A Revised Coding System for Need for
Achievement
By Virginia Blankenship, Katherine
Romero,
Christopher M. Vega, Kathleen Keenan, and
Erica Ramos
Henry Murray proposed the need for achievement as one of his list of social
needs. He and Christina Morgan
developed the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) to measure social needs,
including the need for achievement (nAch). Research
participants and clients in psychological clinics were asked to write or tell a
story about what was going on in one of 19 ambiguous pictures (and one blank
card). When used in research on
motivation, the stories were analyzed for themes of achievement, power,
intimacy, or affiliation. Through
the years, alternative pictures have been developed to elicit motivation themes,
and the method has been renamed the Picture Story Exercise (PSE).
Recently, Blankenship et al. (2003) developed 10 new pictures for
eliciting achievement imagery and, in the process, revised the coding system for
nAch, first developed by McClelland, Atkinson, Lowell, and Clark in 1953.
In this manual we describe the revised method for scoring nAch from
stories written to new PSE pictures and provide examples and practice materials
for researcher assistants to learn the revised method.
The
New Pictures
Schultheiss and Brunstein (2001) studied six of the pictures commonly
used in motivation research and found that only two of them were good cues for
nAch. In order to increase the
number of pictures available, we developed 10 new pictures and tested their
difficulty level using the multifaceted Rasch model of measurement.
The 10 pictures we created are of a small group of graduating students,
two people running, one man kayaking, two scientists in a laboratory, two people
climbing a mountain, five people skydiving, one person star-gazing, one person
studying, three people performing a surgery, and one woman swimming.
None of the pictures had been used before except the picture of two
scientists in a laboratory, which was a re-drawing based on an older picture of
two women in a laboratory (Smith, 1992, p. 636).
However, the new picture was substantially changed with a man and a woman
in a laboratory. Throughout this
manual the pictures will be referred to as the Graduation, Runners, Kayaking,
Laboratory, Mountain Climbing, Skydiving, Star-gazing, Studying, Surgery, and
Swimming pictures.
Focus
of Coding: The Paragraph
Standard
procedure for administering the PSE is to show participants a picture and then
ask them to write a story in response to four probes: (1) "What is
happening? Who are the persons?" (2)
"What has led up to this situation? That is, what has happened in the past?"
(3) "What is being thought? What is wanted? By whom?" and (4)
"What will happen? What will be done?"
Typically, these probes are spaced evenly down the page with enough room
for the participant to write a paragraph in response to each probe.
In a recent study, Blankenship, et al. (2003) showed that the reliability
of the PSE could be greatly increased by scoring each paragraph for nAch, as
opposed to scoring the story as a whole. Thus,
the first change in the nAch coding system is that each paragraph of the PSE
story is coded separately and independently from the rest of the story.
In
the terms of the Rasch (1980) model of measurement, the paragraphs of the story
are the test "items" and these items vary in difficulty level.
In the case of the PSE difficulty of the items (or paragraphs) relates to
the probability of participants putting achievement imagery into the stories
they write in response to the picture and the probes on which the stories are
based. For example, the Swimming
picture elicits a lot of achievement imagery, especially in response to the
third probe: "What is being thought? What is wanted? By
whom?" Thus, the item
(paragraph) that is the combination of the Swimming picture and the third probe
is an easy item, one that elicits a lot of achievement imagery.
On the other hand, the Graduation picture elicits much less achievement
imagery, especially with the first probe, which asks: "What is happening?
Who are the persons?" This
combination of the Graduation picture and the first probe is a very difficult
item on the PSE test.
Whose
Actions are Coded?
In
coding the TAT/PSE story paragraphs, every character in the story is coded.
This is especially important when more than one person is pictured, as in
the Mountain Climbing picture. First
one and then the other person may be expressing achievement themes and all of
the themes should be coded.
Categories
of nAch
In
the original scoring system for content analysis of the TAT/PSE stories, there
were three categories of achievement imagery: Competition with a standard of
excellence (SE), unique accomplishment (UA) ,
and long-term involvement (LTI). We
preserve these three categories in the revised coding system with little change
to the definitions provided by McClelland, Atkinson, Clark, and Lowell (1953,
1992).
SE
includes competing with an absolute standard, with another person, or with
oneself. "Jenny has always been
a very talented swimmer" implies an absolute standard. "The man is
swimming in a race" describes competition with another person or persons.
"She is trying to improve her time" shows competition with
oneself. Competition can also be
with an inanimate object, as in the statement, "They want to conquer the
mountain." Absolute standards
are implied by references to good grades, meticulous work, wanting to succeed,
and perfecting a performance.
Competition
with a standard of excellence is also evidenced by unusual effort or
perseverance: working hard, pushing oneself to the max, continuing to train
harder, or mentioning someone who just won’t give up.
Complete dedication to an achievement task is also evidence of SE, as in
the statement about the Mountain Climbing picture:
"It is his passion."
UA
is scored when someone in the story sets an unusual goal or attains something
outstanding or out of the ordinary. Being
an Olympic swimmer racing for the gold, deciding to climb Mount Everest, finding
a cure for cancer (or AIDS or the common cold), discovering a new galaxy,
setting a new track record, making great discoveries, graduating from college at
age 11, and winning a Nobel Prize are all instances of UA.
