Self-Attributed and Implicit Motives
two types of motives (two types of assessments)
- McClelland et al., (1989) reviewed 35 years of research on motivation considering self-report versus associative thought measures (fantasy-based measures, picture-story based measures, word association tests). They argue that these approaches measure different aspects of motivation.
- Self-attributed (self-report, expressed values, explicit motives) combine with social incentive to affect behavior and predict immediate responses to structured situations because of the social incentive in these situations.
- Measures derived from stories written to picutres (such as the TAT) combine with activity incentives to affect behavior and sustain spontaneous behavior patterns over time, “because of the pleasure derived fromt the activity itself.”
- They conclude that, “Implicit motives represent a more primitive motivational system derived from affective experiences, whereas self-attributed motives are based on more cognitively elaborated constructs.”
- Further that, “Separate measures of self-attributed and implicit motives may be combined to yield a better understanding and prediction of certain types of behavior.” (p. 692), which would not happend, “If the measures were of the same variable.” (p. 692).
- n Achievement and how college students rated a particular course as related to future career success predicted better course performance than n Ach alone (Raynor & Entin, 1982) [again, this is a correlational study]
- nAch provides a general impulse toward doing something well, the conscious goals (doing well in the class and career success) defined the particular area in which the motive expressed itself
- nAch, “by itself gives a poor indication of the area of life in which a person will strive to do better or be entrepreneurial.” (p. 693).
- They conclude that implicit motives are activated by incentives experiened in doing something
- self-attributed motives are usually actived by explicit, often social, incentives such as rewards, propts, expectation, or demands (p. 693)
- This is not the only example of incongruity between methodologies assessing a concept
- Evaluation of “attachment patterns” via questionnaire and the Adult Attachment Interview often yield different results. The AAI results have been reported to yield most accurate predictions of adult relationshp adjustment and issues
- John Bowlby popularized the concept of attachment (1969, 1972 and 1980), Mary Ainsworth (1970) developed the Strange Situation procedure for infants, and then two approaches developed for assessment of attachment in adults
- Physiological, behavioral, and phenomenological assessments of concepts such as anxiety often show limited correlation
- The aspects, and cogitive effects of anxiety, tend to be positively correlated but often diverge in interesting ways
- Hilgard’s “hidden observer (1977)” reports pain while subjects deny it with hyponotic analgesia
- his neo-dissociative theory of depression posits different brain systems with varying access to consciouness
- phenonena was reported in 1899 by William James but ws experimentally studied by Ernest Hilgard (1977)
- Evaluation of “attachment patterns” via questionnaire and the Adult Attachment Interview often yield different results. The AAI results have been reported to yield most accurate predictions of adult relationshp adjustment and issues
Implicit Motives (your text’s view)
- A quick review:
- Psychological Need:
- inherited (unlearned)
- universal in species (humans)
- Psychological Need:
- Implicit Motive:
- socially acquired (learned)
- unconscious (usually)
- Explicit Motive:
- socially acquired (learned)
- conscious (available to)
- Implicit motives are:
- “enduring (trait-like), nonconscious needs that influence what the person thinks about, feels, and does” (p. 154)
- “and these needs motivate the person toward the pursuit and attainment of specific social incentives” (p. 154)
- “Implicit means unconscious–without conscious awareness.” (p. 154)
- in contrast to explicit motives: “people’s conscious, readily accessible, and verbally stated motivations” (p. 154)
- “Explicit motives are assess with self-report questionnaires.” (p. 154)
- explicit measures people describe themselves, “while implicit motives are inferred . . . ” (p. 154)
- McClelland (McClelland, Kostner, & Weinberger, 1989) referred to explicit motives as, self-attributed motives
- “implicit motives do a better job than do explicit motives” in predicting a person’s behavior (p. 154)
- Yeah, this is not exactly what Dr. McClelland (the reference cited in support of this statement) concludes; I recommend you download the article and read it yourself. (Dr. McClelland does think that implicit motives assessed with stories written to pictures give a better prediction of behavioral trends over time, and explicit measures to immediate choices [p. 692]).
