Linking Motives and Emotions: A Test of McClelland's Hypotheses

Abstract

McClelland (1985) hypothesized that motives and emotions are linked in specific ways, with each primary emotion relevant to only one motive. Two studies were generally supportive of the specific links hypothesized by McClelland. In Study 1, participants visualized success at satisfying each of three motives (achievement, affiliation-intimacy, and power); after each visualization, they reported their emotional state. As predicted, levels of interest and surprise were high after the achievement visualization but levels of excitement and focus were also high. Happiness and love were high after the affiliation-intimacy visualization (as predicted) but happiness was also high after the achievement visualization. Levels of anger, disgust, and confusion were highest after the power visualization. In Study 2, participants recalled instances of happiness, sadness, anger, and feeling challenged. Anger stories were most likely to be about power, sadness stories about affiliation-intimacy, and challenge stories about achievement. The most frequent happiness stories were about either affiliation-intimacy or achievement.

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