Lecture 12: Is power motivation adaptive? Flashcards
What are the three Big Motives?
- n Achievement
- n Power
- n Intimacy
What is nAch?
A recurrent preference for experiences of doing well and being successful
What is nPow?
A recurrent preference for experiences of having an impact on others.
What is nInt?
A recurrent preference for experiences of warm, close and communicative interactions with others.
What are the natural incentives of nArch, nPow and nInt?
- Mastery
- Impact
- Connection
What are the occupations that someone high on nAch would like?
- Small business owner
- Salesperson
- Researcher
What are the occupations that a person high on nPow would like?
- Manager
- Clergy
- Teacher
- Therapist
- Journalist
What positive behaviours correlate with nPower?
- Membership in voluntary organizations
- Efforts to make community contributions
- Effective leadership
- Acquisition of prestige symbols (nice car, expensive clothes)
What negative behaviours correlate with nPower?
- Aggression
- Exploitative interpersonal relations
- Profligate sexuality
- Profligate drinking
- Divorce
What variables affect the positive and negative behaviours correlating with nPow?
- Gender
- Responsibility training
- Social class
- Activity inhibition
How does gender affect the behaviours correlating with nPow?
- Women tend to show less negative behaviours
- This could be because women are trained from a young age to take more responsibilities.
- It was noticed that men who had responsibilities from a young age, display less negative behaviours. (David Winter)
How does social class affect the behaviours correlating with nPow?
- Lower SES men would display more negative behaviours
- This could be due to how SES affects a person’s hormones and levels of stress.
- FFFS constantly activated
- The constant stress and activation of FFFS limits the brain activity for planning and self-control.
- FFFS constantly activated
How does activity inhibition affect the behaviours correlating with nPow?
- With the Stories task (to measure if which motivation an individual was higher on), it was noticed that there was a lot of language inhibition
- Many participants high in nPow would use negation words
- This reflects the tendency of the participants to inhibit their actions
- Hypothesis:
- Self-control
- Mitigate how pow motivation is expressed
Do any of the moderators (could be more than one) relate to one (or more) of the Big 5 traits? If yes, which one(s)?
- Responsibility training, social class and activity inhibition relate to conscientiousness
What is the Leadership Motive Profile?
- Desired combination of characteristics:
- high nPow
- low n Aff
- Activity inhibition
- This allows the person to
- check themselves
- question themselves
- adapt
- This allows the person to
Why would you like a leader to be low in nAff?
- if they are high in nAff and nPow, there would be a conflicting objective of having an impact while being liked by everyone.
The Office: Michael
Is he a good leader?
- According to Kroestner:
- high nAff
- high nPow
- Conclusion:
- horrible manager
Longitudinal Leadership profile Study
- only men
- follow for 25 years from the start of their career in
- US navy (24 levels)
- AT&T (20 levels)
- Stories task results predicted where they would get
What was David Winter’s scoring system for coding speech?
New scoring system that would code normal or usual speech of individuals.
What would be the scoring definition of power imagery according to Winter’s scoring system?
- Elements coded for power motivation:
- Strong vigorous actions that have an impact on other
- attempts to convince or persuade
- force
- unsolicited help
- attempts to control and/or monitor
- Actions that directly arouse a strong positive or negative emotional state in others
- Concern for reputation or prestige
Did President Obama have the motive profile to be a successful president?
- According to Winter’s scoring system for coding speech
- Obama was very high in Pow
- Medium-high in Ach
- Low in Aff
True or False
The great decisions of a president correlate with power motivation.
True
Both Obama and Trump are high in Power motivation. According to Kroestner, what trait would make the difference between Obama being considered a great president and not Trump?
Conscientiousness
- Trump is:
- low C
- impulsive
- Do whatever he is told not to do
What is the problem with having a leader high in Power and high in Achievement?
- Tend to cut corners
- Cheat
- Criminal behaviour
According to Winter, do Obama’s traits support his motives?
- No, he is low in Extraversion
-
The Introversion Inhibition Hypothesis
- Obama was handicapped by his introversion and thus, couldn’t do everything he wanted/needed to do
Do Kroestner agree with Winter’s point of view on Obama’s motivations and traits?
No, Kroestner thinks that Obama couldn’t be outspoken, angry because of the racism in US and the image that most of the population have of a black man:
-violent, angry
What is McAdam’s point of view of traits versus motives?
“needs establish goals, traits describe the behavioural means by which goals are met.”
What is the channelling hypothesis?
- “Motives involve wishes, desires or goals”
- “traits channel or direct the ways in which motives are expressed”
What was Winter’s study about the interactions of power motivation and extraversion-introversion traits?
- Hypothesis:
- High pow motive should lead to socialized positive power
- Participants:
- Women
- Procedure:
- 25 years
- Results:
- Extraverts had careers that had a greater impact
- Introverts, power didn’t show in their career at all
Is Power motivation adaptive or maladaptive?
It can be either
How do motives interact with traits?
A lack of extraversion might inhibit motivation
