Psychological Needs Flashcards
People are inherently active
Doing something and being active is our natural state, because there is never a time when we are not doing something.
What emotion signals when ones inner psychological needs are being met?
Enjoyment
What emotion triggers when ones psychological needs have been involved in an activity?
Interest
Organismic psychological needs?
Autonomy
Competence
Relatedness
When environments are supportive and provide what is needed
Organisms thrive
When environments are hostile and withhold what is needed
Organisms suffer
Organisms need to grow
They need to learn new information, develop new skills, be open to new interests, and discover new and more effective ways of adjusting to outdated environments that are not longer helping them to thrive
Concept of psychological needs
Asserts that there are fundamental nutrients and environmental supports that all human being require to thrive
What are the telltale signs of the presence of a psychological need
- providing particular nutrients produces growth, thriving, and well-being in the organism (plant, person)
- withholding These same nutrients produces decay, injury, and ill-being. This concept of fundamental nutriments also suggests that these needs are universal—that they are embedded within the human nervous system and are common to everyone, irrespective of age, gender, culture, socioeconomic status, and so forth.
What are the indicators for positive functioning?
- engagement
- personal growth
- intrinsic motivation
- internalization
- health
- well-being
Engagement
how actively involved the person is in the activity at hand. when highly engaged, people pay attention, concentrate deeply, exert effort, persist at the face of challenge and obstacles, think strategically, diagnose and solve problems, set goals and make plans, ask questions, and contribute constructively into the flow of whatever they are doing.
Personal growth
Personal growth refers to how agentic, mature, responsible, authentic, interpersonally connected, self-motivating, efficacious, and self-regulating the person is. The fruits of personal growth can be seen in developmental outcomes such as effective functioning, deep and enduring interests, learning, gains in talent and skill development, a sense of self-worth, a lack of anxiety and conflict, and personality integration with a sense of wholeness and identity.
Personal regression
how apathetic, immature, irresponsible, pretentious, interpersonally alienated, indolent, helpless, and dependent on others the person is.
Intrinsic motivation
Intrinsic motivation is spontaneous activity done merely for the enjoyment of the activity itself. An activity is fun (intrinsically motivating) precisely because it generates experiences of feeling autonomous, competent, and related (i.e., psychological need satisfaction). Intrinsic motivation is quite literally the motivation that arises from experiences of psychological need satisfaction.
Internalization
Internalization is the taking in of beliefs, behaviors, and regulations from other people (and social groups) such that they are transformed into volitional self-regulations of one’s own. Internalization is an extrinsic, not an intrinsic, motivational process, as it is not spontaneous or fun but, instead, useful or important. Internalization requires motivational fuel. We internalize others’ beliefs and behaviors easily—without friction, conflict, or resistance—when we know that the other cares for and loves us (relatedness), when we believe that the recommended beliefs and behaviors will allow us to function more effectively in life (competence), and when we understand how these beliefs and behaviors will help us accomplish the goals and strivings that are central to our interests (autonomy). However, when these same beliefs and behaviors are offered to us in an excessively controlling way (“You have to…”), in an over-challenging way, or with strings attached (i.e., conditional regard), we experience a good deal of friction, conflict, and resistance. Feeling such conflict, we tend to reject (rather than accept) the societally recommended belief, behavior, or regulation. Psychological need satisfaction is therefore the basic motivational process that supports and enables the internalization process to occur.
Health
`Health refers to the functional efficiency of the mind and body and to the absence of illness, disease, and pathology. The variable that best predicts health-related outcomes is the person’s behavior, and people are more likely to initiate and sustain a health-promoting lifestyle when their psychological needs are met
Well-being
Well-being refers generally to positive mental health and more specifically to the presence of positive emotionality, the absence of negative emotionality, having a sense purpose, and being satisfied with one’s life. Well-being is the telltale sign of the presence of psychological need satisfaction in one’s life, just as ill-being is the telltale sign of the absence of psychological need satisfaction
Need frustration
When others push their agendas on us, impose deadlines, force unrealistic expectations upon us, ignore us under these conditions the motivational and emotional experience is one not of need satisfaction but need frustration.
Autonomy
the psychological need to experience self-direction and personal endorsement in the initiation and regulation of ones behavior. the hallmarks of autonomy are volitional action and wholehearted self-endorsement (ownership of that action)
When is behavior autonomous?
When our interests, preferences, and wants guide our decision-making process to engage or not engage in a particular activity.
When are we not self-determining
when some outside force take our sense of choice away ad, instead, pressures us to think, feel, or behave in other prescribed ways.
Personal endorsement
Heartfelt affirmative answer to the questions such as, is this my decision? is this my behavior? do I fully agree with this decision, with this goal pursuit, and with this course of action? is this decision and this behavior congruent with my own personal interests, preferences, and strikings
Personal conflict
” I am only doing this because I have to, not because I want to”
Autonomy supportive
When external events, social contexts, interpersonal relationships, and cultures tap into, nurture, and satisfy a persons need for autonomy.
Controlling
When external events, social contexts, interpersonal relationships, and cultures neglect, silence and thwart a persons need for autonomy.
Autonomy supporting motivation style
An interpersonal tone of understanding
Autonomy controlling motivation style
interpersonal tone of pressure.
How to support autonomy (when attempting to motivate others)
- take the others perspective
- nurture psychological need satisfaction
- provide explanatory rationales
- acknowledge and accept expressions of negative effect.
- use invitational language
- display patience
Taking the others perspective
To support another person’s autonomy, one first needs to take that person’s perspective, adopt their frame of reference, be nonjudgmental, and ask questions such as the following: “If I were in the other person’s place, what would I be thinking? What would I want and need?” Perspective taking is seeing the situation as if you were the other person.
Nurture psychological need satisfaction
Supporting another’s autonomy involves finding ways to involve (awaken) and satisfy (nurture) the other’s psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness. For the teacher, parent, or close friend, social interaction is an opportunity to tap into the other person’s psychological needs so that he or she will be fully capable of energizing, directing, and sustaining their own motivated activity in productive ways.
Provide explanatory rationales
Nurturing inner motivational resources is a helpful motivational strategy when the task at hand is a potentially interesting thing to do, but sometimes we ask others to do relatively uninteresting things. For instance, parents ask their children to clean their rooms, and teachers ask students to follow the rules. To motivate others on uninteresting tasks, people with an autonomy-supportive style communicate the value, worth, meaning, utility, or importance of engaging in these sorts of behaviors, as in “It is important that you follow the rules because we need to respect the rights of everyone in the class and to help everyone feel safe and accepted.”
Acknowledge and accept expressions of negative affect
Sometimes, people complain, show resistance, and express negative affect about having to engage in uninteresting or difficult tasks. They sometimes show “attitude” when having to do things like clean their rooms, follow rules, run laps, and be nice. People who adopt an autonomy-supportive style listen carefully to these expressions of negative affect and accept them as potentially valid reactions to being asked to do things that seem, to them, uninteresting and not worthwhile. Essentially, autonomy-supportive individuals say “okay” and then work collaboratively with the other person to solve the underlying cause of the negative affect and resistance, usually with the end result of redesigning the uninteresting activity into something that becomes more interesting or appealing to the person. People who adopt a controlling style, on the other hand, make it clear that such expressions of negative affect and resistance are unacceptable, saying things such as “Stopping your whining; it’s my way or the highway.”
Negative affect (motivation problem)
The bored student complains to the teacher, the misbehaving child shows anger, and the poorly performing athlete shows anxiety and stress. A typical, albeit controlling and ineffective, response to such disengagement, misbehavior, and poor performance
Use invitational language
People with an autonomy-supportive motivating style rely on informational, noncontrolling, nonpressuring, and invitational language when encouraging others to undertake some goal or behavior (e.g., brush their teeth, eat a healthy diet; Koestner et al., 2012; Vansteenkiste et al., 2005). Using informational, noncontrolling language refers to verbal and nonverbal (tone of voice, facial expressions) communications to minimize pressure while conveying choice, flexibility, and volition. Nonpressuring language means avoiding pressure-packed utterances such as “you should, you have to, you must, and you just got
Display patience
Patience is the calmness one person shows as the other struggles to adjust his behavior from something that is ineffective, indolent, and irresponsible into something that is relatively more effective, energized, and responsible. Displaying patience means to wait calmly for the other person’s input, initiative, and willingness. It means giving the other person the time and space he needs to overcome the inertia of inactivity to then explore better ways of behaving, to plan, and to alter personal goals and problem-solving strategies. In practice, what autonomy-supportive patience looks like is a lot of listening and postponing advice until one first deeply understands why the person is acting in an ineffective, indolent, or irresponsible way and second senses that the other is open and ready to hear one’s suggestions.
