Achievement Motives

Abstract

The thrill of victory and agony of defeat are well known to anybody who has pursued competence. Images of the victorious and vanquished are characterized by facial expressions, gestures, and postures that suggest a highly emotional experience. These emotional experiences are powerful because they reflect how people interpret the meaning of an outcome in relation to their broader self-concept. Competence is a psychological motive that both organizes daily experience and shapes our self-concept. Over time, self-conscious emotions typically experienced as a result of competence pursuits may be evoked by the mere thought of pursuing competence. These anticipatory self-conscious emotional experiences provide an early stimulus around which achievement strivings are organized. Achievement motives were conceived to describe these anticipatory affective experiences and explain how they organize achievement pursuits. The goal of this chapter is to develop an integrative perspective on how these motives organize affective, cognitive, and behavioral experiences during competence pursuits. The chapter summarizes over half a century of research on achievement motives, with an emphasis on their grounding in anticipatory pride and shame. Research on achievement motives has slowed since its peak in the mid- to late 20th century, so recent developments in psychological theorizing and assessment are integrated to highlight the enduring scientific and practical value of achievement motives. Special attention is given to developments in dual-process models of motivation and behavior, with an aim of simultaneously differentiating and integrating these motivational systems. Following this theoretical review, this chapter addresses applications—both established and potential—of these motives in a number of the specific contexts in which people pursue competence most frequently. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved)