T3_CompleteSummary_Personality

Larsen Chapter 11

Motives and Personality
Basic concepts
Motives  Internal states that arouse and direct behavior towards specifc objects or goals
 Ofen caussed b a defcit, a lac of soeething ffor exaeple foodl
 Are ofen based on needs, states of tension within a person
o As a need is satsfed, the state of tension is reduced

 The belong to the intrapsychic domain for several reasons…
o Researcher who stusd eotves have stressed the ieportance of internal
ps chological needs and usrges that propel people to thin , perceive and act in
certain predicable wa
o The can be unconscious in the sense that a person does not now explicit what she
wants
Relation betweeen needs and motives 
Deficit (have not eaten today)  Need (For food)  Motive (Hunger) 
 Either thoughts and fantasies
 Or behaviors intended to satisfy the need

Need
Need  is a potentalit or readiness to respond in a certain weay under certain given circumstances
 The organize percepton, gusiding uss to see what we want to see for needl
 It is rather the reducing of tension what the person fousnds satisfying, not tensionless state
per se
o People actusall seek to increase tension fby going into a horror movie etc.) in order
to experience the pleasusre of reduscing that tension
 Each Need is associated with…
o A specifc desire or intention

o A partcuslar set of emotions

o Specifc action tendencies

o Each need can be described weith trait names

Each person has a unique hierarchy of needs
Each need interacts with the various other needs weithin the person  this ea es the concept of
motives dynamic 
 Mutual influences of forces within a person  interacton of variouss eotves within a person

, o For example, a highly dominant person is coupled with a low need for afliaton



Press (Druck)
Eleeents in the environeent afect a person’s need 
 For example, a person with a high need for affiliation would be sensitve to social aspects of
his or her environment
Press  Need-relevant aspects of the environment
 For example, A person with a high need for afliaton will not affect that persons behavior
without an appropriate environmental press (for example the presence of friendly peoplel
 It gets distngusished between Alpha and beta press
o Alpha press  real environeent

o Beta press  perceived environeent

Apperception (bewusste wahrnehmung) and the
TAT
Apperception  The act of interpreting the environment and perceiving the meaning of what is going
on in a situsaton
Thematic apperception test  Black and wehite pictusres which are aebigusouss where the person as ed
shousld make up a story
 We can ea e a distncton between using the TAT to assess state levels of needs and trait
levels of need
o State levels of needs persons momentary aeousnt of specifc need which can
flusctusate with specifc circusestances
 Assess the state level needs can be ussefusl in detereining wehat aspects of a
situation bring aboust changes in specifc needs
o Trait levels of need  eeasusring a person’s average tendency, set point or specifc
trait
 Most ussefusl in determining diferences between individusals in their average
tendencies towards partcuslar needs set-point of person
Multi-Motive grid  New fore of assessing eotves
 Coebines features of the TAT with featusres of a self-report questionnaire
 14 Pictusres which shousld arouse one of the partcipants three big motives fachieveeent,
power, inteac l
o The photo shousld arouse the motive  this influsences how the person respond

TAT and questionnaire measures of motives: Do
they measure diferent aspects of motives?
Critique for TAT

,  Low internal reliabilit
 Poor test-retest
 Correleeren niet eet scores van de vraagljst
o Solution 
 Adding qusestonnaires which are directly asking participants for their
eotves and desires
 BUT – are the qusestonnaires and TAT related?  Mostly NOT!
 Seees li e the test assesses tweo diferent types of motivation 
o Implicit motivation  These eotves are based on needs susch as the need for
achieveeent fnAchl, the need for power fnPowl and the need for inteac
fnIntl as the are eeasusred in fantasy-based measures (for example TATl
 The stories are thousght to reflect implied motives of the person
writng it down
 What a person is writng is thousght to reflect their usnconsciouss, real
eotvatons
 Predict long-term, spontaneous behavioral trends over tee
o (Explicit) Self-atributed motivation  reflects priear a person’s self-
aweareness of his or her conscioussness eotves or noreatve beliefs aboust
desirable goals and eodes of condusct
 Reflect a person’s conscioussness awareness aboust what is ieportant
to hie or her
 Predict responses of immediate and specific situations, choice
behaviors and attudes
If we want to now how soeeone react to achieveeent deeands today or tomorrow  Use
the questionnaire
If we want to predict aboust who, in a grousp of people, will earn the largest lifetime income 
usse TAT



The big three motives: Achievement, Power and
intimacy
Need for achievement
Doing things better
Need for achievement  desire to do better, to be susccessfusl and to feel coepetent
 It is energized b incentves of challenge and variety
 It is accoepanied with feelings of interest and surprise

,  It is associated with susbjectve state of being curious and explanatory
 People are cherish the process of being engaged in challenging actvites
In teres of trait levels, high nAch individusals prefer moderate levels of challenge
 People enjo tas s in which the are personal responsible for the outcomes
 People prefer tas s in which the get feedback for their performance

Increasing the need for achievement
It seees that persons with a high achievements motives are drawn to careers that have potental
risk and usncertainty whereas susccess is a eatter of personal responsibility and where eeergenc
problee solving is roustne
In collectvistc cusltusres, individusal achieveeent is valused less than the person who helps his or her
grousp achieve

Promoting achievement motivation in children
Independence training  parents can behave in the wa that proeotes children austonoe and
independence – one wa in which parents can proeote need for achieveeent in their children
Another wa is to set challenging standards
Yet another wa is to stress efort over ability  Instead of sa ing “ ous can do it becausse ousre seart”
rather sa “ ous can do it if ous reall tr ”
Developmental theory by Dweeck  people develop over their abilites and coepetences
 The eost adaptve believe s stee is that abilities are not fixed bust that the are malleable
and can be developed throusgh efort

Need for power
Need for poweer  desire to have impact on others

Impact on others
TAT is eostl the predominant assessment for research on nPowe
The need for power is mostly associated with
 Having arguseents with others
 Ta ing larger ris s in gaebling situsatons
 behaving assertvel and actvel in a seall grousp setng
 Interest in having control of situsatons and peoples
 Prefer a friend who’s not that popuslar becausse the do not threat the persons prestge or
statuss
 Do not deal well with conflicts

Health status and the need for power
Poweer stress  when power of high nAch is challenged or blocked