When do choices truly lead to a sense of autonomy?
only when people are given a true choice over their actions, and when they are offered choices that are meaningful to their lives
What does autonomy support nurture?
- psychological need for autonomy
- inner range of motivational sources including, competence and relatedness need satisfaction.
Competence
the psychological need to be effective in one’s interactions with the environment, and it reflects the desire to stretch and extend one’s capacities and skills and, in doing so, to seek out and master optimal challenges and personal growth opportunities
What are the hallmarks of competence?
experiences of effectance, mastery, and making progress.
Optimal challenge
Optimal challenge needs not to be too easy so that it will not produce boredom but not too hard that it will produce frustration.
Flow
a state of concentration that involves a holistic absorption and deep involvement in an activity (Keller & Bless, 2008). What people say when they are in a state of flow includes, “I am in the zone,” “I am totally focused on what I’m doing,” and “It feels like everything clicks” (Martin & Jackson, 2008).
optimal experience (flow)
When challenge and skill are perfectly matched.
most important practical implication of flow theory is the following
Given optimal challenge, any activity can be enjoyed. Doing electrical work, writing papers, debating issues, writing a paper, exercising for 30 minutes, playing a musical instrument, sewing, mowing the lawn, and other such activities do not necessarily make the top of most people’s list of must-do activities, but the balance of skill with challenge adds the spice of flow—concentration, absorption, enjoyment, and optimal experience.
Structure
environments can be structured (or designed) to make competence need satisfaction and flow more likely.
What are the three elements of a highly structured learning environment
- clear expectations
- guidance
- feedback
How can you tip the balance of an experience away from incompetence to competence when learning new skills?
by offering clear expectations, progress, enabling-guidance and constructive feedback.
what does constructive feedback help people do?
adjust and reorganize their strategies and performances into a clear path to future progress.
what one hallmark of optimal challenge
success and failure are equally likely.
when are people most likely to seek out optimal challenges
When there social environments are autonomy-supportive and failure-tolerant, rather than controlling and failure-intolerant (failure teaches more than success).
error tolerance, failure tolerance and risk taking rest on
the beleif that we learn more from our failure than we do from successes.
three constructive features of failure producing unique opportunities
- Failure urges people to identify its causes (and its eventual remedy)
- Failure prompts people to revise and update the quality of their coping strategies
- Failure prompts people to recognize their need for advice and instruction.
Relatedness
psychological need to establish close emotional bonds and attachments with other people, and it reflects the desire to be emotionally connected to and interpersonally involved in warm relationships. Relatedness is the psychological need to care and to feel cared for, to love and to feel loved. We want to matter in the lives of others, to be seen as significant in their eyes, to be appreciated, and to have other people care about and take an interest in what we say, do, and believe.
What are the hallmarks of relatedness
- feeling socially connected
- both giving and receiving care
- benevolence to those people (and social organizations) we deem to be significant in our lives.
What are people looking for in a need-satisfying relationship
- opportunity to relate the self to another person in an authentic, caring, reciprocal and emotionally meaningful way.
Once people form social bonds they are
generally reluctant to break them.
What are the active ingredients that produce relatedness satisfaction?
-other person understands me and offers and acceptance to support the self. and this is true even during conflict or disagreement
What is the specific relationship mechanism most responsible for a deep sense of relatedness satisfaction
perceived partner responsiveness
Responsiveness
is the process by which a person comes to beleive that a relationship partner gives their full attention, understanding and support.
Key characteristics to a supportive response
- understanding
- validation
- caring
Understanding
he partner accurately and appropriately “gets the facts right” about what one is saying, feeling, and wanting. Understanding communicates authenticity in the relationship.
Validation
the partner values and appreciates one’s personal characteristics and worldview. Validation communicates liking and acceptance.
Caring
the partner sends a message of confidence that he or she will provide help when it is needed. Caring communicates a concern for one’s well-being.
What is required for a social bond to be satisfying
The social bond needs to be characterised by the perceptions of the other person
- cares about my wlefare
- likes me, but more that caring and liking, relationships that deeply satisfy the need for relatedness are those steeped in the knowldge that ones ‘true self-or ones ‘authentic self’- has been shown and deemed to be important in the eyes of the another person.
What is important when it comes to relatedness
Quality not quantity
relatedness supporting or relatedness support
When relationships tap into, nurture, and satisfy a persons need for relatedness
Relatedness support (teacher provided)
- individualized conversation
- task support
- cooperation and teamwork
- demonstrating awareness
- showing care
- friendly communication
Exchange relationships
Those between aqyatences or between people who do business together
communal relationships
those that are between persons who care about the welfare of the other, as exemplified by friendships, family and romantic relationships.
What distinguishes exchange and communal relationships?
the implicit rules that guide the giving and receiving of benefits, such as money, help, and emotional support
- in exchange relationships no obligation exists between interactions to be concerned with the other persons needs or welfare
- ONLY COMMUNAL RELATIONSHIPS SATISFY THE RELATEDNESS NEED.
benefits from relatedness need satisfaction
In terms of personal growth, people function better, are more resilient to stress, and report greater self-esteem and fewer psychological difficulties when their interpersonal relationships support their need for relatedness
Why does relatedness need satisfaction promote such positive functioning
because relatedness to others provides the social context in which internalization occurs. When a person feels emotionally connected to and interpersonally involved with another, then he or she believes the other person is truly looking out for his or her welfare, relatedness is high, and internalization occurs willingly. Contrarily, when a person feels emotionally distant from and inter personally neglected by another, then he or she believes the other person does not care, relatedness is low, and internalization rarely occurs.
how does having relatedness needs satisfied affect health
being loved, respected, protected, cared for, and having one’s needs met affects the vasopressin and oxytocin systems. The vasopressin and oxytocin hormones regulate social bonding, stress regulation, and emotional reactivity
how does having relatedness needs satisfied affect well-being
people who experience a steady stream of relatedness need satisfaction in their relationships and in their lives are consistently happier, more enthusiastic, and less stressed, anxious, depressed, and lonely than are those who experience a dearth of relatedness need satisfaction
Autonomy environmental condition that involves the need
opportunities for self-direction. and the condition that satisfies the need is autonomy support
Competence environmental condition that involves the need
optimal challenge and the condition that satisfies is guidance and feedback.
Relatedness environmental condition that involves the need
social interaction. the condition that satisfies it is partner responsiveness.
Engagement
represents how actively involved in an activity the person is, such as when learning in school or practicing skills in music or sports. When highly engaged, people show behavioral engagement (on-task attention, effort, persistence), emotional engagement (interest, enjoyment), cognitive engagement (strategic thinking, sophisticated learning strategies), and agentic engagement (constructive contributions into the flow of the activity)
What are the conditions under which people show high and low engagement (three psychological needs)
1) autonomy support enhances engagement because it involves and satisfies the need for autonomy
2. structure enhances engagement because it involves and satisfies the need for competence
3. involvement enhances engagement because it involves and satisfies the need for relatedness.
What makes for a good day
the satisfaction of psychological needs (autonomy, competence and relatedness) The conclusion is that moment-to-moment and daily fluctuations in need satisfaction promote and enable well-being while need frustration disrupts it.
Vitality
is the energy that is available to the self. vitality is a rather clear signal that our psychological needs are being met and we are well
Implicit Motives
enduring (trait-like), nonconscious needs that influence what the person thinks about, feels, and does, and these needs motivate the person toward the pursuit and attainment of specific social incentives. Implicit means unconscious—without conscious awareness. An implicit motive is a psychological need that is implied or inferred from the person’s characteristic thought, emotions, and behavior.
Explicit Motives
are peoples conscious, readily accessible, and verbally stated motivators. Explicit motives are assessed with self-report questionnaires
What are implicit motives for achievement based on
Ones emotional reactions during a challenging task and whether you really emotionally want to persist in the face of failure.
The difference between implicit and explicit measures
with explicit measures measures people describe themselves (e.g. “I like challenges”) , while implicit motives are inferred from what people write in response to the picture cuse on the PSE
When it comes to predicting peoples behavior which motives do a better job
implicit motives
David McClelland twofold conclusion
1) implicit motives are unconcious and cannot be measured by self-report
2. implicit motives predicted peoples behavior and performance, whereas explicit motives predicted only peoples attitudes and values.
Attitude
Evaluation of an object, person, place, thing or idea. it is a judgement of good versus bad, like versus dislike, pleasant versus unpleasant. like motivators, attitudes are both implicit and explicit.and we can have conflicting implicit and explicit attitudes towards the same object.
