Social Motivators: Key Drivers of Human Behavior

Motives

Motives can be of two types, that is, biological motives and social motives.

Social Motivation

Social motivation is a set of social drives that are complex motive states or needs to be born out of many human actions. The social motives are learned in social groups. A great deal of human behavior is under the control of social motivation.

Characteristics of social motives

• Social motives are general, persisting characteristics of a person.
• As they are learned, their strengths may vary from person to person.
• These form important components of personality.

Theories of Social Motivation

There are three main theories of social motivation which can be remembered using the Mnemonic- 3 M’s. these ‘M’ stand for:

• Murray’s list of needs
• Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
• Mc Clelland’s theory of needs

We shall now read about the theories in detail.

Murray's list of needs

Murray’s list of needs were given by Murray et al in 1938. They include social motives such as:

• Abasement: It includes the need to surrender, to comply and accept punishment. It also includes apologizing and confessing.
• Achievement: It includes the need to overcome obstacles, to exercise power. People with these needs strive to do something difficult.
• Affiliation: It includes the need to form friendships and associations, to greet, join and live with others, and to converse socially with others. It also includes the need to join groups.
• Aggression: It includes the need to assault or injure another. Further, it includes the need to belittle, harm, blame, accuse or ridicule a person.
• Autonomy: This includes the need to resist influence, to defy an authority, to seek freedom in a new place and to strive for independence.
• Counteraction: It includes the need to refuse admission of defeat with pride. People with the need to counteract will select the hardest tasks and will defend one’s honor in action.
• Defense: It includes the need to defend oneself against blame or belittlement. Also, it includes the need to justify one’s actions.
• Deference: It includes the need to admire and willingly follow a superior allied person. It includes the need to cooperate with a leader.
• Dominance: It includes the need to influence or control others and to lead and direct others.
• Exhibition: It includes the need to attract the attention of one's person. People with exhibition needs will excite, amuse, stir, shock, and thrill others.
• Harm-avoidance: It includes the need to avoid pain, physical injury, illness, and death. It also includes the need to escape from a dangerous situation and to take precautionary measures.
• Infavoidance: It includes the need to avoid failure, shame, humiliation, and ridicule. Also, it includes the need to refrain from attempting to do something that is beyond one’s powers. Lastly, it includes the need to conceal a disfigurement.
• Nurturance: It includes the need to nourish, and or protect helpless others. It also includes the need to express sympathy and to mother a child.
• Order: It includes the need to arrange, organize and to put away objects. It also includes the need to be tidy, clean and precise.
• Rejection: People with this need will snub, ignore or exclude others. It includes the need to be aloof and indifferent. These people discriminate with others.
• Sentience: It includes the need to seek and enjoy sensuous impressions.
• Play: It includes the need to relax, amuse oneself, and seek diversion and entertainment. It also includes the need to laugh, joke, and to merry. It also includes the need to avoid tension. People with play needs want to play and have fun.

Mc Clelland's Theory of needs

• David Mc Clelland proposed that a person’s specific needs are acquired over time and are shaped by one’s life experiences.
• Most of the needs can be classified as: (mnemonic: APA)
  • Achievement
  • Power
  • Affiliation
• He suggested that a person's motivation and effectiveness in certain job functions are influenced by these needs. This theory is also known as the need theory or learned need theory.
• Need for achievement (nAch): These people seek excellence and thus, they avoid low risk and high-risk situations.
• Need for power (nPow): These people want to direct others. These people are concerned with having impact, reputation and influence over others.
• Need for affiliations (nAff): These people have the need for harmonious relationships with others and have a need to feel accepted by other people.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

• Maslow described the needs as a hierarchy or ladder, that is, some needs come before the other needs.
• He explained the relations among the motives.
• For instance, if there is a winter night, and a medical resident is feeling hungry as well as he has some important topics to cover, the question here is will that medical resident be able to focus on studying empty stomach? The need to study may be overcome by hunger and feeling cold.
• The outcome here is basic needs come over the other needs.
• The theory suggests that human motives may exist in hierarchy.
• At the base, there are physiological needs such as food, water, oxygen, sleep and sex.
• Once physiological needs are fulfilled, then there are safety needs such as need for safety, security, and stability.
• Once these two are fulfilled, then the need for belongingness forms a major component. These are social needs, that is, need for a friend or loved one. There is also a need for affiliation.
• Then, the next one in the hierarchy are the esteem needs. These include self-esteem, approval of others, and the need to succeed.
• The topmost in the hierarchy are the self-actualization needs, these form the need for self-fulfillment. It is referred to as the individual needing to develop his personality or to do what a person is capable of doing.
• The lower three needs are deficiency needs and the upper two are growth needs.

Measurement of Social Motives

Social motives can be measured by the following tools:

1. Projective Tests

• An ambiguous stimulus is shown, and the imaginative action is recorded.
• People often project their own feelings or needs into ambiguous and unstructured material.
• One of such projective standardized tests is the thematic apperception test (TAT).
  • It contains a standardized set of pictures depicting various people in situations.
  • The person is asked to make up stories describing what is happening in the pictures. The person is instructed to look at the picture and write about what must have happened before the picture, what is happening, and what could be possible future actions.
  • For instance, in an image containing a boy with a violin, the story could be that he wishes to be a good violist and thus, is preparing for future accomplishments. This suggests a need for accomplishment.  Other individuals may say that the boy loves the violin and is playing for people, thus indicating a need for sentience.

