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TAXONOMIES & MEASUREMENT OF MOTIVES• TAXONOMIES:

MURRAY’S CATALOG OF NEEDS

McCLELLAND’S IMPLICIT MOTIVES: achievement, power, affiliation, intimacy

• MEASUREMENT:

UNSTRUCTURED METHODSFree association, dream analysis

PROJECTIVE TECHNIQUESRorschachTAT

‘OBJECTIVE’ TECHNIQUES (questionnaires)Personality Research Form

• SHOULD OVERLAP BETWEEN PROJECTIVE & OBJECTIVE MEASURES BE EXPECTED?

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TAXONOMIES OF MOTIVES:

HENRY MURRAY (1893-1988) First systematic study and classification of needs

‘Explorations in Personality’ Catalog of 20 needs (table 4.4)

DAVID McCLELLAND (?-1998)AchievementPowerAffiliationIntimacy

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IMPLICIT MOTIVES

Achievement: need to do things well, to take pleasure over overcoming difficulty, to create things (GO FORWARD)

Power: need to be in charge, in control --impact over other people-- have status and possessions, influence others (BE ABOVE)

Affiliation: motive to spend time, interact, with other people alike (BE NEAR)

Intimacy: need to feel close to people, that you understand/accept others and viceversa (FUSE, MERGE)

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MEASUREMENT:

UNSTRUCTURED METHODS

“Dreams, fantasies, and other products of imagination are the ‘royal road’ to the unconscious”

FREE ASSOCIATION: talking about whatever comes to mind

DREAM ANALYSIS: condensation, displacement, symbolic disguise, latent and manifest content

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MEASUREMENT:

PROJECTIVE TECHNIQUES

Unconscious motives are spontaneously ‘projected’ during the interpretation of ambiguous, neutral, semi-structured stimuli

(Assumption: an individual puts structure on an ambiguous situation in a way that is consistent with their own conscious & unconscious needs)

WORD ASSOCIATON

RORSCHACH INKBLOT TEST

THEMATIC APPERCEPTION TEST (TAT)

www.psych.ualberta.ca/~chrisw/ L14ProjectiveTests/img001.jpg

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Interpreting the Rorschach

• Location

• Determinant

• Content

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From These…..

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…To These!

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THEMATIC APPERCEPTION TEST (TAT)

Who are the people? What are their names? What are their roles in life? What are their relationships to each other? What has led up to this situation? What is happening right now? What is each person thinking, saying trying to do? What does each person want from whom? What will happen to each person the future? How will it all end?

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MEASUREMENT:

‘OBJECTIVE’ TECHNIQUES

Paper-and-pencil standardized (i.e.., nomothetic approach) questionnaires that openly ask to rate/rank/list a particular inventory of motive-related statements

E.g., Personality Research Form

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WHICH IS BETTER?

Strengths of Projective Tests:1) “Disguised objective” of test

2) Bypasses ego and elucidates contents of unconscious

3) Deeper understanding of the individual

4) Diagnostic usefulness for extreme scores

Weaknesses of Projectives: 1) Reliability and Validity issues

2) Refutability of underlying theory?

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SHOULD OVERLAP BETWEEN ‘PROJECTIVE’ AND ‘OBJECTIVE’

MEASURES BE EXPECTED?

Read McClleland’s article !