Week 2 Flashcards
A need
An internal state that’s less than satisfactory, a lack of something necessary for well-being.
Why are needs directive?
They are directive in two senses.
First, when you have a need, it concerns something in particular. When you need water, you don’t just need; you need water. Needs thus pertain to classes of goal objects or events.
Needs are also directive in that they create movement either toward the object or away from it.
Motives
David McClelland (1984), an important contributor to this view of personality, said motives are clusters of cognitions with affective overtones, organized around preferred experiences and goals.
Motives appear in your thoughts and preoccupations. The thoughts pertain to goals that are either desired or undesired. Thus, they are emotionally toned. Motives are what eventually produce actions.
Press
A press (plural is also press) is an external condition that prompts a desire to get (or avoid) something. It thus has a motivational influence, just as a need does.
Motivational Disposition
Natural tendencies for a particular motivation to be higher/lower much more of the time.
apperception
perceiving stimuli in light of one’s own experiences and motives.
The idea that people do this readily led to the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)
Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) (and collective term for studies like it)
you view a set of pictures and are asked to create a story about each one. The pictures are ambiguous. Your story is supposed to describe what’s happening, the characters’ thoughts and feelings, the relationship among characters (if there’s more than one), and the outcome of the situation. The key assumption is this: Through apperception, the themes that emerge in your stories will reflect your implicit motives.
The procedure in its various forms is now often referred to as the “picture story exercise” (PSE)
diagnosticity
The extent to which a task provides information about something
Need for achievement
The need to overcome obstacles and attain goals.
Tends to be driven by diagnosticity about the self
Need for power
The motive to have impact on others, to have prestige, to feel strong compared to others.
How does stress relate to motives?
Stress seems to follow when the outcome isn’t the one you’re motivated for or accustomed to.
Which need for power (male) individual is more likely to increase in testosterone after a success and a experience a greater reduction in it after failure? (high or low)
High
Need for affiliation
The motive is to spend time with others and form friendly social ties.
Need for intimacy
The desire to experience warm, close, and communicative exchanges with another person, to feel close to another person.
Inhibited power motivation pattern
This pattern combines a low need for affiliation with a high need for power, in conjunction with the tendency to inhibit the expression of the latter.
Incentive:
the degree to which a given action can satisfy a need for you.
What (is a candidate that) determines which motivated act you’ll go with, when that motivation wins out?
Incentive
What’s McClelland’s view on the difference/interaction between motives and incentives?
In McClelland’s view, needs influence behavior primarily at a nonconscious level, whereas values influence the more conscious process of choice.
Implicit motive
What the PSE measures; motives that the person may or may not be aware of them. Implicit motives are primitive and automatic. Because they are basic, they are good predictors of broad behavioral tendencies over time.
Self-attributed (aka. explicit) motive
What’s measured by self-reports (also now termed explicit motive) on modified PSE. Close to ‘incentives’. Self-attributed motives relate to specific action goals. They tell how a person will act in a particular situation. For this reason, they’re better at predicting responses in structured settings.
Personology
The study of individual lives and the factors that influence their course.
Murray believed that personology was more meaningful than other approaches because of its emphasis on the person’s life history. According to Murray (1938), “the history of a personality is the personality” (p. 604).
is Murray’s preference nomothetic or idiographic?
idiographic
Questions to ask someone in PSE
What’s just happened to these people?
What’s the relationship between them?
What are their present thoughts and feelings?
What will be the outcome of the situation?