Implicit Association Test (IAT)
measures attitudes that people are unwilling (or willing) to report, and the IAT is especially insightful when it reveals implicit attitude that you did not know you had.
Social needs
originate from preferences gained through experience and socialization.
When does the development of implicit motives begin
Very early childhood and continues throughout life.
Implicit motives are mostly reactive in nature
They remain dormant within us until we encounter a potentially need-satisfying incentive that activates a particular pattern of emotionally .
What is the core of implicit motives
the desire for particular affective (emotional) experiences.
High achievment strivings
Feel interest, joy, arousal, excitement, and a sense of opportunity when given a difficult challenge that offers immediate diagnostic feedback about your performance. Feel happy when pursuing goals such as winning, diagnosing personal competence, and improving the self, as often happens in sports and various domains of risk-taking (e.g., investing in stocks, entrepreneurship). You feel excited and energized by standards of excellence and when evaluating your performance against personal standards.
High affiliation strivings
Feel calmness accompanied by warm, positive affect in situations that offer comfort and interpersonal security. Feel happy when pursuing activities such as cuddling (family in bed together on a Saturday morning) or just relaxing with a close friend at the coffee shop or beach. You feel a calm, satisfying joy when you are in close contact with others and when forming and maintaining positive personal relationships.
High power strivings
Feel strong, sharp arousal spikes that generate a burst of epinephrine, testosterone, and increased blood pressure and muscle tone. Feel happy when pursuing activities such as riding a roller coaster and making a persuasive speech in front of a large audience. You feel strong and empowered during social influence attempts, when attaining high social status, when in a position of leadership, and when dominating and directing others.
Achievement
The need for achievement is the desire to do well relative to a standard of excellence. It is the individual’s unconscious, but frequently recurring, preference to feel positive affect upon improving his or her performance, making progress on a challenging task, and experiencing “success in competition with a standard of excellence”
What do all types of achievement have in common
The person has encountered a standard of excellence and has been energized by it, largely because he or she knows that the forthcoming performance will produce an emotionally meaningful evaluation of personal competence
A standard of excellence needs to be defined broadly to include
not only meeting an explicit standard of excellence as determined by others, because it also includes attaining a personal best and even a subjective experience that one did indeed rise to a challenge. That said, there are two outcomes that follow a competition with a standard of excellence; success or failure.
How do individuals when facing standards of excellence people high in the need for achievement respond
oriented emotions such as hope, pride, and anticipatory gratification.
How do individuals when facing standards of excellence people low in the need for achievement
generally respond with avoidance-oriented emotions such as anxiety, defense, and the fear of failure.
When confronting a standard of excellence how do people show differences
in choice, latency, effort, persistence, and the willingness to take personal responsibility for the ensuing success/failure outcome. High-need achievers, compared to low-need achievers, choose moderately difficult to difficult versions of tasks instead of easy versions. they quickly engage in achievement-related tasks rather than procrastinate, they show more effort and better performance because pride energizes them; they persist in the face of difficulty and failure on moderately difficult tasks and they take a personal responsibility for successes and failures rather than seeking help or advice from others
Standards of excellence offer a two-edged sword
- Standard excellence simultaneously arouses in people both the desire to approach it and do well and the desire to avoid it and not embarrass oneself. These same standards of excellence also bring us anxiety, and we react with avoidance emotions and strong disengagement behavior (although the fear of failure can also motivate effort and persistence as the person strives to avoid or escape from punishing shame and guilt).
Origins of the need of achievement
- Social influences
- Developmental influences
Social influences
Children develop relatively strong achievement strikings when their parents provide the following
- Independent training
- high performance aspirations
- realistic standards of excellence
- high ability self-concepts
- a positive valuing of achievement-related pursuits
- explicit standards of excellence
- a home environment rich in stimulation potential
- a wide scope of experiences such as traveling, and exposure to children’s readers rich in achievement imagery
Developmental influences
Children are not born with pride or shame; neither is an an innate emotion. instead pride emerges from a developmental history of success episodes ending in mastery and task success; shame emerges from a developmental history of failure episodes ending in ridicule. Developmentally, we learn to be pride-prone or shame-prone when facing a standard of excellence.
