need, once acquired,
manifests itself in thought, emotion, action, and lifestyle.
Social Needs
In the acquisition of implicit motives, early childhood experience is of paramount
importance. Infants lack language (the word “infancy” literally means “without
language”); they also lack cognition and intelligence in the adult sense of these terms.
The language of infancy is affect, desire, and emotion. Infants want and feel, rather than
think. Desires and feelings represent the language of the unconscious, while thoughts and
words represent the language of the conscious. It is during the first two years of life that
infants begin to develop preferences to experience strong positive emotion to the
attainment of particular classes of incentives.
Throughout infancy and early childhood, children engage in behavior that produces either
positive or negative affect. They may walk, climb a stair, or reach for a toy and then
experience strong positive emotion such as joy and pride with goal attainment, or
frustration and shame with goal failure. Experience teaches each of us to expect positive
emotional reactions in response to some incentives rather than others (McClelland, 1985).
This positive emotionality in the pursuit of a standard of excellence is the emotional and
developmental origin of acquiring a preference for situations that offer a standard of
excellence. With positive emotion, the child develops a positive goal anticipation upon
encountering a new standard of excellence and anticipates joy and pride. Positive
emotion to this particular class of incentives (standards of excellence) is the
developmental origin of the need for achievement. Of course, children encounter other
situations as well. They may involve themselves in close relationships with other
people—talking with others, being hugged, and playing cooperatively. Strong positive
emotion in these situations can generate an enduring preference for social relationship
situations and foster goal anticipation and positive emotionality in future social settings.
Such is the developmental origin of the need for affiliation. Children also involve
themselves in situations such as gaining prestige, status, influence, and social power.
Strong positive emotions in these situations tend to generate an enduring preference for
social influence situations and to foster goal anticipation and positive emotionality in
similar situations. Such is the developmental origin of the need for power.
Once acquired in early childhood, people in later life experience implicit needs as
emotional and behavioral potentials that are activated by particular situational incentives
(Atkinson, 1982; McClelland, 1985). That is, when an incentive associated with a
particular need is present (e.g., a date is an affiliation incentive, an inspirational speech is
a power incentive), the person high in that particular need experiences emotional and
behavioral activation (i.e., feels hope, seeks interaction). The primary need -activating
incentive for each social need appears in Table 7.1.
TABLE 7.1Social Incentive That Activates Each Implicit Motive
Implicit
Motive
Social Incentive That Activates Each Need
Achievement
Doing something well to show personal competence
Affiliation
Opportunity to please others and gain their approval; involvement in a
warm and secure relationship
Power
Having impact on others
In an extensive investigation of how people acquire social needs, one group of
researchers sought to determine the childrearing antecedents of adult needs for
achievement, affiliation, and power (McClelland & Pilon, 1983). The researchers initially
scored the parental practices of mothers and fathers of 78 5-year-old boys and girls.
When the children grew to the age of 31, the researchers assessed the implicit motives of
each adult to see which early socialization experiences, if any, would predict adults’
implicit motives. Only a few childrearing antecedents emerged as significant, but the few
that did illustrate some early origins. Adults high in the need for achievement generally
had parents who imposed high standards. Adults with high needs for affiliation generally
had parents who used praise as a socialization technique. Adults with high needs for
power generally had parents who were permissive about sex and aggression.
The finding that few childrearing experiences predict adult motives suggests that social
needs can and do develop and change over time. For instance, some occupations foster
achievement strivings more than do other occupations, because they provide
opportunities for moderate challenges, independent work, personal responsibility for
outcomes, and rapid performance feedback. People in such achievement-congenial
occupations (e.g., entrepreneurs) show marked increases in their achievement strivings
over the years compared to people in achievement-noncongenial occupations (e.g.,
nursing, teaching) (Jenkins, 1987). Similarly, workers in jobs that require assertiveness
(e.g., sales) show increases in the need for power over the years (Veroff, Depner, Kulka,
& Douvan, 1980). Overall, the development of implicit motives begins in very early
childhood and continues throughout life.
How Implicit Motives, as Acquired Psychological Needs, Motivate Behavior
Implicit motives—the needs for achievement, affiliation, and power—are activated and
aroused by a specific class of social incentives (Table 7.1). That is, a teenager plays a
game of basketball and, while playing, encounters challenges such as dribbling behind
one’s back, spinning the ball on an index finger, trying to dunk, or taking shots from the
three-point line. If dribbling, spinning, dunking, and shooting produce positive emotions
such as interest and pride, then the social incentive of being challenged becomes
associated with positive emotion, and an emotion-based preference for challenging
situations develops. If dribbling, spinning, dunking, and shooting produce negative
emotions such as anxiety and shame, then the social incentive of being challenged
becomes associated with negative emotion and no such emotion-based preference for
challenging situations develops. Over time, challenging situations and positive emotion
go hand in hand, and it is the anticipation of positive emotion in the face of a challenging
task that is the implicit motive for achievement.
Notice that implicit motives are mostly reactive in nature. They lie dormant within us
until we encounter a potentially need-satisfying incentive that activates a particular
pattern of emotionality. For example, picture 1 at the beginning of the chapter often pulls
achievement-related emotions and strivings out of those with an implicit motive for
achievement. That is, a race is experienced as a standard of excellence, and such an
incentive typically conjures up positive emotion and positive goal anticipation in those
high in achievement strivings. That same picture and the thought of confronting a
standard of excellence will typically generate neutral or negative emotion and negative
goal anticipation in those low in achievement strivings. Picture 2 often pulls for
affiliation-related emotions and strivings, at least for people with an implicit motive for
affiliation. That is, the picture offers a potential social opportunity to make friends, to
deepen a friendship, or to reunite with lost friends, and the thought of a warm, close,
secure relationship will conjure up positive emotion and positive goal anticipation (a
happy ending, such as social acceptance) in those high in affiliation strivings. Similarly,
that same picture tends to generate neutral or negative emotion and negative goal
anticipation (an unhappy ending, such as rejection) in those low in affiliation strivings.
Picture 3 often pulls for power-related emotions and strivings.
Implicit motives are not only reactive, however, as people also learn to anticipate the
emergence of these same social incentives in their daily lives. People learn that particular
occupations, organizations, and recreational events, for example, are primarily
opportunities for doing well and demonstrating personal competence, for pleasing others
and gaining their approval and for participating in warm and secure relationships, or for
having an impact on others. Based on this personal experience, people gravitate toward
the environments that are capable of activating need -congenial emotions that functionally
satisfy their implicit motives. The person high in achievement strivings might enter
business to become an entrepreneur or a stockbroker, while the person high in power
strivings might enter management, run for political office, or become a stage performer
such as a comedian, magician, or entertainer.
Whether social needs are reactive or anticipatory, the core of implicit motives is the
desire for particular affective (emotional) experiences. The fundamental question
therefore becomes, In what situations do you feel most strong, fulfilled, and satisfied?
What makes you really happy? From this point of view, if you know what sort of
activities and environments make you happy, then you have a good insight into the
makeup of your own implicit motivation profile. In brief:
•
•
•
High achievement strivings: Feel interest, joy, arousal, excitement, and a sense of
opportunity when given a difficult challenge that offers immediate diagnostic
feedback about your performance. Feel happy when pursuing goals such as
winning, diagnosing personal competence, and improving the self, as often
happens in sports and various domains of risk-taking (e.g., investing in stocks,
entrepreneurship). You feel excited and energized by standards of excellence and
when evaluating your performance against personal standards.
High affiliation strivings: Feel calmness accompanied by warm, positive affect in
situations that offer comfort and interpersonal security (Wirth & Schultheiss,
2006). Feel happy when pursuing activities such as cuddling (family in bed
together on a Saturday morning) or just relaxing with a close friend at the coffee
shop or beach. You feel a calm, satisfying joy when you are in close contact with
others and when forming and maintaining positive personal relationships.
High power strivings: Feel strong, sharp arousal spikes that generate a burst of
epinephrine, testosterone, and increased blood pressure and muscle tone (Hall,
Stanton, & Schultheiss, 2010). Feel happy when pursuing activities such as riding
a roller coaster and making a persuasive speech in front of a large audience. You
feel strong and empowered during social influence attempts, when attaining high
social status, when in a position of leadership, and when dominating and directing
others.
The satisfaction of an implicit motive brings immediate affective (emotional)
gratification, and it therefore provides a deeply satisfying answer to the age-old question:
What makes you happy?
ACHIEVEMENT
The need for achievement is the desire to do well relative to a standard of excellence. It is
the individual’s unconscious, but frequently recurring, preference to feel positive affect
upon improving his or her performance, making progress on a challenging task, and
experiencing “success in competition with a standard of excellence” (McClelland,
Atkinson, Clark, & Lowell, 1953).
