2/8: Needs and Motives

Measurement of Needs

• Needs as Unconscious
• Limited value of Observation and Rating Methods:
• needs as Latent
• can't be objectively observed, ex: need for affiliation
• can't link one behavior to one need
• needs are more variable, no correspondence between observable behavior and needs
• Rationale behind the TAT- by Murray
• projective test
• 20 or so pictures, five minutes to make up a story about the pictures
• people take the issues inside of them and project them on the people in the story
• latent need projected
• akin to Freud's people association
• researcher interprets
• akin to literary criticism
• in depth analysis of motives and emotions of writer
• subjectivity
• Murray believe that a group of people can discuss about patients' divulged info
• many believed this to be the Achilles's heel of the TAT
• flaw
• readings are ambiguous stimulus
• projection from coder's standpoint
• no grading guideline
• McClelland's definition of motive
• Motive- "a recurrent preference or readiness for a particular quality of experience, which energizes, directs, and selects behavior in certain situations"
• Driving Motives
• picked the following three driving emotions
• Achievement, Affiliation, Power
• did the following tests
• difficult intelligence test with no feedback 
• write about typical day of week (neutral)
• achievement motive not there
• TAT test
• achievement motive there
• Achievement motive- do something well and efficiently
• story content
• people breaking limits
• Power motive- have an impact on others
• story content
• people who feel stronger or have mastery over others
• Affiliation motive- positive relations with others
• story content
• people who try to improve/mend/bond with friends
• objective scoring manual for the stories
• points for mentions of wanting achievement or akin to that
• inherent problems with objective scoring
• correlation =  causation
• time-lengthy process to score 20 stories per reader
• Implicit vs Self-attributed motives
• Implicit motive- originated and operated in unconscious way
• comes from earlier socialization with association with power and achievement
• measured by TAT projector
• gut response that's unintentional
• Self-attributed motive
• conscious self-understanding based on cognitive available value assessor
• cognitively driven, thoughtful, derivative
• "this is how i understand myself"
• reported by self report generators