Atkinson’s Model
Atkinson’s theory features four variables: achievement behavior and its three predictors-need for achievement, probability of success, and incentive for success. Achievement behavior is defined as the tendency to approach success, abbreviated as Ts. The three determining factors of Ts are (1) the strength of a person’s need for achievement (Ms, motive to succeed), (2) the perceived probability of success (Ps), and (3) the incentive value of success (Is).
Atkinson’s formula
Ts=Ms x Ps x Is
- Ms corresponds to the persons need for achievement
- Ps is estimated from the perceived difficulty of the task and from the persons perceived ability at that task
Tendency to avoid failure
Just as people have a need for achievement, they also have a motive to avoid failure, The tenancy to avoid failure motivates the individual to defend against the loss of self-esteem, the loss of social respect, and the fear of embarrassment
Tenancy to avoid failure equation
Taf = Maf x Pf x If
- Maf represents the motive to avoid failure
- Pf represents the probability of failure.
- If represents the negative incentive of failure
What achievement strikings predict
People tend to experience interest and satisfaction for attaining standards of excellence only when they seek achievement for their own sake. They do not derive intrinsic pleasure and satisfaction from attaining excellence that has been externally set or prescribed by others. High achievers also have a strong preference for those achievement tasks that offer concrete, direct, task-related, and immediate performance feedback, largely because they use such feedback as a means to make progress and to improve their future performances.
Future achievement orientation
refers to an individuals psychological distance from a long term achievement goal. It is the degree to which the individual anticipates and integrates the future into his or her psychological present. The importance of future achievement orientation is that, other things being equal, any achievement goal perceived far away in time receives less approach-versus-avoidance weight than does a goal in the very near future. That means future goals generate less approach than do immediate goals.
Investigation is Ts
Investigation causes a rise in approach tenancies; it is the amount of motivation to do something
Inhibition is Taf
Inhibition causes a rise in avoidance tendencies; it is the amount of motivation to not do something
Investigation and inhibition are synonyms for Ts and Taf
The one new variable in the dynamics-of-action model is consummation
Three situations involve and satisfy the need for achievement
- Moderately difficult tasks
- competition
- entrepreneurship
Moderately difficult tasks
Emotionally moderately difficult tasks provide an arena for best testing skills and experiencing emotions such as pride and satisfaction. Cognitively, moderately difficult tasks provide an arena for best diagnosing one’s sense of competence and level of ability.
Competition
Interpersonal competition captures much of the risk-taking dilemma inherent in achievement settings. it promotes positive emotion, approach behavior, and improved performance in high-need achievers, but negative emotion, avoidance behaviors and debilitated performance in low-need achievers.
Entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurship appeals to the high-need achiever because i requires taking moderate risks and assuming personal responsibility for ones successes and failures. t also provides concrete, rapid performance feedback (e.g., moment-to-moment profits and losses), feedback that generates emotions such as pride and satisfaction, and feedback that allows one to continuously diagnose personal competence and rate of improvement. High-need achievers prefer just about any occupation that offers challenge, independent work, personal responsibility, and rapid performance feedback
Affiliation
Establishing, maintaining, or restoring a positive, affective relationship with another person or persons. People with high-need affiliation tend to interact with others so to avoid negative emotions, such as rejection and anger
Dark side of affiliation
because it is mostly about a fear of rejection, while the need for intimacy has its bright side, because it is mostly about an attraction to warm, close relationships. The full picture of affiliation strivings includes a theoretical conceptualization that includes both its positive and negative aspects.
What is the best predictor of high affiliation strikings in adults?
parental neglect.
What do high intimacy individuals show
they are happy, well adjusted, and pleasant to be around.
Conditions that involve affiliation and intimacy duality
- deprivation from social interaction (loneliness, rejection and separation) raise the need or desire to be with others.
Fear and anxiety
Social isolation and fear-arousing conditions are two situation’s that increase a persons desire to affiliate with others.
Establishing Interpersonal networks
To form new friendships, people with a high need for intimacy typically spend time interacting with others, join social groups, and establish stable and long lasting relationships
Maintaining interpersonal relationships
Once a relationship has been established, individuals with a high need for affiliation-involving either affiliation or intimacy motivations-strive to maintain those relationships by making more telephone calls and paying more visits to their friends, than those with a low need for affiliation.