A standard of excellence is any challenge to a person’s sense of competence that ends
with an objective outcome of success versus failure, win versus lose, or right versus
wrong. Competition with a standard of excellence is a broad term that encompasses
(following Heckhausen, 1967): competition with a task (e.g., solving a puzzle),
competition with the self (e.g., running a race in a personal best time), and competition
against others (e.g., becoming the class valedictorian).
What all types of achievement situations have in common is that the person has
encountered a standard of excellence and has been energized by it, largely because he or
she knows that the forthcoming performance will produce an emotionally meaningful
evaluation of personal competence. A “standard of excellence” needs to be defined
broadly to include not only meeting an explicit standard of excellence as determined by
others (one’s teacher, a sales quota, and qualifying time to make the Olympic games),
because it also includes attaining a personal best and even a subjective experience that
one did indeed rise to a challenge. That said, there are only two outcomes that follow a
competition with a standard of excellence: success or failure (Pang, 2010).
When facing standards of excellence, people’s emotional reactions vary. Individuals high
in the need for achievement generally respond with approach-oriented emotions such as
hope, pride, and anticipatory gratification. Individuals low in the need for achievement,
however, generally respond with avoidance-oriented emotions such as anxiety, defense,
and the fear of failure. People’s behavioral responses to standards of excellence also vary.
When confronting a standard of excellence, people show differences in choice, latency,
effort, persistence, and the willingness to take personal responsibility for the ensuing
success/failure outcome (Cooper, 1983). High-need achievers, compared to low-need
achievers, choose moderately difficult to difficult versions of tasks instead of easy
versions (Kuhl & Blankenship, 1979; Slade & Rush, 1991); they quickly engage in
achievement-related tasks rather than procrastinate (Blankenship, 1987); they show more
effort and better performance because pride energizes them (Karabenick & Yousseff,
1968; Raynor & Entin, 1982); they persist in the face of difficulty and failure on
moderately difficult tasks (Feather, 1961, 1963); and they take a personal responsibility
for successes and failures rather than seeking help or advice from others (Weiner, 1980).
As depicted in Figure 7.1, standards of excellence offer a two-edged sword (Covington &
Omelich, 1979). A standard of excellence simultaneously arouses in people both the
desire to approach it and do well and the desire to avoid it and not embarrass oneself. In
part, these standards excite us and we react with approach emotions and strong
engagement behavior. These same standards of excellence also bring us anxiety, and we
react with avoidance emotions and strong disengagement behavior (although the fear of
failure can also motivate effort and persistence as the person strives to avoid or escape
from punishing shame and guilt).
Figure 7.1 Positive versus Negative Emotional Reactions People Experience upon
Encountering a Standard of Excellence
Origins of the Need for Achievement
Socialization Influences
Strong and resilient achievement strivings arise, in part, from socialization inf luences
(Heckhausen, 1967; McClelland & Pilon, 1983). Children develop relatively strong
achievement strivings when their parents provide the following: independence training
(e.g., self-reliance), high performance aspirations, realistic standards of excellence
(Rosen & D’Andrade, 1959; Winterbottom, 1958), high ability self-concepts (e.g., “This
task will be easy for you”), a positive valuing of achievement-related pursuits (EcclesParsons, Adler, & Kaczala, 1982), explicit standards for excellence (Trudewind, 1982), a
home environment rich in stimulation potential (e.g., books to read), a wide scope of
experiences such as traveling, and exposure to children’s readers rich in achievement
imagery (e.g., The Little Engine That Could; deCharms & Moeller, 1962). After years of
investigation, the effort to identify the childhood socialization practices of high-need
achievers was only partly successful, however, largely because longitudinal findings
began to show that achievement strivings change a great deal from childhood to
adulthood and that adult achievement strivings often changed from one decade to the next
(Jenkins, 1987; Maehr & Kleiber, 1980).
Developmental Influences
Achievement-related emotions and motivations show a predictable developmental pattern
(Stipek, 1984). Children are not born with pride or shame; neither is an innate emotion.
Instead, pride emerges from a developmental history of success episodes ending in
mastery and task success; shame emerges from a developmental history of failure
episodes ending in ridicule (Stipek, 1983). Developmentally, we learn to be pride-prone
or shame-prone when facing a standard of excellence.
Atkinson’s Model
The initial effort to understand achievement motivation was led by John Atkinson’s
Expectancy × Value model of achievement behavior, which includes his later dynamicsof-action model. Atkinson represented achievement striving and behavior as an inherent
struggle of approach versus avoidance. All of us experience standards of excellence as a
two-edged sword: Partly we feel excitement and hope and anticipate the pride of a job
well done; partly we feel anxiety and fear and anticipate the shame of possible
humiliation. Thus, achievement motivation exists as a balance between the emotions and
beliefs underlying the tendency to approach success versus the emotions and beliefs
underlying the tendency to avoid failure.
Atkinson (1957, 1964) argued that the need for achievement only partly predicts
achievement behavior. Achievement behavior depends not only on the individual’s
dispositional, implicit achievement strivings but also on his or her task-specific
probability of success and the incentive for succeeding at that task. For Atkinson, some
tasks had high probabilities for success, whereas others had low probabilities for success.
Also, some tasks offered greater incentive for success (positive emotion, sense of
satisfaction) than did others. For instance, consider the classes you are presently taking.
Each course has a different probability of success (e.g., a senior-level advanced calculus
course is generally harder than is an introductory-level physical education class) and a
different incentive value (e.g., doing well in a course in your major is generally valued
more than doing well in an elective course outside your major).
Atkinson’s theory features four variables: achievement behavior and its three
predictors—need for achievement, probability of success, and incentive for success.
Achievement behavior is defined as the tendency to approach success, abbreviated as Ts.
The three determining factors of Ts are (1) the strength of a person’s need for
achievement (Ms, motive to succeed), (2) the perceived probability of success (Ps), and
(3) the incentive value of success (Is). Atkinson’s model is expressed in the following
formula:
Ts=Ms×Ps×IsTs=Ms×Ps×Is
Tendency to Approach Success
Ms corresponds to the person’s need for achievement. Ps is estimated from the perceived
difficulty of the task and from the person’s perceived ability at that task. The
variable Is is equal to 1 − Ps. Therefore, if the probability of success is 0.25, the incentive
for success at that task would be 0.75 (1.00 − 0.25). That is, incentive value for success
during difficult tasks is high whereas it is low during easy tasks. To make sense of the
behavioral tendency to approach success (Ts), consider a high school wrestler who is
scheduled to wrestle two different opponents this week. The first opponent is last year’s
state champion (Ps = 0.1), so he consequently has a strong incentive to beat the champ
(Is = 1 − Ps, which = 0.9). The second opponent is his equal (Ps = 0.5) so he
consequently has a moderate incentive to succeed (Is = 0.5). If we use an arbitrary
number like 10 to characterize the wrestler’s dispositional need for achievement (Ms),
Atkinson’s theory predicts the wrestler will experience the greater achievement
motivation for the second wrestler (Ts = 2.50, because 10 × 0.5 × 0.5 = 2.50) than for the
first wrestler (Ts = 0.90, because 10 × 0.1 × 0.9 = 0.90), because optimal challenge (Ps =
0.5) provides the richest motivational combination of expectancy of success and incentive
for success.
Tendency to Avoid Failure
Just as people have a need for achievement (Ms), they also have a motive to avoid failure
(Maf) (Atkinson, 1957, 1964). The tendency to avoid failure motivates the individual to
defend against the loss of self-esteem, the loss of social respect, and the fear of
embarrassment (Birney, Burdick, & Teevan, 1969). The tendency to avoid failure,
abbreviated Taf, is calculated with a formula that parallels that for Ts:
Taf=Maf×Pf×IfTaf=Maf×Pf×If
Maf represents the motive to avoid failure, Pf represents the probability of failure (which,
by definition, is 1 − Ps), and If represents the negative incentive value for failure (If = 1
− Pf ). Thus, if an individual has a motive to avoid failure of, say, 10, then the tendency
to avoid failure on a difficult task (Pf = 0.9) can be calculated as 0.90
(Maf × Pf× If, which = 10 × 0.9 × 0.1 = 0.90).
Combined Approach and Avoidance Tendencies
Atkinson conceptualized Ms as a motivational force to seek out achievement situations
and Maf as a motivational force to escape from (or be anxious about) achievement
situations. Thus, to engage in any achievement task is to enter into a risk-taking dilemma
in which the person struggles to find a balance between the attraction of pride, hope, and
social respect on the one hand versus the repulsion of shame, fear, and social humiliation
on the other hand. When Ts is greater than Taf, the person approaches the opportunity to
test personal competence against the standard of excellence, but when Taf is greater
than Ts, the person hesitates or avoids the opportunity altogether. Atkinson’s complete
formula for predicting the tendency to achieve (Ta) and hence for displaying
achievement-related behaviors (i.e., choice, latency, effort, and persistence) is as follows:
Ta=Ts−Taf=(Ms×Ps×Is)−(Maf×Pf×If)Ta=Ts−Taf=Ms×Ps×Is−Maf×Pf×If
Although the model can appear to be overwhelming at first, in actuality one needs to
know only three variables: Ms, Maf, and Ps. Notice that Is, Pf, and If are all calculated
solely from the value of Ps (if Ps = 0.3, then Is = 0.7, Pf = 0.7, and If = 0.3). If you work
through several numerical examples, you will find two general principles that underlie
these numerical values. First, Ta is highest when Ts is greater than Taf and lowest
when Taf is greater than Ts (a personality factor). Second, Ta is highest when Ps equals
0.5 and lowest when Ps is around 0.9 (task is too easy to generate an incentive to
succeed) or 0.1 (task is too difficult to be motivating).
