Task-Intrinsic and Social-Extrinsic Sources of Arousal for Motives Assessed in Fantasy and Self-Report

• Published in: Journal of personality 1991-03, Vol.59 (1), p.57-82
• Main Authors: Koestner, Richard, Weinberger, Joel, McClelland, David C.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Behavior; Biological and medical sciences; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Motivation; Personality; Personality. Affectivity; Psychology; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Social research
• ISSN: 0022-3506; 1467-6494
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-6494.1991.tb00768.x

ABSTRACT A review of the literature on individual differences in motive dispositions points toward the importance of distinguishing between motives as assessed in fantasy and self‐report. We proposed that these two modes of assessment have identified independent motivational systems that influence behavior in different ways. Two experiments were designed to show that the two kinds of motives are unrelated to one another and are aroused by different factors in a performance situation. It was hypothesized that motives as assessed from fantasy (seen as implicit needs) are primarily aroused by factors intrinsic to the process of performing an activity, whereas motives obtained through self‐report inventories (seen as self‐attributed needs) are aroused by social factors that are extrinsic to the process of performing an activity (e.g., the way in which a task is presented by an experimenter). In the first experiment, performance on a memory task was shown to depend on the interaction of subjects' self‐reported motive for achievement with achievement‐arousing instructions, whereas performance on a word‐finding puzzle depended on the interaction of subjects' fantasy need for achievement with the puzzle's level of intrinsic challenge. A second experiment generalized these findings to the power domain.