Friday, August 24, 2007

McClellands Theory of Needs


Thanks James for giving me the tip off.

David McClelland's theory of needs seemed to link very nicely to my previous blog "Some thoughts on prejudice." Although he did use his theory more in the context of the work place, I was very interested in seeing where some links could be made to the origins of prejudice.

According to McClelland, humans have 3 types of motivational needs.

  • Achievement- need for progress and accomplishment

  • Authority- directing and organising other

  • Affiliation- feeling accepted, being a part of something

McCelland suggests a persons motivations are effected by these three needs. Some people may have a higher need for achievement, where others my have a higher need for affiliation and others for authority. These 3 motivational needs are not bad motivations to have, as they all call be used beneficially. However, I can see some links to how these innate motivation drives can influence discrimination. I'd thought I use this as a chance to work out how to do a concept map. I hope you can follow.

I hope you can read it. As I was creating the map, I could see areas that interlink with other areas such as winners & losers and group memebership. I wasnt sure how to get the lines to join accross the map. Anyway this was my first attempt.

If you want to read more about McClelland's theory of needs here are some links

2 comments:

Jessica said...

Hi Kara,

I think you have made a good link here between prejudice and McClelland's theory of motivation. I am in the process of writing my blog on the social self, and I was thinking about covering McClelland's theory, so I found your post to be quite insightful, with the background readings very helpful. Personally, I have found myself motivated particularly by the needs for achievement and affiliation throughout my life. I find my motives and needs are constantly changing though, where one minute I might have a strong need for affiliation, then it might switch to a need for authority! It is definately an interesting theory which provides scope into social behaviour, so thanks for sharing it.

P.S. Your concept map is readable and beautifully presented.

James Neill said...

Hi Kara,

This is great to see your ideas unfolding and developing.

What did you use to create your map? (It is well presented and readable as Jessica said).

The italics are a bit hard to read - that might be the template. You could switch templates, but if you want to keep the look and feel and only change the text to normal, it is possible to just edit that in the stylesheet. Email me if you want a hand with that.