What Achievement Strivings Predict
People with strong achievement strivings—that is, people in which Ts is greater
than Taf—show relatively greater persistence on tasks of moderate difficulty, a
preference to engage in moderately difficult tasks, greater attention and effort in these
tasks, and better performance on moderately difficult tasks (Cooper, 1983; Pang, 2010).
They tend to experience interest and satisfaction for attaining standards of excellence
only when they seek achievement for their own sake; they do not derive intrinsic pleasure
and satisfaction from attaining excellence that has been externally set or prescribed by
others. High achievers also have a strong preference for those achievement tasks
that offer concrete, direct, task-related, and immediate performance feedback, largely
because they use such feedback as a means to make progress and to improve their future
performances.
Achievement for the Future
Not all achievement situations are alike, as some have implications that affect one’s
future achievement efforts, whereas others have implications only for the present
(Husman & Lens, 1999; Raynor, 1969, 1970, 1974, 1981). For example, a track athlete
tries to win a race not only to experience the pride of a moment’s accomplishment, but a
win in today’s race might lead to invitations to other important track meets, such as
qualifying for the state championships or gaining a college scholarship.
“Future achievement orientation” refers to an individual’s psychological distance from a
long-term achievement goal (e.g., winning the state championship). It is the degree to
which the individual anticipates and integrates the future into his or her psychological
present (Lens, Paixao, Herrera, & Grobler, 2012). The importance of future achievement
orientation is that, other things being equal, any achievement goal perceived far away in
time receives less approach-versus-avoidance weight than does a goal in the very near
future. That means future goals generate less approach than do immediate goals.
However, future achievement strivings can add to present-day achievement motivation by
adding additional future motivation to present motivation (e.g., motivation for today +
motivation for next week + motivation for next month + motivation for next year +
motivation for one’s career; Raynor, 1981). Thus, achievement behavior is a function of
not only Ms, Maf, and Ps, but also whether the present achievement will lead toward
some future achievement.
From this point of view, achievement behavior is a series of steps in a path, and those
achievement situations that are psychologically near have more impact on Ta than those
that are psychologically far (Gjesme, 1981), although achievement strivings that are
psychologically far can nevertheless add to and strengthen Ta in the present (Raynor &
Entin, 1982). As one thinks about his or her achievement for the future, one can
motivationally benefit from the positive incentive value of future goal attainments
(Husman & Shell, 2008). Such findings have led some researchers to suggest that the
effort to extend one’s future time perspective during the goal-setting process is a
motivationally constructive practice (De Volder & Lens, 1982; Vansteenkiste, Simons,
Soenens, & Lens, 2004).
Dynamics-of-Action Model
Atkinson’s theory of achievement motivation was an episodic one; its goal was to predict
what a person will do at a particular moment (episode) in time. Hence, the theory needed
to know only the person’s enduring achievement strivings (Ms, Maf) and the perceived
probability of success at the task at hand (Ps). The dynamics-of-action model extends
Atkinson’s episodic view to also explain and predict changes in achievement strivings
and behavior over time. In the dynamics-of-action model, achievement behavior occurs
within a stream of ongoing behavior (Atkinson & Birch, 1970, 1974, 1978). That stream
of behavior is determined largely by three forces: instigation, inhibition, and
consummation (Blankenship, 1982, 1987, 1992, 2010).
Instigation is Ts. Instigation causes a rise in approach tendencies; it is the amount of
motivation to do something.
Inhibition is Taf. Inhibition causes a rise in avoidance tendencies; it is the amount of
motivation to not do something.
Instigation and inhibition are synonyms for Ts and Taf. The one new variable in the
dynamics-of-action model is consummation.
Consummation refers to the fact that performing an activity brings about its own
cessation (e.g., running, eating, drinking, sleeping, reading this book). The consummatory
force decreases the motivation to continue to engage in an ongoing behavior; it is the
motivation to stop and take a rest.
Adding consummatory forces allows achievement behavior to be understood as dynamic
(changing over time) instead of as episodic or static. For instance, your achievement
strivings during any one college class change as the class progresses throughout the
semester week after week. After 16 weeks, people often feel that they are tired of the
class, saying, “Okay, thanks, that’s enough. It is now time to do something else.” The
same consummatory sentiment occurs while practicing, studying, exercising, walking,
watching TV, and so forth.
The four panels in Figure 7.2 portray achievement behaviors over time (Blankenship,
1987, 2010). Each panel shows one individual’s behavioral preference n achievement
task (a task that arouses both hope for success and fear of failure) and for a
nonachievement task (an emotionally neutral task that represents relaxation or taking a
break). Panel 1 plots the achievement strivings of a high need for achievement person;
panel 2 plots the achievement strivings of a high need for achievement person who also
has a high fear of failure; panel 3 plots the achievement strivings of a low need for
achievement person; and panel 4 plots the achievement strivings for a person high in the
fear of failure (and low in the need for achievement). Plotted on the y-axis is the tendency
strength to engage in the achievement and nonachievement behaviors. Notice that in
Figure 7.2 all four individuals begin interacting first with the nonachievement-related
activity (e.g., the child comes how from school and begins to watch television, the
employee comes to work and casually surfs the Internet). The key questions then become:
•
How long does it take to start the achievement task (e.g., studying, working)?
•
Once the achievement task is begun, how much persistence will there be?
•
How much effort will the person display during the achievement task?
•
How quickly will the achievement behavior consume itself?
•
How quickly will the nonachievement behavior consume itself (you can only
watch so much television)?
•
After taking a break by engaging in the nonachievement task, how long will it
take to return to the achievement task?
Three important messages are communicated in Figure 7.2:
1
Latency to begin an achievement task depends on motive strength (Ms versus
Maf).
2
Persistence on an achievement task depends on motive strength (Ms versus Maf).
3
Switching to a nonachievement task (taking a break) occurs with rising
consumption.
Figure 7.2 Streams of Behavior for People High and Low in Ms and Maf
Note: Solid line represents tendency strength to engage the achievement-related task;
dashed line represents tendency strength of nonachievement task.
Conditions That Involve and Satisfy the Need for Achievement
Three situations involve and satisfy the need for achievement: moderately difficult tasks,
competition, and entrepreneurship (McClelland, 1985).
Moderately Difficult Tasks
High-need achievers (Ms > Maf) outperform low-need achievers (Maf > Ms) on
moderately difficult tasks. High-need achievers do not, however, outperform low-need
achievers on easy or difficult tasks (Karabenick & Yousseff, 1968; Raynor & Entin,
1982). Performance on a moderately difficult task activates in the high achiever a set of
positive emotional and cognitive incentives not socialized into the low achiever.
Emotionally, moderately difficult tasks provide an arena for best testing skills and
experiencing emotions such as pride and satisfaction. Cognitively, moderately difficult
tasks provide an arena for best diagnosing one’s sense of competence and level of ability
(Trope, 1975, 1983). Hence, moderately challenging tasks provide a mixture of pride
from success and information to diagnose abilities that motivates high-need achievers
more than it does low-need achievers (Atkinson, 1981; Trope & Brickman, 1975).
Competition
Interpersonal competition captures much of the risk-taking dilemma inherent in
achievement settings. It promotes positive emotion, approach behavior, and improved
performance in high-need achievers, but negative emotion, avoidance behaviors, and
debilitated performance in low-need achievers (Covington & Omelich, 1984; Epstein &
Harackiewicz, 1992; Ryan & Lakie, 1965; Tauer & Harackiewicz, 1999). Consider that
high-need achievers seek diagnostic ability information (Trope, 1975), seek opportunities
to test their skills (Epstein & Harackiewicz, 1992; Harackiewicz, Sansone, &
Manderlink, 1985), value competence for its own sake (Harackiewicz &
Manderlink, 1984), are attracted to self-evaluation opportunities (Kuhl, 1978), and enjoy
demonstrating or proving their ability (Harackiewicz & Elliot, 1993). Competition offers
all these attributes and is therefore attractive to high-need achievers (Harackiewicz &
Elliot, 1993). For low-need achievers, competition’s evaluative pressures arouse mostly
anxiety and avoidance (Epstein & Harackiewicz, 1992).
