Motivation and emotion/Lectures/Implicit motives and goals

Lecture 05: Implicit motives and goals
This is the fifth lecture for the motivation and emotion unit of study.

Goals drive effort and perseverance.

Overview

This lecture discusses:

• implicit motives
• goal-setting and goal striving

Key questions:

• What are implicit motives? How do they arise?
• What are the key elements for successful goal setting and goal pursuit?

Take-home messages:

• Implicit (unconscious) motives are socialised rather than innate, and include achievement, affiliation/intimacy, and power motivations.
• People perform best when they have a specific plan of action to pursue a difficult, specific, and self-congruent goal.

Outline

Implicit motives

• Explicit vs. implicit motives
• Achievement
• Affiliation
• Power

Goal setting and goal striving

• Corrective motivation
• Goal setting
• Goal striving

Multimedia

• David McClelland and three motivational needs (Management Courses, YouTube; 8:12 mins): Explains the three implicit needs proposed using a practical workplace scenario — building a sales team.
• Locke and Latham's Goal Setting Theory (MindTools, YouTube; 1:29 mins): Contemporary goal setting advice is largely derived from Locke and Latham's (1990) goal setting theory which this video explains as involving clarity, challenge, commitment, feedback, and complexity.

Activity

Activity: What's your implicit motivational profile? Watch the three motivational needs video Respond to this 3-question survey View and discuss the results

Readings

• Chapter 07: Implicit motives (Reeve, 2018)
• Chapter 08: Goal setting and goal striving (Reeve, 2018) or Chapter 07: Goal setting and goal striving (Reeve, 2024)

Slides

• Implicit motives (Google Slides)
• Goal setting and goal striving (Google Slides)

See also

• Images

Lectures

• Extrinsic motivation and psychological needs (Previous lecture)
• Mindsets, control, and self (Next lecture)
• Unconscious motivation (Related lecture)

Tutorial

• Functionalist theory and self-tracking

Wikiversity

• Achievement (Book chapters)
• Goal pursuit (Book chapters)
• Goal setting (Book chapters)
• Implicit motives (Book chapters)
• Power motivation (Book chapters)
• Social (Book chapters)

Wikipedia

• David McClelland
• Goal setting
• John Atkinson
• Need theory

Recording

• Lecture 05 (2025)

References

Locke, E. A., & Latham, G. P. (1990). A theory of goal setting & task performance. Prentice-Hall.

External links

• BBC Interview with Rupert Murdoch (YouTube, 1968) (0:48 min) – Example of one type of social need – the need for power
• Keep your goals to yourself (Derek Sivers, TED talk, 2010) (3 min) – Conventional wisdom is to make our goals public to hold us accountable – but going public gives a (false) sense of satisfaction that can undermine future effort
• If you could achieve one goal in 24 hours (Brian Tracy) (2 min) – A "motivational guru" argues for putting everything aside to achieve one goal in 24 hours
• Want to succeed? Don't set goals, set systems (Adam Alter, Big Think) (3:50 mins) – Goal setting and goal striving can be a motivational double-edged sword