2. Pencil and Paper Questionnaires or Inventories

• It comprise of a list of questions based on how a person will act in certain situations.
• These consist of standard questions about typical behaviors and preferences, and through the answers, the social motivates are judged.

3. Situational Tests

• The person is put under certain situations and the behavior is noted down.
• It involved creating situations in which a person's actions will reveal their dominant motives.
• For instance, the need for affiliation may be measured by giving a choice such as whether the person can wait in a room with other people or alone.

Motives

Achievement Motivation

NAch was one of the first social motives that was studied. People with a strong need to achieve something, seek to become accomplished and improve their performance. Individuals are task-oriented and work on challenging tasks, where they can be evaluated. NAch is mostly learned and is influenced by early life experiences and parent’s expectations for children. Fear of failure inhibits expression of achievement behavior. Thus, people with high fear of failure may have low need for achievement. High nAch people:

• They prefer to work on moderately challenging tasks, which ensure success.
• They like tasks, where performance can be compared to others, and they like feedback on how they are doing.
• They will persist on tasks, which are perceived as career-related or reflect personal characteristics involved in getting ahead.
• When successful, there are increased levels of aspiration in a realistic way.
• They like to work in conditions where they have control over outcomes.

In society, there is a high need for achievement correlated with various indices of economic growth.They come before spurts in economic growth and thus, predicts them.

Power Motivation

It is also called need of power or nPower. Social power is the ability or capacity of a person to produce (consciously or unconsciously) intended effects on behaviors, and emotions of another person. It was described as Winter, in 1973. The goal is to influence, control, persuade, lead, and charm others. Also, it aims to enhance one’s own reputation in the eyes of other people. People with strong power motivation derive satisfaction from achieving their goals. It varies in strength between individuals. It is measured using a picture projection test (TAT). It can be expressed in various ways. The manner of expression depends on the person’s-

• Socioeconomic status
• Sex/gender
• Level of maturity
• Degree to which an individual fears his own power motivation

It can be expressed in various ways, such as

• Impulsive and aggressive acts
• Participation in competitive sports
• Joining organizations and holding offices there
• Among men, power motivation is expressed by drinking and sexually dominating women.
• Possessions, such as fancy cars, guns, and credit cards
• Associating with people not popular with others (more easily controlled)
• Choosing occupations such as business, teaching, clergy, etc. 
• Building and disciplining their bodies

Machiavellianism

Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527) gave practical advice to rulers to maintain power, in his book, “The Prince”. The rulers should outwardly follow rules of conventional morality, but secretly craft deceitful practices. Machiavellianism was coined by Christie and Geis in 1970, to describe people who express their power motivation by manipulating and exploiting others in a deceptive and unscrupulous fashion.

Machiavels may show little warmth in their personal relationships; however, they are reality oriented, that is interested in practical results. They have little interest in ideologies.

Dark Triad Trait

The traits were first published by Delroyl Paulhus and Kevin M. Williams (2002).  Narcissism, machiavellianism and psychopathy are overlapping traits. Psychopathy refers to anti-social behaviors.

Narcissism refers to exploitative and manipulative behaviors with high self-importance. If there are high degrees of these traits present, then it indicates high chances of involvement in criminal activities and social distress.

Human Aggression

It refers to intent to harm or otherwise injure another person.

Effectance Motivation

Humans are programmed to seek stimulation. Most of the individuals seem to have a need to seek new or novel stimuli(different outcome than what we actually. Stimulus and exploration needs can be seen as attempts to be competent in dealing with the environment. Effectance motivation is a general motive to act competitively and effectively when interacting with the environment (White, 1959).

It plays an important role in human behaviors. Goals are reached,  but effectance motivation is not satisfied, it remains, to urge behavior towards new competencies and masteries. For example, once a child has learned how to sit, now wishes to walk, after learning how to walk, wishes to run.

To read more about social motives topics like Sensation Seeking, Intrinsic Motivation and Extrinsic Motivation sign up for the Residency psychiatry course on the PrepLadder App.

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Self Handicapping

This is a strategy that people use to buffer themselves against reductions in intrinsic motivations. The person provides themselves with ready explanations for poor performance before performing the task, such as, I am not feeling that good today. The goal is to explain any poor performance, which could reduce our intrinsic motivation.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Who described the power motivation theory and when?

Answer: Winter in the year 1973 described the power motivation theory.

Q: Which type of people seek excellence and avoid high risk and low risk according to the Mc Clelland theory of needs?

Answer: Need for achievement (nAch) type of people.

Q: What is abasement?

Answer: It includes the need to surrender, to comply and accept punishment. It also includes apologizing and confessing.

Q: What are biological motives?

Answer: Biological motives are also known as primary or innate motives. They are based on physiological conditions, for example, hunger, thirst, and sex.

Hope you found this blog helpful for your Psychiatry residency Basic Sciences preparation. For more informative and interesting posts like these, keep reading PrepLadder’s blogs.