Entrepreneurship
McClelland (1965, 1987) found that high-need achievers often display the behavioral
pattern of entrepreneurship. He assessed the need for achievement in a group of college
students and then waited 14 years to check on the occupational choices they made. Each
occupation was classified as either entrepreneurial (e.g., founder of own business, stockbroker) or not (e.g., service personnel). Results confirmed that most entrepreneurs were
high-need achievers in college. Entrepreneurship appeals to the high-need achiever
because it requires taking moderate risks and assuming personal responsibility for one’s
successes and failures. It also provides concrete, rapid performance feedback (e.g.,
moment-to-moment profits and losses), feedback that generates emotions such as pride
and satisfaction, and feedback that allows one to continuously diagnose personal
competence and rate of improvement. High-need achievers prefer just about any
occupation that offers challenge, independent work, personal responsibility, and rapid
performance feedback (Jenkins, 1987; McClelland, 1961).
AFFILIATION
In its early study, the need for affiliation was conceptualized as “establishing,
maintaining, or restoring a positive, affective relationship with another person or
persons” (Atkinson, Heyns, & Veroff, 1954). According to this definition, the need for
affiliation is not the same construct as extraversion, friendliness, or sociability. In fact,
early investigators noted that persons high in the need for affiliation were often less
popular than persons low in affiliation strivings (Atkinson et al., 1954; Crowne &
Marlowe, 1964; Shipley & Veroff, 1952). They were less popular, yet keenly aware of
the social networks around them (i.e., they knew who was friends with whom). Rather
than being rooted in extraversion and popularity, the need for affiliation is rooted in a fear
of interpersonal rejection (Heckhausen, 1980). People with high-need affiliation tend to
interact with others so to avoid negative emotions, such as rejection and anger
(Schultheiss & Hale, 2007). They come across not as extraverted, friendly, or sociable
but, instead, as “needy,” mostly because they spend time seeking reassurance from
others. The need for affiliation then can be thought of as the need for approval,
acceptance, and security in interpersonal relations.
The more contemporary view of affiliation strivings now recognizes its two facets: the
need for approval and the need for intimacy. This dual view of affiliation strivings
answers the criticism that the former conceptualization was too heavy on rejection
anxiety and too light on affiliation interest (Boyatzis, 1973; McAdams, 1980;
Weinberger, Cotler, & Fishman, 2010). The call for a more positive conceptualization of
affiliation strivings (i.e., intimacy motivation) was answered by giving attention to the
motive to engage in warm, close, positive interpersonal relations that hold little fear of
rejection (McAdams, 1980, 1982a, 1982b; McAdams & Constantian, 1983; McAdams,
Healy, & Kraus, 1984). The intimacy motive reflects a concern for the quality of one’s
social involvement. It is a willingness to “experience a warm, close, and communicative
exchange with another person” (McAdams, 1980). At the core of strong intimacy
strivings is the desire and need to share (to self-disclose) one’s inner life (desires,
feelings, and goals) with a close other (McAdams, 1989).
A profile of how the need for intimacy expresses itself appears in Table 7.2. An
individual with a high need for intimacy thinks frequently about friends and relationships;
writes imaginative stories about positive affect-laden relationships (on the PSE); engages
in self-disclosure, intense listening, and frequent conversations; identifies love and
dialogue as especially meaningful life experiences; is rated by others as warm, loving,
sincere, and nondominant; and tends to remember life episodes that involve interpersonal
interactions. When they are not engaged in social interaction, they typically wish that
they were (McAdams & Constantian, 1983).
TABLE 7.2Profile of High Intimacy Motivation
Category
Description
Thoughts
Of friends, of relationships
Story Themes
Relationships produce positive affect, reciprocal dialogue, and
expressions of commitment, union, and interpersonal harmony
Interaction
Style
Self-disclosure; intense listening habits; many conversations.
Autobiography
Themes of love and dialogue are mentioned as personally significant
life experiences
Peer Rating
Rated as warm, loving, sincere, nondominant
Category
Description
Memory
Enhanced recall with stories involving themes of interpersonal
interactions
Duality of Affiliation Motivation
The need for affiliation has its dark side, because it is mostly about a fear of rejection,
while the need for intimacy has its bright side, because it is mostly about an attraction to
warm, close relationships. The full picture of affiliation strivings includes a theoretical
conceptualization that includes both its positive and negative aspects.
This duality suggests complex developmental antecedents. The best predictor of high
affiliative strivings in adults is parental neglect (i.e., deprivation of affiliation). This
infantile neglect explains the adult’s fear of rejection and social anxiety. High-intimacy
individuals, in contrast, are happy, well-adjusted, and pleasant to be around. From an
early age, they smile more, laugh more, and make eye contact during face-to-face
conversation. In elementary school, their teachers rate them as cooperative, popular, and
friendly (McAdams, Jackson, & Kirshnit, 1984).
Overall, the affiliative motive is complex—it is in fact a two-edged sword (Weinberger et
al., 2010). It has its positive dimension in a desire for closeness and a heartfelt pleasure in
being with and sharing with others. But it has its negative dimension as well, which
includes a fear of rejection and anxiety about relationships. Perhaps this duality is not as
surprising as it first may seem, however, when one thinks about how relationships play
themselves out in people’s developmental and daily lives, as relationships and social
interactions offer joy from successfully achieving interpersonal intimacy but also
devastating distress from rejection and loss.
Conditions That Involve the Affiliation and Intimacy Duality
The principal condition that involves the need for affiliation is the deprivation from social
interaction (McClelland, 1985). Conditions such as loneliness, rejection, and separation
raise people’s desire, or need, to be with others. Hence, the need for affiliation expresses
itself as a deficiency-oriented motive (the deficiency is a lack of social interaction). In
contrast, the desire, or need, for intimacy arises from interpersonal caring and concern,
warmth and commitment, emotional connectedness, reciprocal dialogue, congeniality,
and love (McAdams, 1980). The need for intimacy expresses itself as a growth-oriented
motive (the growth opportunity is enriching one’s relationships). In the words of
Abraham Maslow (1987), the need for affiliation revolves around “deprivation love,”
whereas the need for intimacy revolves around “being-love.”
Fear and Anxiety
Social isolation and fear-arousing conditions are two situations that increase a person’s
desire to affiliate with others (Baumeister & Leary, 1995; Schachter, 1959). Under
conditions of isolation and fear, people report being jittery and tense, feeling as if they
are suffering and are in pain, and seeing themselves as going to pieces. To reduce such
anxiety and fear, people typically adopt the strategy of seeking out others (Rofé, 1984).
When afraid, people desire to affiliate for emotional support and to see how others handle
the emotions they feel from the fear object. For example, imagine camping out in the
wilderness and hearing a sudden, loud noise in the middle of the night. The sudden,
unexplained noise might produce fear. While feeling this way, people seek out others,
partly to see if others seem as afraid and partly to gain emotional and physical support.
Having other people around while anxious is comforting, and it helps us clarify the
threatening situation, identify possible coping strategies, and carry out our coping
attempts (Kirkpatrick & Shaver, 1988; Kulik, Mahler, & Earnest, 1994). The popularity
of mutual support groups (e.g., people with alcoholism, patients suffering a particular
illness) provides some confirming testimony to the human tendency to seek out others
when afraid or anxious.
Establishing Interpersonal Networks
To form new friendships, people with a high need for intimacy typically spend time
interacting with others, join social groups, and establish stable and long-lasting
relationships (McAdams & Losoff, 1984). As relationships develop, high-need intimacy
individuals come to know more personal information and history about their friends
(McAdams, Healy, & Krause, 1984; McAdams & Losoff, 1984). And they report being
more and more satisfied as their relationships progress, whereas individuals with a low
need for intimacy report being less and less satisfied with their developing relationships
(Eidelson, 1980). Individuals with a high need for intimacy perceive the tightening bonds
of friendship as need involving and as emotionally satisfying, whereas those with a lowneed intimacy perceive the tightening bonds of friendship as stifling and as an
entrapment.
Maintaining Interpersonal Networks
Once a relationship has been established, individuals with a high need for affiliation—
involving either affiliation or intimacy motivations—strive to maintain those
relationships by making more telephone calls and paying more visits to their friends
(actual and online) than do those with a low need for affiliation (Boyatzis, 1972; Lansing
& Hyns, 1959; McAdams & Constantian, 1983; Sheldon, Abad, & Hinsch, 2011). One
study asked persons with high and low needs for intimacy to keep a logbook over a twomonth period to record 10 20-minute friendship episodes (McAdams et al., 1984). Those
with a high need for intimacy reported more one-on-one friendship episodes, more selfdisclosure, more listening, and more trust and concern for the well-being of their friends.
Even when thinking and talking about strangers, high-intimacy-need persons treat others
differently than do low-intimacy-need persons, because they use more positive adjectives
when describing others, and they avoid talking about others in negative terms
(McClelland, Constantian, Pilon, & Stone, 1982).