- “What a person ‘needs’ with an implicit motive is to experience a particular pattern of affect or emotion.” (p. 154).
- This is similar to what Dr. McClelland believed:
- “No one is born with a need for achievement, a need for affiliation, or a need for power.” (p. 155), Dr. Reeve sees these as acquired needs: “implicit needs have a social (rather than an innate) origin.” (p. 155).
- in contract to, “inherent psychological needs. All of us need autonomy, competence, and relatedness, because these are universal human needs.” (p. 155)
- “Social needs”, “In the acquisition of implicit motives, early childhood experiences is of paramount important”, (p. 155), “implicit needs have a social (rather than an innate) origi. Social nees iriginate from preferences gained through experience and socialization.” (p. 155)
Explicit Motives: self report
- “Explicit motives are people’s conscoius, readily accessible, and verbally stated motivations.” (p. 154)
- Explicit motives, like implicit motives are learned; and reflect social influences
- Conditions associated with veridical (truthful) reports:
- absence of coercion
- absence of negative consequences
- open ended and non-leading questions
- independent verification
- (and, of course, that the person in fact knows the truth)
- The Three Secrets, “there are three kinds of secrets: those you would only tell your closest friends, those you only admit to yourself, and the truth.”
- Mental health assessment, an exercise in explciit and implicit motive assessment
- symptoms: verbal report of client
- signs: observations made by clinician
- “In the past two weeks have you had any thoughts of suicide?”
- “no” [simple declarative response] or “hell no, why would you ask such a thing, I find that very offensive” [elevated arousal, dranatuc content] or “not really” [ambigious, possibly evasive resposne]
- and we might consider latency of response, eye contact, restlessness or nervous gestures, respiration]
- we might also want to conside status variable (gender, ethnic background, age, employment, medical condition)
- and state variable (depression, anxiety, substance use)
- hopelessness is a much more effective predictor of risk than depression or pain
- alcohol abuse is a more powerful predictor than depression or anxiety
- and history, often among the best predictors of future behavioir
- but none of these variables (or any combination of such) are prefect and accurate prediction of risk of suicide attempts and death due to suicide remains limited
- Take-away points from ch. 7 regarding motives: implicit motives are unconscious, explicit motives are conscious; both explicit and implicit motives are learned (psychological needs are innate)
Acquired Motives
- nAch
- motive to achieve success (McClelland et al, 1953) vs. motive to avoid failure (Atkinson, 1057)
- Conditions that involve and satisfy nAch
- moderately difficult tasks
- competition
- entrepreneurship
- factors that affect achievement motivation
- probability and incentive value of task success
- behavioral persistence
- nAff
- not the same as extraversion, friendliness, or sociability (p. 166)
- fear of interpersonal rejection
- two facets: need for approval and need for intimacy
- n Aff mostly about fear of rejection vs. need for intimacy mostly about attraction to warm, close relationships
- social isolation and fear-arousing conditions increase nAff
- How does nAff differ from relatedness ???
- Terms, Terms, Terms
- Need for affiliation (N-Affil): term popularized by David McClelland: a person’s need to feel a sense of involvement and belonging within a social group. Influence by work of Henry Murray. People with high need for affiliation need warm interpersonal relationships and approval from the social group, tend to be good team members but may be less effective in leadership positions.
- Atkinson, J.W., Heyns, R.W., & Veroff, J. (1954). The effect of experimental arousal of the affiliation motive on thematic apperception. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 49, 405-410.
- McClelland, D.C. (1961) The Achieving Society. Princeton: Van Nostrand.
- McClelland, D.C., Atkinson, J.W., Clark, R.A., & Lowell E.L. (1953). The Achievement Motive. NY: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
- Belongingness, influenced by work of Abrham Maslow: human need to be an acceptged member of a group, need for strong, stable relationshps with other people, need to give and receive affection from others.
