Inhaltszusammenfassung

Motivational psychology distinguishes between two kinds of motives: self-attributed or explicit motives that are part of people’s self-descriptions and implicit motives that are basically unconscious. Implicit motives represent the first motivational system to be shaped during ontogeny and have far-reaching consequences for individuals’ feelings and behavior across different cultures. They are measured by so-called Picture Story Exercises (PSE) in which participants can express personal fanta...Motivational psychology distinguishes between two kinds of motives: self-attributed or explicit motives that are part of people’s self-descriptions and implicit motives that are basically unconscious. Implicit motives represent the first motivational system to be shaped during ontogeny and have far-reaching consequences for individuals’ feelings and behavior across different cultures. They are measured by so-called Picture Story Exercises (PSE) in which participants can express personal fantasies without any self-reference or restriction to actual life contexts. These methods are better qualified for assessing contents of preverbal developmental phases and manifestations of unconscious affective dispositions than explicit self-reports on conscious motivational entities such as peoples’ values, goals, and beliefs. In this chapter, we will (a) give reasons why implicit measures have incremental value for cross-cultural investigations, and (b) how methodological advances in implicit motive research over the last two decades have contributed to making their assessment psychometrically sound, and include an overview of current developments. We provide evidence for their validity and applicability by giving an overview of findings reported in the literature. A focus will be put on findings of the significance of implicit motives for individuals’ behavior and psychological processes gained in our own empirical studies in evolutionary, developmental, and cross-cultural psychology. We conclude that if we are to do a better job at understanding and predicting universal and culture-specific aspects of behavior by individuals’ motives both within and across cultural groups, we need to supplement our typical reliance on self-report measures with implicit measures of motives.» weiterlesen» einklappen

Autoren

Klassifikation

DFG Fachgebiet:
Psychologie

DDC Sachgruppe:
Psychologie