Conditions That Satisfy the Affiliation Need
Because it is largely a deficit-oriented motive, the need for affiliation, when satisfied,
brings out emotions like relief rather than joy. When interacting with others, people high
in the need for affiliation go out of their way to avoid conflict (Exline, 1962), avoid
competitive situations (Terhune, 1968), are unselfish and cooperative (McAdams, 1980),
avoid talking about others in a negative way (McClelland, 1985), and resist making
imposing demands on others (McAdams & Powers, 1981). They are sometimes described
as “meek.” High-affiliation-need individuals prefer careers that provide positive
relationships and support for others (the helping professions; Sid & Lindgren, 1981), and
they perform especially well under conditions that support their need to be accepted and
included (McKeachie, Lin, Milholland, & Isaacson, 1966). When told that others will be
evaluating them, high-affiliation-need people experience relatively high levels of anxiety
via a fear of rejection (Byrne, 1961). Social acceptance, approval, and reassurance
constitute the need-satisfying conditions for people high in the need for affiliation.
Because it is largely a growth-oriented motive, people satisfy the need for intimacy
through achieving closeness and warmth in a relationship. Hence, people high in the need
for intimacy more frequently touch others (in a nonthreatening way; McAdams &
Powers, 1981), cultivate deeper and more meaningful relationships (McAdams & Losoff,
1984); find satisfaction in listening and in self-disclosure (McAdams, Healey, & Krause,
1984); and laugh, smile, and make eye contact more during face-to-face interactions
(McAdams, Jackson, & Kirshnit, 1984). Such laughing, smiling, and looking lead others
to rate high-intimacy-need persons as relatively warm, sincere, and loving human beings
(McAdams & Losoff, 1984). Relatedness within a warm, close, reciprocal, and enduring
relationship constitutes the need-satisfying condition for people high in the need for
intimacy.
Facebook
The reader may understandably be a bit frustrated with the chapter’s position that the
need for affiliation is both a deficit (affiliation) and a growth (intimacy) motivation. How
both of these statements can be true can be seen rather clearly in how people use the
online site Facebook. Ken Sheldon, Neetu Abad, and Christian Hinsch (2011) observed
that the frequency of Facebook use generated in people both feelings of interpersonal
connection and satisfaction on the one hand and feelings of disconnection and
dissatisfaction on the other hand.
When people feel lonely, isolated, rejected, distressed, etc., they often cope with this
sense of relationship dissatisfaction by logging onto Facebook. So, in one sense,
Facebook use is a coping response for distress and loneliness, as one is looking for
something important that is missing in one’s life. Being on Facebook, however, then
provides the user with positive feelings in the context of relationships. Thus, while a
feeling of disconnection from others is often what motivates Facebook use, a feeling of
connection with others often arises during Facebook use to give people back those
positive emotions. So, the need for affiliation often underlies the initial logging onto
Facebook, while the need for intimacy often explains why the subsequent experience is
rewarding and satisfying.
POWER
The essence of the need for power is a desire to make the physical and social world
conform to one’s personal image or plan for it (Winter & Stewart, 1978). People high in
the need for power desire to have “impact, control, or influence over another person,
group, or the world at large” (Winter, 1973).
•
•
•
Impact allows power-needing individuals to establish power.
Control allows power-needing individuals to maintain power.
Influence allows power-needing individuals to expand their power.
Such power strivings often center on a need for dominance, reputation, status, or position.
High-power-strivings individuals not only seek out opportunities for dominance,
reputation, status, and social position, but they also find deep emotional satisfaction in
being recognized and praised for these power-motive behaviors and outcomes (Fodor,
2010). High-power-need individuals seek to become (and stay) leaders, and they interact
with others with a forceful, take-charge style. When they do attain positions of
leadership, they feel satisfied and accomplished. This can be seen in high-power-striving
individuals’ preference for highly competitive sports (e.g., hockey, wrestling) that offer
both an opportunity to exercise power and to attain public recognition for effectively
enacting power and influencing others (Winter, 1973). When asked to recall the peak
experiences in their lives, individuals high in the need for power report life events
associated with strong positive emotions that occurred as a result of their impact on
others, such as being elected to a leadership position or receiving applause from an
audience (McAdams, 1982a).
Winter (1973) provides two scenarios that illustrate power strivings. In the first, research
participants watched a film of an authority figure giving an influential speech (John F.
Kennedy’s presidential inaugural address), and in the second, another set of participants
watched a hypnotist ordering students to behave in particular ways as an audience
watched. After these experiences, Winter scored the arousal of their power strivings. As
expected, these groups scored higher in power strivings (by writing stories rich in powerrelated imagery) than did a comparison group who did not view the film or hypnosis
session (Winter, 1973).
Others have performed experiments that essentially replicated this procedure, but in
addition to measuring power strivings, they added measures of mood and physiological
arousal (Steele, 1977). As high-power-need individuals listened to inspirational speeches,
their moods became significantly more lively and energetic, and their physiological
arousal (measured by epinephrine/adrenaline) showed a striking increase. Based on these
findings, the opportunity to involve one’s power strivings fills the power-needing
individual with a vigor that can be measured via fantasy, mood, and psychophysiological
activation (Steele, 1977).
Conditions That Involve and Satisfy the Need for Power
Parents of future power-striving children impose very high developmental standards on
their children and are willing to sacrifice their parental affection to get their children to
live up to their imposed standards (i.e., the tough-minded, cold, and distant parent). The
development of power strivings emerges as a reaction to harsh parental criticism and a
thwarting of the psychological need for relatedness (or intimacy). What emerges is then a
need for prestige and power to tell the world that he or she is not to be taken lightly and,
in fact, is worthy of notice, admiration, and respect (Fodor, 2010).
Five social conditions are noteworthy in their capacity for involving and satisfying the
need for power: leadership, drinking alcohol, aggression, influential occupations, and
prestige possessions.
Leadership and Relationships
People with a high need for power seek recognition in groups and find ways for making
themselves visible to others, apparently in an effort to establish influence (Winter, 1973).
Power-seeking college students, for example, write more letters to the university
newspaper, and power-seeking adults willingly take risks in achieving public visibility
(McClelland & Teague, 1975; McClelland & Watson, 1973). They argue more frequently
with their professors, and they show an eagerness in getting their points across in the
classroom (Veroff, 1957). In selecting their friends and coworkers, power-striving
individuals generally prefer others who are in a position to be led (Fodor & Farrow, 1979;
Winter, 1973). When hanging out with their friends, they tend to adopt an interpersonal
orientation that takes on more of a tone of influence than it does a tone of intimacy
(McAdams, Healey, & Krause, 1984).
To test the influence of the need for power on tendencies toward lead ership,
experimenters arranged to have a group of strangers interact with each other for a short
time (Foder & Smith, 1982; Winter & Stewart, 1978). Power-seeking individuals talked
more and were judged to have exerted more influence. However, the power-seeking
individuals were not the best liked, nor were they judged to have contributed the most to
getting the job done or for coming to a satisfactory conclusion. In fact, groups that had
high-power-need leaders were the ones that produced the poorest decisions. These groups
exchanged less information, considered few alternative strategies, and reached poorer
final decisions than did groups with a leader low in the need for power. These findings
suggest that power-seeking leaders attempt to make others follow their personal plan,
even though their assertiveness is often detrimental to group functioning.
In dating relationships, high-power-need men generally fare poorly (Stewart & Rubin,
1976). And they fare no better in marriage, because they generally make poor husbands,
at least from the spouse’s point of view (McClelland, 1975). In both dating and marriage,
high-power-need women do not suffer the same poor outcomes that men do, apparently
because they resist using interpersonal relationships as an arena for satisfying their power
needs (Winter, 1988). High-power-need men, however, do tend to inflict verbal and
physical abuse on their partners (Mason & Blankenship, 1987).
Drinking Alcohol
Drinking alcohol is an opportunity to involve and even accentuate one’s need for power
(Fodor, 2010). When people drink, they generally report feeling stronger and less
inhibited. Thus, people who have strong power motivation typically find drinking alcohol
to be a gateway to enhanced personal dominance. It is also a gateway to become
disinhibited from social constraints, and particularly to be released from those social
constraints that involve aggression and exploitive sex. When drinkers write imaginative
stories to the PSE, alcohol consumption leads them to write more power-oriented stories.
And people who drink the most are often the power-striving individuals. Thus, power
strivings and drinking alcohol seem to go together like peanut butter and jelly.
Aggression
If the need for power involves desires for impact, control, and influence, then aggression
ought to be one means for both involving and satisfying one’s power needs. To some
extent, the relationship between the need for power and aggression holds true, as men
high in power strivings do get into more arguments and do participate more frequently in
competitive sports (McClelland, 1975; Winter, 1973). However, the relationship between
the need for power and aggression is diluted because society largely controls and inhibits
people’s acts of overt aggression. For this reason, aggressive manifestations of the need
for power largely express themselves as impulses to (rather than actual acts of)
aggression. Males and females with high needs for power report significantly more
impulses to act aggressively (McClelland, 1975). When asked, “Have you ever felt like
carrying out the following: yelling at someone in traffic, throwing things around the
room, destroying furniture or breaking glassware, or insulting clerks in stores?”
individuals high in the need for power report significantly more impulses to carry out
these acts (Boyatzis, 1973).
