John W. Atkinson

Explorations using computer simulation to comprehend thematic apperceptive measurement of motivation

The new theory of motivation by Atkinson and Birch (1970), based on conceptual analysis of a change in activity, has been programmed to allow computer simulation of effects of differences in motivation on the stream of operant behavior. Simulation of conditions that exist when people who differ in strength of achievement motive write imaginative stories in response to a sequence of pictures shows that construct validity does not require internal consistency as traditionally supposed. The theoretically deduced differences in total time spent imagining achieving (instead of something else) can postdict input differences in motive strength (i.e., construct validity) even when there is little or no internal consistency reliability as indicated by Cronbachs (1951) alpha computed from theoretically deduced time spent imagining achievement in response to particular pictures. This general point has already been amply documented in 25 years of productive empirical research using TATn Achievement. Now a definitive theoretical refutation of the repeated psychometric criticism of the method is provided. Those who have been moved “to dispel fantasies about fantasy-based measures of achievement motivation” (Entwistle, 1972) are invited, instead, to examine the shallow theoretical foudation of our traditional myths of measurement.

Some Neglected Variables in Contemporary Conceptions of Decision and Performance

Contemporary conceptions of the determinants of a tendency to perform a particular response are reviewed and found to be stimulus bound. They tend to attribute instigation to act in a certain way to the occurrence of a stimulus (external or internal) which serves to excite an otherwise latent associative mechanism like Habit or Expectancy in an organism implicitly assumed to be at rest. It is proposed that activity already in progress (initial activity) and the persistent effect of previously aroused but unsatisfied behavioral tendencies (inertial tendencies) be included in formal conceptions of the contemporaneous determinants of decision and performance. These suggestions follow from the premise that a living organism is constantly active and the assumption of inertia applied to behavioral tendencies.

Motivational Effects in So-Called Tests of Ability and Educational Achievement

The title identifies a confrontation between two ways of thinking about the very same behavioral phenomena that has been going on for some time. But now motivational psychology has caught up with test theory in the clarity, completeness, and coherence of a mathematical model of motivation and action called the dynamics of action (Atkinson & Birch, 1970, 1974, 1978). The next decade should produce a new understanding of the proper relationship between test theory, which is grounded in statistical considerations, and the new theory of motivation, which is grounded in more than a quarter of a century of research on the problem and psychological considerations.

Resistance and Overmotivation in Achievement-Oriented Activity

What is stressful in the everyday effort to achieve? We get two answers from experimental work that has been designed to sharpen our conception of how individual differences in personality influence motivation and its expression in action: viz., resistance and overmotivation.

The Achievement Motive.

This chapter is intended to tell how and why a thematic apperceptive measure of achievement motivation was developed and to explain the significance of the measure for current theory and research. Because space does not permit a systematic review of the hundreds of studies on this topic or an explication of the increasingly complex and technical theoretical developments, we have provided a list of major books dealing with achievement motivation at the end of this chapter. DERIVATION OF A FANTASY MEASURE The development of a measure of the need for achievement, labeled n Achievement or n Ach, using Murrays (1938) nomenclature, began with attempts to arouse achievement motivation by telling young men that performance tests they were taking would yield information about their general intelligence and leadership abilities, and then giving them feedback on how well or poorly they had done (McClelland, Atkinson, Clark, & Lowell, 1953). The unique effects of this type of arousal were examined in brief imaginative stories the men wrote afterward because previous research on hunger had demonstrated that such stories sensitively reflect varying degrees of motive arousal (Atkinson & McClelland, 1948). To arrive at an empirically justified system of content analysis, a scoring system was developed based on the differences between stories written under achievement arousal versus neutral testing conditions.