- Baumeister, R.F. & Leary, M.R. (1995). The need to belong: Desire for interpersonal attachements as a fundamental human motivation. Psychological Bulletin, 117, 497-529..
- Maslow, A. (1968). Toward a Psychology of Being. Cincinnati, OH: D. Van Nostrand Co.
- Relatedness: from an alternative to Maslow’s theory, based on 3-fold conceptualziation of human needs: existence, relatedness, and growth (ERG).
- Alderfer, C.P. (1969). An empirical test of a new theory of human needs. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 4, 142-175
- Need for affiliation (N-Affil): term popularized by David McClelland: a person’s need to feel a sense of involvement and belonging within a social group. Influence by work of Henry Murray. People with high need for affiliation need warm interpersonal relationships and approval from the social group, tend to be good team members but may be less effective in leadership positions.
- nPower
- Conditions that involve and satisfy nPower
- leadership and relationships
- drinking alcohol
- aggression and influential occupations
- prestige possessions
- leadership motive pattern (McClelland),
- high need for power
- low need for affiliation
- high inhibition
- compassionate leadership pattern (Steinmann et a., 2015)
- high nPower
- high nAff
- high inhibition
- alternative path to effective and compassionate leadership: embracing a strong moral identity within his or her self-concept (DeCelles et al., 2012)
- Conditions that involve and satisfy nPower
- other needs
- need for cognition
- need for closure
- need for structure
- uncertainty orientation (need for certainty, ambiguity tolerance)
- need for self-esteem
- the concept of contingencies of self-worth refers to domains of a person’s life that are considered essential for their self-esteem (Crocker et al., 2003). Crocker and associates hypothesize seven domains:
- other’s approval
- appearance
- competition
- academic competence
- family support
- virtue
- God’s love
- He suggested that efforts that did not address one of the domains had no effect on self-worth
- the concept of contingencies of self-worth refers to domains of a person’s life that are considered essential for their self-esteem (Crocker et al., 2003). Crocker and associates hypothesize seven domains:
- Public Service Motivation
- An increasing literature focuses on the topic of Public Service Motivation
- “PSM relates to the Beliefs, values and attitudes that go beyond self-interest and organizational interest, reflecting someone’s willingness to help society and it citizens” (Slabbinck & Van Witteloostuijn (2020).
- They cite literature that higher PSM is associated with higher job satisfaction, increased organiational commitment, prosocial behavior, organizational citzenship behavior, and innovative behavior
- Much prior work on PSM has focused on trait associated with this motive
- They use a brief IAT to explore motives associated with PSM
- Using largely McClelland’s motive theory, they distinguish between implicit and explicit motives
- Implicit motives “push” individuals toward action (Berlew push-pull metaphor), Explicit motives “pull” individuals toward actions they feel obliged to carry out
- impliciit motives are triggered by task-intrinsic incentives, explicit motives are aroused by social-extrinsic incentives (social rewards & explicit instructions)
- implicit motives are associated with spontaneous, uncontrolled behavior and effort-related task performance; explicit motives with behavior that is subject to conscious thought and deliberation
- Public Service Motivation is conceptualized in terms of four dimensions (Slabbinck & Van Witteloostuijn (2020)
- Attraction to Policy-Making (APM): rational, self-serving motive; power-based Machiavellian understanding of politics
- Commitment to the Public Interest (CPI): affectively grounded, stemming from a motivation to help others and society
- Compassion (COM): affectively grounded, stemming from a motivation to help others and society
- Self-Sacrifice (SS): serving the public feels as a duty one has to fulfill; reflects collectivist values and communitarian norms that favor the community over the individual
- Their results found that, “Explicit affiliation is the only basic motive that is significantly related to Overall PSM. (p. 8) but, “different patterns emerge for PSM’s subdimensions” (p. 8)
- “PSM relates to the Beliefs, values and attitudes that go beyond self-interest and organizational interest, reflecting someone’s willingness to help society and it citizens” (Slabbinck & Van Witteloostuijn (2020).