Societal inhibitions and restraints largely constrain the power-seeking person’s
expression of aggression, but when societal inhibitions are removed, high-power-need
men are more aggressive than are their low-power-need counterparts (McClelland, 1975;
McClelland, Davis, Kalin, & Wanner, 1972; Winter, 1973). Alcohol is one socially
acceptable means of gaining a release from societal inhibitions, and power-seeking men
do indeed act relatively more aggressively after drinking (McClelland et al., 1972). When
life becomes stressful and frustrating, high-power-need individuals sometimes seek
alcohol as a means for inflating their sense of control (Cooper, Frone, Russell, & Mudar,
1995). Similarly, power-seeking men, but not power-seeking women, frequently respond
to stress and setbacks by inflicting abuse on their intimates (Mason & Blankenship,
1987). This research suggests that people can not only increase power through reputation,
prestige, and leadership but they can also create the perception of heightened power
through strategies such as drinking alcohol, risk-taking, gesturing and posturing, using
abusive language, using drugs, and driving very fast.
Influential Occupations
People high in the need for power are attracted to occupations such as business
executives, teachers/professors, psychologists, journalists, clergy, and international
diplomats (Winter, 1973). Each of these occupations shares a common denominator in
that the person in the occupational role is in the position to direct the behavior of other
people in accordance with some preconceived plan (Winter & Stewart, 1978). People in
some of these professions speak to and influence audiences (teachers, journalists, clergy);
others have inside information they use to influence people (psychologists, diplomats),
while others have a professional status that allows them to tell others what to do (business
executives). Furthermore, these careers equip the individual with the rewards and
punishments necessary for sanctioning the behavior of others. The teacher, cleric,
diplomat, journalist, and business executive, for instance, all have the means for
rewarding and punishing other people’s compliance or disobedience (through grades,
heavenly rewards, deal making, articles, and salaries). Thus, people can involve and
satisfy their power strivings through the job they choose.
Prestige Possessions
People high in the need for power tend to amass a collection of power symbols, or
“prestige possessions” (Winter, 1973). Power-seeking individuals are more likely to own
a rifle or pistol, a convertible car, or a truck that exudes status and power (McClelland,
1975).
Goal Pursuit and Perspective Taking
One strength of the need for power is a laser focus on their goals (Guinote, 2007, 2017).
Individuals high in the need for power more readily acquire the goals and outcomes they
seek than do individuals low in the need for power. Power increases approach tendencies
and decreases inhibitory tendencies (Anderson & Berdahl, 2002). High power and taking
action simply go together (Galinsky, Gruenfeld, & Magee, 2003). During negotiations,
for instance, high-power individuals are more likely to express anger, and this strategy
often gets them what they want, largely because they are seen as tough negotiators who
win concessions from others (Sinaceur & Tiedens, 2006).
One weakness of the need for power is that it reduces the person’s perspective taking
ability (Galinsky, Rucker, & Magee, 2016). This leads to a lack of empathy and a
tendency to relate to people as a means to an end. Individuals with a high need for power
tend to make social connections, for instance, based on how useful that other person
might be in helping them reach their goals (Gruenfeld et al., 2008). Overall, many of the
disturbed social relations that individuals with high power suffer through can be traced
back to their diminished capacity for perspective taking and empathy.
Is the Implicit Power Motive Bad?
People high in the need for power typically harbor inclinations that are both benevolent
and malevolent toward others. Like a superhero, they strive to improve the world. But,
like a villain, they strive to make everyone their servant. David Winter devoted his
professional life to understanding the implicit power motive, and he offered the following
characterization of whether power strivings represented a good or a bad influence on
society:
Power is like fire: It can do useful things; it can be fun to play with and to watch; but it
must be constantly guarded and trimmed back, lest it burn and destroy.
(Winter, 1973, p. xviii)
With that metaphor in mind, we can look at the contribution of power strivings to the
effectiveness of leaders, such as U.S. presidents.
Leadership Motive Pattern
A special variant of the need for power is the leadership motive pattern (McClelland, &
Boyatzis, 1982; McClelland & Burnham, 1976; Spangler & House, 1991; Winter, 1991).
Leadership motivation consists of the following threefold pattern: (1) high need for
power, (2) low need for affiliation, and (3) high inhibition (McClelland, 1982). Thus, the
leadership motive pattern features individuals who desire to exercise influence, are not
concerned with being liked, and are well controlled or self-disciplined. For instance, the
stereotypical military commander or traditional father figure fits this leadership motive
pattern rather well.
Such a constellation of high power, low affiliation, and self-control generally results in
effective leaders and managers (McClelland, & Boyatzis, 1982). The characteristic of an
internal controlling style (i.e., high inhibition) is important because managers who are
high in power, low in affiliation, and high in inhibition are generally productive,
successful, and rated highly by workers (McClelland & Burnham, 1976). In contrast,
managers who are high in power, low in affiliation, but low in inhibition are often
unsuccessful and rated lowly by workers. The lack of self-discipline in a leader can lead
followers to perceive that leader as narcissistic or self-aggrandizing. Apparently, strong
self-control leads power-striving managers to internalize characteristics associated with
effective management, such as discipline. So, if one is to be an effective leader, power
strivings need to be complemented by self-disciplined inhibition (i.e., power under
control). Power under control often gives rise to charismatic leadership and high morale
among one’s followers (Winter, 2010).
Compassionate Leadership Profile
The leadership motive pattern was highly studied in the late 20th century, a time when
hierarchical forms of management and leadership were in vogue. But times change.
Researchers who study the question “Who makes an effective leader?” now find that high
intimacy with one’s followers is an asset, not a liability. As shown in Table 7.3, the
contemporary compassionate leadership profile is characterized by high power, high
affiliation, and high inhibition (Steinmann et al., 2015).
TABLE 7.3
Two Contrasting Implicit Motive Profiles to Characterize Effective Leadership
Implicit
Motive
Traditional Contemporary
Leadership Compassionate
Motive
Leadership
Pattern
Profile
Power
High
High
Affiliation Low
High
Inhibition High
High
The one difference between the traditional leadership motive pattern and the
contemporary compassionate leadership profile is high, rather than low,
affiliation/intimacy motivation. A leader with high affiliation motivation is likely to
motivate followers by communicating concern, respect, appreciation, and support. Such a
leader is likely to develop high-quality leader–follower interactions and relationships.
Such a leader is also likely to coach and mentor with compassion and by communicating
and offering empathy and care. The managerial goal is not so much “get the work done”
(as per a leader with a traditional leadership motive pattern) as it is to empower the
worker to develop skills, resources, and job satisfaction that allow that worker to be more
productive and hence, in the long term, to “get the work done.” In a test of the
effectiveness of the compassionate leadership profile, a group of researchers assessed the
implicit motives of 70 workplace managers in Germany and found that it was the leaders
who showed the compassionate leadership profile—and not the traditional leadership
motive pattern or any other profile of social motives—who were most likely to lead
groups of workers to attain their goals (Steinmann et al., 2015).
A second way that an individual with high need for power displays an effective and
compassionate leadership style is by embracing a moral identity within his or her self concept. Powerful leaders with a weak moral identity act in a self-interested way, while
powerful leaders with a strong moral identity act with a sense of responsibility toward
others (DeCelles et al., 2012).
Effectiveness of U.S. Presidents
The leadership motive provides a framework for assessing the effectiveness of U.S.
presidents (Spangler & House, 1991; Winter, 1973, 1987, 2005, 2010). Winter (1973,
1987) coded the thematic content of each U.S. president’s inaugural address for the social
needs of achievement, affiliation, and power and used these scores to predict presidential
effectiveness. Presidents generally considered strong by historians—Kennedy, Truman,
Wilson, and both Roosevelts—scored relatively high on power needs and relatively low
on affiliation needs. Power strivings were a particularly good predictor of “rated
greatness” and “made great presidential decisions” (Winter, 1987). Interestingly,
achievement strivings were associated with presidential ineffectiveness, because
achievement-oriented presidents (e.g., Wilson, Nixon, Carter) were highly active but also
frequently frustrated. Power-striving presidents have more success in the office because
they use their communication skills, their combative skills, and their sense of humor.
They also really enjoy the political scrimmage that is presidential politics (Winter, 2010).
Five variables define presidential effectiveness:
•
Direct presidential actions (e.g., entering and avoiding war)
•
Perceived greatness
•
Performance on social issues
•
Performance on economic issues
•
International relations
To assess each president’s needs for power, affiliation, and inhibition, the researchers
coded their inaugural speeches, presidential letters, and other speeches. The leadership
motive pattern of high power, low affiliation, and high inhibition correlated significantly
with all five measures of effectiveness. Apparently, when the United States elects a
candidate with personal dispositions consistent with the leadership motive pattern, the
nation is electing someone into office who will probably perform quite well, given the
rather unique demands and challenges of the office. How effective each president
featured in Figure 7.3 proved to be was rooted, in part, in the quality of their leadership
motive pattern.