Conditions that satisfy the affiliation need
Because it is largely a growth-oriented motive, people satisfy the need for intimacy through achieving a closeness and warmth in a relationship, hence people high in the need for intimacy more frequently touch others, cultivate deeper and more meaningful relationships, find satisfaction in listening and self-disclosure and smile, laugh and make eye contact more during face-to-face interactions.Such laughing, smiling, and looking lead others to rate high-intimacy-need persons as relatively warm, sincere, and loving human beings. Relatedness within a warm, close, reciprocal, and enduring relationship constitutes the need-satisfying condition for people high in the need for intimacy.
Power
The essense of the need for power is the desire to make the physical and social world conform to ones personal image or plan for it. people high in the need for power desire to have ‘impact, control, or influence over another person, group, or world at large’’
- impact allows power-needing individuals to establish power
- control allows power-needing individuals to maintain power
- influence allows power-needing individuals ti expand their power.
What do power strivings centre around
the need for dominance, reputation, status, or position. High-power-strivings individuals not only seek out opportunities for dominance, reputation, status, and social position, but they also find deep emotional satisfaction in being recognized and praised for these power-motive behaviors and outcomes. High-power-need individuals seek to become (and stay) leaders, and they interact with others with a forceful, take-charge style. When they do attain positions of leadership, they feel satisfied and accomplished. This can be seen in high-power-striving individuals’ preference for highly competitive sports (e.g., hockey, wrestling) that offer both an opportunity to exercise power and to attain public recognition for effectively enacting power and influencing others
Conditions that involve and satisfy the need for power
- leadership
- drinking alcohol
- aggression
- influential occupations
- prestige possessions
Leadership and relationships
People with a high need for power seek recognition in groups and find ways for making themselves visible to others, apparently in an effort to establish influence. They argue more frequently with their professors, and they show an eagerness in getting their points across in the classroom
Drinking alcohol
Drinking alcohol is an opportunity to involve and even accentuate one’s need for power (Fodor, 2010). When people drink, they generally report feeling stronger and less inhibited. Thus, people who have strong power motivation typically find drinking alcohol to be a gateway to enhanced personal dominance. It is also a gateway to become disinhibited from social constraints, and particularly to be released from those social constraints that involve aggression and exploitive sex.
Aggression
If the need for power involves desires for impact, control, and influence, then aggression ought to be one means for both involving and satisfying one’s power needs. To some extent, the relationship between the need for power and aggression holds true, as men high in power strivings do get into more arguments and do participate more frequently in competitive sports. However, the relationship between the need for power and aggression is diluted because society largely controls and inhibits people’s acts of overt aggressi on. Societal inhibitions and restraints largely constrain the power-seeking person’s expression of aggression, but when societal inhibitions are removed, high-power-need men are more aggressive than are their low-power-need counterparts
Influential occupations
People high in the need for power are attracted to occupations such as business executives, teachers/professors, psychologists, journalists, clergy, and international diplomats (Winter, 1973). Each of these occupations shares a common denominator in that the person in the occupational role is in the position to direct the behavior of other people in accordance with some preconceived plan.
Prestige possessions
People high in the need for power tend to amass a collection of power symbols, or “prestige possessions”. Power-seeking individuals are more likely to own a rifle or pistol, a convertible car, or a truck that exudes status and power
Goal pursuit and perspective taking
One strength of the need for power is a laser focus on their goals. Individuals high in the need for power more readily acquire the goals and outcomes they seek than do individuals low in the need for power. Power increases approach tendencies and decreases inhibitory tendencies. High power and taking action simply go together
What is a weakness of the need for power
One weakness of the need for power is that it reduces the person’s perspective taking ability
Is the implicit power motive bad?
People high in the need for power typically harbor inclinations that are both benevolent and malevolent toward others. Like a superhero, they strive to improve the world. But, like a villain, they strive to make everyone their servant.
Leadership Motive pattern
A special variant of the need for power is the leadership motive pattern. Leadership motivation consists of the following threefold pattern: (1) high need for power, (2) low need for affiliation, and (3) high inhibition (McClelland, 1982). Thus, the leadership motive pattern features individuals who desire to exercise influence, are not concerned with being liked, and are well controlled or self-disciplined.
Compassionate leadership
the contemporary compassionate leadership profile is characterized by high power, high affiliation, and high inhibition
Five variables define presidential effectiveness
Direct presidential -actions (e.g., entering and avoiding war) -Perceived greatness -Performance on social issues -Performance on economic issues -International relations
Four additional social needs
- cognition
- need for closure
- need for structure
- uncertainty orientation.