- Batson, Ahmad, & Tsang (2002), using the field theory of Kurt Levin rather than more stable view of motives of Murray, offer a conceptual analysis of motives for community involvement. They suggest four motives:
- Egotism: increase one’s own welfare
- Altruism: increase the welfare of one or more other individuals
- Collectivism: increase the welfare of the group or collective
- Principlism: uphold some moral principle (e.g., justice)
- Wang, van Witteloostuijn, & Heine (2020) offer a formulation of Public Service Motivation based on Moral Foundation Theory (MFT)
- Social Stimulus leads to Social Perception leads to Social Behaviors; Social perception and Social behaviors led to Generalized Arousal which feeds back into Social Perception and Social Stimuli
- processing of stimulus features, detecting threats & opportunities (triggering survival circuit) leads to eliciting of moral emotions, retrieving attitudes/beliefs/experiences from memory system (PSM relevant norms & life experiences), representation of emotional state, the perceived action, & social environment (feelings of PSM) leads to innate survival behavior goal-directed behavior; continuing activation of the survival circuit, enhanced attention to external stimuli, facilitation of memory retrieval and formation feed back
- moral behaviors are the result of the integration of social perception, contextual knowledge, and basic emotional states
- “Triggered by a stimulus, perception first provides relevant information to cognition, and cognition responds to stimuli by guiding automatic or controlled behavior. Moral judgments are mostly direct products of emotional processes . . . , but reasoning still plays a role in moral behavioir as well. . . . However, we often use reasoning to justify our automatic moral intuitions (p justifications) or persuade others (reasoned persuasion)” p. 5
- Aspects of the social cognitive process of Public Service Motivation (PSM)
- Care: compassion component
- Fairness: result of the evolutionary process of reciprocal altruism
- Authority: binding foundation: binding individuals into cohesive unit
- Loyality: binding foundation
- Sancitity: binding foundation: shaped by disgust and elevaton experiences
- they the describe the social stimuli, social perception, social behavior, and evidence of practice for each aspect
- An increasing literature focuses on the topic of Public Service Motivation
- Deckers (2018): “Psychological needs may be interpreted as categories of incentives.” He cites a study by Jenkins (1994) that suggests that individual with a nPower in women were sensitive to incentives that satisfy those needs.
- The view of implicit motives and self-attributed motives is similar to Cattell’s distinction between source and surface traits
- For Reeve a key defining feature of implicit traits is that they are learned through social interaction with family, society, culture
- This leads to the possibility of many (and differing) explicit motives across different individuals, societies, cultures (and, of course, Dr. Reeve believe that there are three universal motives: autonomy, competence, and relatedness)
Issues in inferring (implicit) motives
Tell me who your friends are and I’ll tell you who you are
Sean Gaffney & Seamus Cashman, Ed.s (1974, p. 39). Proverbs & Sayings of Ireland. New York: MJF Books.
- the projective hypothesis: a person’s responses to ambiluous stimuli or tasks demands will (to some degree) bypass conscious editing and defenses and reflect underlying (unconscious) motives, desires, needs, feelings, thoughts,conflicts
- associated with psychodynamic models of personality that posite important uncouscious aspects to personality and motivation
- empirically validated personality measures
- so called, “objective personality tests” that seek to identify patterns of responses that (independent of apparent meaning) are highly associated with particular criterion measures (personaltiy traits, dynamics, conflicts)
- the MMPI is the prototypical example
- observational measures
- the reward programs of grocery stores
- Amazon’s suggestions
- implicit association tasks
- For perspectives on the many issues regarding impliict meansures, see: Bertram Gawronski & B. Keith Payne, Eds. (2010). Handbook of Implicit Social Cognition: Measurement, theory, and applications. NY: Guilford Press.