Figure 7.3 Former U.S. Presidents
The leadership motive pattern also predicts when leaders will engage in war and when
leaders will pursue peace (Winter, 1993). Of course, war has many nonpsychological
causes, but on the psychological side, historical research shows that when leaders express
a motive profile of high power and low affiliation, the probability of subsequent war
increases. Using British history, British–German World War I communications, and
U.S.–Soviet communications during the Cuban Missile Crisis as his database, Winter
(1993) found that the motive patterns expressed in speeches foreshadow coming warversus-peace decisions. When power imagery rose, war became a historically more likely
event. When power imagery fell, war was less likely and ongoing wars tended to end.
When affiliation imagery rose, war became a historically less likely event. When
affiliation imagery fell, war was more likely to begin (Winter, 1993). According to this
research, if you want to forecast whether a nation will enter into, avoid, or exit a war,
read the speeches of the day and look for changes in whether the leaders are promoting
influence (power) or relationships (affiliation).
Four Additional Social Needs
Besides those discussed here, other researchers argue for the importance of four
additional acquired needs, including the need for cognition (Cacioppo, Petty, Feinstein, &
Jarvis, 1996), the need for closure (Webster & Kruglanski, 1994), the need for structure
(Neuberg & Newsom, 1993), and the uncertainty orientation (Sorrentino, 2013).
SUMMARY
Implicit motives are trait-like unconscious needs that motivate people’s behavior toward
the attainment of specific social incentives. The three implicit motives of achievement,
affiliation, and power are learned or acquired through experience and socialization. The
social incentive that activates the achievement motive and a corresponding pattern of
positive emotion is the opportunity for challenge and doing something well to show
personal competence. The social incentive that activates the affiliation motive and a
corresponding pattern of positive emotion is the opportunity to be involved in a warm and
secure relationship and the opportunity to please others and gain their approval. The
social incentive that activates the power motive and a corresponding pattern of positive
emotion is the opportunity for social influence and having an impact on others.
The need for achievement is the desire to do well relative to a standard of excellence.
When facing standards of excellence, people’s emotional reactions vary. High need for
achievement individuals generally respond with approach-oriented emotions (e.g., hope)
and behaviors, whereas low need for achievement individuals (high fear of failure)
generally respond with avoidance-oriented emotions (e.g., anxiety) and behaviors.
Atkinson’s model of achievement and his dynamics-of-action model both explain why
high-need achievers choose moderately difficult tasks, engage quickly and
enthusiastically in achievement-related tasks, put forth more effort and perform better on
moderately difficult tasks, persist in the face of difficulty and failure, and take a personal
responsibility for successes and failures. The dynamics-of-action model adds that any
stream of ongoing achievement behavior is determined not only by the need for
achievement (instigation) and fear of failure (inhibition) but also by the achievement
behavior itself (consummation). The conditions that involve and satisfy the implicit
achievement motive are moderately difficult tasks, competition, and entrepreneurship.
The need for affiliation has two facets: affiliation (rejection anxiety) and intimacy
(affiliation interest). The need for affiliation involves establishing, maintaining, and
restoring relationships with others, mostly to avoid negative emotions such as disapproval
and loneliness. The need for intimacy is the social motive for engaging in warm, close,
relationships that produce positive emotions and hold little threat of rejection. Depriving
people of the opportunity for social interaction is the principal condition that involves the
need for affiliation, and social acceptance, approval, and reassurance constitute its needsatisfying conditions. Engaging in, developing, and maintaining warm, close
relationships are the conditions that involve the need for intimacy, and individuals with
high intimacy needs are more likely to join social groups, spend time interacting with
others, and form stable, long-lasting relationships that are characterized by self-disclosure
and positive affect. People with a high implicit intimacy motive laugh, smile, and make
more eye contact during face-to-face interaction, and participating in these warm
relationships constitutes the condition that satisfies the need for intimacy.
The need for power is the desire to make the physical and social world conform to one’s
personal image for it. People high in the need for power desire to have impact, control,
and influence over others or over the world at large. High-power-need individuals strive
for leadership and recognition in small groups, drink alcohol to enhance their sense of
dominance, experience frequent impulses of aggression, prefer influential occupations,
amass prestige possessions, and generally get what they want during goal pursuit. A
special variant of the need for power is the leadership motive pattern, which consists of
the threefold pattern of high need for power, low need for intimacy, and high inhibition.
Leaders, managers, and U.S. presidents who possess a constellation of needs consistent
with the leadership motive pattern (high power, low affiliation, high inhibition) generally
perform well as leaders and are rated by others as effective. More recent research,
however, shows that a compassionate leadership style is most effective, as it combines
the benefits of power with compassion, perspective taking, and morality.
Chapter 7
IMPLICIT MOTIVES
Implicit motives are enduring (trait-like), nonconscious needs that influence what the
person thinks about, feels, and does, and these needs motivate the person toward the
pursuit and attainment of specific social incentives (Schultheiss & Brunstein, 2010).
Implicit means unconscious—without conscious awareness. An implicit motive is a
psychological need that is implied or inferred from the person’s characteristic thought,
emotions, and behavior.
Implicit motives stand in contrast to explicit motives. Explicit motives are people’s
conscious, readily accessible, and verbally stated motivations. For instance, if someone
asked you, “Do you have a strong need for achievement?” “Do you love challenges?” and
“Will you persist in the face of failure?” the answers to these questions represent explicit
achievement motivation. Explicit motives are assessed with self-report questionnaires.
Implicit motives for achievement are different, as they are based on one’s emotional
reactions during a challenging task and whether you really emotionally want to persist in
the face of failure. One way to think about the difference between implicit and explicit
measures is that with explicit measures people describe themselves (e.g., “I like
challenges” and “I do not fear failure”), while implicit motives are inferred from what
people write in response to the picture cues on the PSE (Schultheiss, Yankova, Dirlikov,
& Schad, 2009).
When it comes to predicting people’s behavior, implicit motives do a better job than do
explicit motives (McClelland, Koestner, & Weinberger, 1989). Hence, the topic of this
chapter is not on what people say their motives are but, rather, it is on the unconscious
forces (implicit motives) that arise from situational cues that cause emotional reactions
that then predict, guide, and explain people’s behavior and lifestyle.
What a person “needs” within an implicit motive is to experience a particular pattern of
affect or emotion. For instance, a person with a strong need for achievement typically
experiences strong interest, enthusiasm, joy, and pride while engaging in a challenging
task. A person with little or no need for achievement, on the other hand, does not
experience this same pattern of affect. Instead, this person typically experiences negative
affect, such as anxiety, shame, and embarrassment while engaging in that same
challenging task. Hence, people with a strong implicit achievement motivation
emotionally “need” to challenge themselves, because challenges are the vehicle to
generate a highly desirable pattern of affect and emotion.
Similarly, people with a strong affiliation or a strong power implicit motive “need” to
involve themselves in close relationships and in opportunities for social impact,
respectively, because close relationships are the vehicle to generate positive affect and
positive emotion for the person with a high need for affiliation while opportunities for
social influence are the vehicle to generate positive affect and positive emotion for the
person with a high need for power. With that said, look back at the three pictures at the
beginning of the chapter. Which one conjures up within you the most positive gut-felt
emotion? Why is that? Alternatively, which picture does nothing for you emotionally?
Why is that?
It might be difficult to really grasp what a person needs with an implicit motive, so
imagine that you are a participant in this illustrative experiment (Dufner et al., 2015). In a
laboratory situation, the experimenter shows you a series of pictures and each individual
picture is closely associated with one of the themes of achievement, affiliation, and
power—like those pictures on the first page of this chapter. Before asking you to view the
pictures, the experimenter tapes a sensor to the zygomaticus muscle of your face (the
smiling muscle, see Figure 13.2). Such a sensor can pick up very subtle smiles, even
one’s that cannot be seen by the human eye. If you have even the slightest pleasure
reaction to the picture, the sensor will pick it up. Also, after each picture, the
experimenter asks you to agree or disagree with the question: I had a positive feeling
while viewing this picture. The point of the experiment is to understand what makes you
tick—what sort of situations give you pleasure.
In many ways, life is like this—a series of situations, such as personal challenges, social
interactions, and influence attempts. Encountering and being in these various situations
generates either positive, neutral, or negative emotional reactions and the positive
situations feel emotionally rewarding while the negative situations feel emotionally
punishing. The more rewarding such situations are, the more we desire them and seek
them out (i.e., they motivate us).
