Measuring implicit motives 1 RUNNING HEAD: Measuring implicit motives Measuring implicit motives

All picture stimuli described in this chapter are available upon request from the authors. Measuring implicit motives 2 Measuring implicit motives Over the past ten years, the field of personality psychology has seen a resurgence of interest in implicit motives, nonconscious motivational needs that orient, select, and energize behavior (McClelland, 1987). This renewed interest has led to significant advances in our understanding of the biological, cognitive, emotional, social, and cultural manifestations of implicit motivational needs (e. recently pointed out, considerably less effort has gone into the description, evaluation, and refinement of the implicit motive measures commonly used in research. As a result, the thematic content coding method of motive assessment has remained an enigma to researchers not familiar with the field, and the threshold for using these methods may therefore be higher than for other, more frequently used assessment tools in personality psychology. The present chapter is intended to lower this threshold by (I) discussing the differential validity of implicit motive measures, as contrasted with measures of individuals' explicit, self-attributed motivational needs and goals, (II) reviewing the reliability of implicit motive measures, (III) providing a step-by-step guide for the assessment of implicit motives and the use of motive scores in analytic designs, (IV) illustrating the use of implicit motive measures in research with case examples, and (V) pointing out some future directions for the development of better motive measures. Measuring implicit motives 3 I. Differential validity of implicit motive measures Research on implicit motive constructs originated in the assumption that people do not have introspective access to many of the wellsprings of their behavior McClelland, Atkinson and their colleagues therefore used motivation arousal studies to develop content coding measures of imaginative stories that research participants write in response to picture cues, a technique called the Thematic Apperception Test). These content coding measures were designed to capture individuals' implicit needs for power (or n Power; a concern for having impact on others), achievement (or n Achievement; a concern for doing well according to a standard of excellence), affiliation (or n Affiliation; a concern for establishing, maintaining, or restoring close, friendly relationships), and intimacy (or n Intimacy; a preference for experiences of warm, close, and communicative interactions with others) (for a compilation of these and other scoring systems, see Smith, 1992a). Of course, it is also possible to ask people directly to what extent they view themselves as being motivated to have …