LTI
refers to the devotion of long-term effort and dedication to an achievement
activity. With intense effort, such
as training for an athletic event, 6 months is the minimum amount of time that
is scorable for LTI. However,
usually stories refer to years of hard work to attain a goal.
Practicing for many years, being climbing buddies since the age of 4,
having thousands of hours of lab experience, always having an interest in space,
having done hundreds of surgeries, having a history of successful transplants,
gong to college to study astronomy, going to graduate school, applying to
medical school, and continuing as a group until they are old and gray are all
instances of LTI. Additionally,
putting into a story that someone is a professional at a sport or is going to
turn professional is scored as LTI.
As
in the original coding system, one of the three categories, SE, UA, or LTI must
be identified in the story before subcategories can be coded.
However, in the revised coding system any and all categories can be coded
once in each paragraph (as opposed to once in each story).
This new rule meets the requirement of the Rasch (1980) model that all
the items (paragraphs) on a test be independent of each other.
Subcategories
of nAch
The
original coding system for nAch (McClelland, et al, 1953, 1992) contained 10
subcategories. We have decreased
that number to 7 subcategories: stated need (N), instrumental activity (I),
positive anticipatory goal state (Ga+), negative anticipatory goal state (Ga-),
positive affective goal response (G+), negative affective goal response (G-),
and block to achievement (B).
Nurturant
press was eliminated from the coding system because giving help is a basis for
coding need for power. One of the
requirements of the Rasch (1980) model is that s test must be unidimensional.
We believe that including nurturant press (a power theme) in a coding
system for need for achievement violates the assumption of unidimensionality, so
we eliminated it.
Thema
is a subcategory in the original system that is a "bonus" given when a
story contain no subplots and is purely an achievement story.
Since we are coding each paragraph individually, there is no place to
locate this bonus point. Additionally,
our experience has been that the addition of this bonus point is fairly
arbitrary and may b e a course of unreliability between coders.
Thus, we decided to eliminate this subcategory.
Finally,
we combined the two categories, block in the person and block in the world, into
one category, block to achievement (B). First,
it is rare for these two categories to be in the same story, let alone the same
paragraph. Secondly, it is hard to
distinguish sometimes between the two. If
Don is blocked from achievement because he failed a test, is it because he
lacked the ability (block in the person) or because the test was too hard (block
in the world)? Combining these into
one category eliminated another source of disagreement among coders and made the
coder system easier to learn.
The
definitions of N, I,
Instrumental
activity (I) is scored when someone is doing something to attain the goal.
Analyzing chemicals, making incisions, practicing, training, studying,
looking for a constellation, swimming laps, lifting weights, getting equipment
ready, imagining the outcome to motivate oneself, concentrating on the task at
hand, and eating your Wheaties are all instances of instrumental activity.
As with stated need and SE, sometimes the same phrase can be scored as I
and as SE. For example,
concentrating and focusing may be scored as SE and I because they describe
extreme effort. "They are
concentrating on their every move" and "she is checking her technique
and timing her trials to get a good time and speed for her next competition"
are phrases that include I and SE in the same sentence.
Positive
anticipatory goal state (
Positive
affective goal response (G+) involves being happy because one has succeeded,
whereas negative affective goal response (G-) is scored when someone is unhappy
because of failure. Being proud,
being ecstatic, and celebrating because of success are G+.
Being frustrated, being sad, and hiding from other because of failure are
examples of G-. Remember that you
code every character in a story, so others being proud of the achieving person
are also scored as G+.
The
distinction between
Block
to achievement (B) is scored when something physical, mental, or environmental
gets in the way of achievement, even temporarily.
Breaking an arm, being depressed, and not having enough money to go to
school are scored as B.
Extensive
lists of instances of coding categories are provided at the following links.
Print these out and use them as a guide for your coding.
Coding stories is an "open book" activity.
You are encouraged to make notes and to use them as you code stories.
Links
to Standard of Excellence
(SE), Unique Accomplishment (UA),
Long Term Involvement (LTI)
examples.
Links
to Stated Need (N), Instrumental
Activity (I), Positive
Anticipatory Goal State (Ga+), Negative
Anticipatory Goal State (Ga-), Positive
Affective Goal Response (G+), Negative
Affective Goal Response (G-), and Blocks to
Achievement (B) examples.
References
Atkinson,
J. W. (Ed.) (1958). Motives
in fantasy, action, and society.
Blankenship,
V., et al. (2003). Using
the multifaceted Rasch model to improve the reliability of the TAT/PSE measure
of need for achievement. Manuscript
in preparation.
McAdams,
D. P. (1989).
Intimacy: The need to be close.
McClelland,
D. C., Atkinson, J. W., Clark, R. A., & Lowell, E. L.
(1953, 1976). The
achievement motive.
Nunnally,
J. C., & Bernstein,
Rasch,
G. (1980). Probabilistic models for
some intelligence and attainment tests.
Schultheiss,
O. C., & Brunstein, J. C. (2001).
Assessment of implicit motives with a research version of the TAT:
Picture profiles, gender differences, and relations to other personality
measures. Journal of Personality
Assessment, 77(1), 71-86.