David McClelland was a pioneer researcher in the field of implicit motives. He traced his
doubts about the validity of self-report motivations from his youthful experiences in
which he observed consistent contradictions between what people said they would do and
what they later actually did. His own example of this contradiction was best represented
by listening to what people who attended church on Sunday said they would do during
the week and then observing what they actually did and did not do on the other six days
of the week (McClelland, 1984). He believed that people’s thoughts, feelings, and
behaviors were affected by forces that were unknown even to themselves—that is, to
unconscious motives. His twofold conclusion was that (1) implicit motives are
unconscious and cannot be measured by self-report and (2) implicit motives predicted
people’s behavior and performance, whereas explicit motives predicted only people’s
attitudes and values (McClelland, Koestner, & Weinberger, 1989).
As shown in Box 7, the study of implicit processes extends beyond unconscious
motivation to include unconscious attitudes as well.
BOX 7 Implicit Attitudes
Question: Why is this information important?
Answer: It expands unconscious processes to include not only motivation but also
attitudes.
Implicit means implied or inferred. Implicit motivations are inaccessible to conscious
awareness and are only inferred from some source of evidence, such as our behavior or
psychophysiology. Explicit means fully revealed. What is explicit is known directly and
is fully consciously accessible. Just as the implicit–explicit distinction applies to our
motivations, it applies to our attitudes (Greenwald, Nosek, & Banaji, 2003; Greenwald,
Poehlman, Uhlmann, & Banaji, 2009).
An attitude is an evaluation of an object, person, place, thing, or idea. It is a judgment of
good versus bad, like versus dislike, pleasant versus unpleasant. Like motivations,
attitudes are both implicit and explicit, and we can have conflicting implicit and explicit
attitudes toward the same object. It can be hard to accept the idea that the attitudes we
hold are anything but explicit and consciously chosen and filtered. Nevertheless, implicit
attitudes do predict our behavior (Greenwald et al., 2009) and well-being (Leavitt, Fong,
& Greenwald, 2011). For a demonstration of how pervasive and important implicit
attitudes can be, I invite the reader to spend some part of this afternoon interacting with
the following website: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/.
This website offers the Implicit Association Test (IAT; Greenwald et al., 2003). The IAT
measures attitudes that people are unable (or unwilling) to report, and the IAT is
especially insightful when it reveals an implicit attitude that you did not know you had.
On this website, you take a 15-minute online test to assess your implicit attitudes toward
gender (female–male), weight (fat–thin), sexuality (gay–straight), race (black–white),
disability (disabled–abled), skin tone (light skin–dark skin), various world religions,
various ethnicities (Asians, Native Americans, Arabs-Muslims), or various people
(presidential candidates).
In taking the IAT, attitude objects appear on the screen (young people, old people) and
the person presses a key to classify those attitude objects into value categories (good,
bad). All pairs are presented (young-good, old-good, young-bad, old-bad), and the
computer records the person’s reaction time to make each separate categorization. The
IAT essentially measures the strength of the association between an attitude object and its
evaluation. Fast (easy, quick) reaction times imply a strong association between the two,
while slow reaction times (i.e., you have to think about it) imply a weak association.
Typically, the reaction time data show that some pairs (old-good, young-bad) are weakly
linked while other pairs (old-bad, young-good) are strongly linked. This difference
implies a prejudice, or at least a preference for one object over the other. With these
reaction times data in hand (the IAT provides individualized feedback), you can compare
your implicit attitude with your explicit attitude, as in answering the explicit attitude
question, “Which statement best describes you?” (from Greenwald et al., 2003):
•
__ I strongly prefer young people to old people.
•
__ I moderately prefer young people to old people.
•
__ I like young people and old people equally.
•
__ I moderately prefer old people to young people.
•
__ I strongly prefer old people to young people.
Sometimes implicit–explicit attitudes agree. But sometimes they conflict. In those latter
cases, explicit attitudes tell us only half the story about how we really feel about an
attitude object. For the other half of the story, we need to become aware of our implicit
attitude. A good place to start is to spend some of your afternoon interacting with the
aforementioned website.
ACQUIRED NEEDS
No one is born with a need for achievement, a need for affiliation, or a need for power.
Yet each of us develops some or all of these strivings, at least to a degree. Personal
experience, socialization opportunities and demands, and our unique developmental
history teach us to expect a more positive emotional experience in some situations than in
other situations. The anticipation of experiencing such positive emotionality is what leads
us to organize our lifestyle around further activity in these domains rather than in other
domains. Over time, because of these repeated emotional experiences, we acquire
preferences for those particular situations, hobbies, and careers that are associated with
our acquired needs. Some of us learn to prefer and enjoy situations that challenge us with
explicit standards of excellence (i.e., achievement needs). Others learn to prefer and
enjoy situations that afford warm relationship opportunities (i.e., affiliation needs). And
others learn to prefer and enjoy situations that allow them to exert influence over others
(i.e., power needs).
Chapter 6 presented the motivational literature on inherent psychological needs. All of us
need autonomy, competence, and relatedness, because these are universal human needs.
In contrast, implicit needs have a social (rather than an innate) origin. Social needs
originate from preferences gained through experience and socialization. These needs
develop within us as acquired individual differences—as an acquired or a learned part of
our personality. So the way to think about these needs is to adopt an individual
differences approach. Everyone has some level of each need for achievement, affiliation,
and power, more or less. This chapter traces the social origins of the need for
achievement, affiliation, and power and discusses how each need, once acquired,
manifests itself in thought, emotion, action, and lifestyle.
Social Needs
In the acquisition of implicit motives, early childhood experience is of paramount
importance. Infants lack language (the word “infancy” literally means “without
language”); they also lack cognition and intelligence in the adult sense of these terms.
The language of infancy is affect, desire, and emotion. Infants want and feel, rather than
think. Desires and feelings represent the language of the unconscious, while thoughts and
words represent the language of the conscious. It is during the first two years of life that
infants begin to develop preferences to experience strong positive emotion to the
attainment of particular classes of incentives.
Throughout infancy and early childhood, children engage in behavior that produces either
positive or negative affect. They may walk, climb a stair, or reach for a toy and then
experience strong positive emotion such as joy and pride with goal attainment, or
frustration and shame with goal failure. Experience teaches each of us to expect positive
emotional reactions in response to some incentives rather than others (McClelland, 1985).
This positive emotionality in the pursuit of a standard of excellence is the emotional and
developmental origin of acquiring a preference for situations that offer a standard of
excellence. With positive emotion, the child develops a positive goal anticipation upon
encountering a new standard of excellence and anticipates joy and pride. Positive
emotion to this particular class of incentives (standards of excellence) is the
developmental origin of the need for achievement. Of course, children encounter other
situations as well. They may involve themselves in close relationships with other
people—talking with others, being hugged, and playing cooperatively. Strong positive
emotion in these situations can generate an enduring preference for social relationship
situations and foster goal anticipation and positive emotionality in future social settings.
Such is the developmental origin of the need for affiliation. Children also involve
themselves in situations such as gaining prestige, status, influence, and social power.
Strong positive emotions in these situations tend to generate an enduring preference for
social influence situations and to foster goal anticipation and positive emotionality in
similar situations. Such is the developmental origin of the need for power.
Once acquired in early childhood, people in later life experience implicit needs as
emotional and behavioral potentials that are activated by particular situational incentives
(Atkinson, 1982; McClelland, 1985). That is, when an incentive associated with a
particular need is present (e.g., a date is an affiliation incentive, an inspirational speech is
a power incentive), the person high in that particular need experiences emotional and
behavioral activation (i.e., feels hope, seeks interaction). The primary need-activating
incentive for each social need appears in Table 7.1.
TABLE 7.1Social Incentive That Activates Each Implicit Motive
Implicit
Motive
Social Incentive That Activates Each Need
Achievement
Doing something well to show personal competence
Affiliation
Opportunity to please others and gain their approval; involvement in a
warm and secure relationship
Power
Having impact on others
In an extensive investigation of how people acquire social needs, one group of
researchers sought to determine the childrearing antecedents of adult needs for
achievement, affiliation, and power (McClelland & Pilon, 1983). The researchers initially
scored the parental practices of mothers and fathers of 78 5-year-old boys and girls.
When the children grew to the age of 31, the researchers assessed the implicit motives of
each adult to see which early socialization experiences, if any, would predict adults’
implicit motives. Only a few childrearing antecedents emerged as significant, but the few
that did illustrate some early origins. Adults high in the need for achievement generally
had parents who imposed high standards. Adults with high needs for affiliation generally
had parents who used praise as a socialization technique. Adults with high needs for
power generally had parents who were permissive about sex and aggression.
The finding that few childrearing experiences predict adult motives suggests that social
needs can and do develop and change over time. For instance, some occupations foster
achievement strivings more than do other occupations, because they provide
opportunities for moderate challenges, independent work, personal responsibility for
outcomes, and rapid performance feedback. People in such achievement-congenial
occupations (e.g., entrepreneurs) show marked increases in their achievement strivings
over the years ...
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