3 PILLARS OF

MOTIVATIONAL
PSYCHOLOGY
WHO WE ARE
NEW WAYS OF THINKING ABOUT PEOPLE







By Professor Steven Reiss, Ph.D

09/04/2013 3 Pillars of Motivational Psychology | Psychology Today
www.psychologytoday.com/blog/who-we-are/201110/3-pillars-motivational-psychology 1/3
How clueless? had a fellow professor once ask about my taxonomy of
16 basic desires. As explained it, she became really excited finally
saying, "That is really interesting. Too bad you can't use for it anything."
By 1990, needs theory had become an oldie but goodie, a blast from the
past, something nobody paid attention to except when studying history.
This seemed to me to be a shame, because the basic insight is valid,
namely, that there are certain goals (called "needs") that motivate
everyone. n the words of behaviorists, some of whom say they don't like
concepts like "needs," there are certain stimuli that reinforce everyone.
Whether we call them instincts, needs, universal goals, intrinsic motives,
or universal reinforcers, they are crucial for understanding people, how
we behave in natural environments, and how we relate to each other.

PiIIar I: EmpiricaI Derivation of Needs
have been trying to rebuild needs theory based on three pillars. We
have reported the first ever empirically derived taxonomy of needs and in
the process we redefined what is and is not included in each need. Our
taxonomy of 16 needs includes basic desires for acceptance, curiosity,
eating, honor, status, tranquility, and so on. t has about 50% overlap
with the lists of needs provided by McDougall, Murray, and others.
Because the 16 basic desires are empirically derived and scientifically
validated (construct validity, reliability, and criterion validity against real-
world behaviors), it avoids numerous errors in how psychologists have
historically combined motives into needs. The desire to socialize, for
example, isn't incompatible with desire for revenge. Play is about fun, not
competence. The desire for wealth falls under a larger need for social
status.
PiIIar II: Motivation and PersonaIity
Everybody embraces the 16 basic desires, but individuals prioritize them

New ways of thinking about people
by Steven Reiss, Ph.D.
3 Pillars of Motivational Psychology
The 16 universal motives
Published on October 2, 2011 by Steven Reiss, Ph.D. in Who We Are
William James and William McDougall, both professors at Harvard during the first years of the last
century, put forth a theory of instincts, which they said was a central organizing theme of behavior.
They got raked over the coals with criticisms of the concept of "instinct." Psychodynamic theorists,
eager to expand on Freud's motivation theory of libido, redefined "instincts" as ego motives. Henry
Murray, another Harvard professor, renamed instincts "unconscious needs" and published a story-
telling technique, the Thematic Apperception Test, to assess needs. By the 1950s, motivational
psychology was at the center of academic clinical psychology, and the TAT was very widely used.
What happened? Scientific evaluations of the TAT were less than glowing. Leonard Eron and his
colleagues authored an influential evaluation that drew negative implications for the scientific status
of the TAT. When the TAT became controversial, needs theory gradually declined in influence. t was
vulnerable to a sharp decline in influence partially because of limited practical implications. Clinical
diagnosis within psychodynamic, DSM model, was the primary application for Murray's needs.
When the diagnostic model became obsolete, Murray's needs lost influence. Abraham Maslow's
theory of a hierarchy of needs appealed to human resource managers and, consequently, found an
application in corporate leadership training. For the most part, however, psychologists were clueless
on how to apply a taxonomy of needs.
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Steven Reiss is Emeritus Professor
of Psychology and Psychiatry at The
Ohio State University.
more...
The more choice and opportunity that we have, the
more regret we feel.
Susan Weinschenk, Ph.D.

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09/04/2013 3 Pillars of Motivational Psychology | Psychology Today
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differently. Your priorities among the 16 basic desires, called a Reiss
Profile, reveals your intrinsic values and personality traits and is a
powerful predictor of your behavior. We have suggested the specific
motives of every personality trait in a Theasarus. Ken Olson and his
colleagues correlated Reiss Profiles to various personality assessments
including the "Big 5".

PiIIar III: ReIationships
We articulated the principles of self hugging and everyday tyranny and
then used them to connect motivational needs to every type of enduring
relationship, including parent-child, spouses, supervisor-worker, and
colleagues.

PracticaI AppIications
Various individuals have applied the 16 basic desires to school
motivation, motivation in business, motivation in sports, motivating
healthy behaviors, planning preferred lifestyles for people with intellectual
disabilities, conflict resolution, and relationships.

Key Innovation
My work on motivation dates back to 1980 and the start of my research
on what called "anxiety sensirivitry," which published in 1985
with Richard McNally (then a graduate student, now a Harvard
Professor). Over and over critics told us that anxiety sensitivity is
superfluous because everybody avoids anxiety. We replied that anxiety
motviates some people more than others. As of today, anxiety sensitivity
has been validated in more than 1,400 peer reviewed scientific articles,
including two favorable "Psychological Bulletin" summary review articles.
The United States Army recently reported that anxiety sensitivity is an
early predictor of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. n many of these
studies anxiety sensitivity is shown to be a predictor of outcome variance
that could not be predicted by other measures of anxiety. The AS
questionnaire wrote in less than an hour has mowed down just about
every anxiety scale out there. The construct of tranquility, one of our 16
basic desires, is very closely connected to anxiety sensitivity, and the
RMP tranquility scale includes items from the AS.
My takeaway from our anxiety sensitivity work is the importance of the
concept of "individual differences in valuations of a universal motive".
learned that many scientists thought this psychological factor is just a
trifle; actually, such individual differences can be powerful predictors of
real-world behavior. went from studying an individual difference in a
single universal motivator (anxiety) to studying individual differences in 16
universal motivators.

BIessed with Weak-Minded Critics
The most common criticisms of the model of 16 basic desires are easy to
respond to. Some say we have "too many" needs. We reply that since
astronomers say there are "billions and billions" of stars, and biologists
classify hundreds of species, why are "16" needs too many for a
psychologist to handle? Where does the idea come from that a scientist
cannot deal with 16 motives because that is "too many"? Who makes this
stuff up? Another criticism is that our taxonomy of needs is not scientific
because early on we modified it from 15 to 16 basic desires. Does this
mean that astronomy must be unscientific because it went from nine to
eight planets? s chemistry very unscientific because of the many
additions over the years to the Periodic Chart of Elements? We
published peer reviewed evidence that our model of 16 basic desires
meets the scientific criteria of construct validity, measurement reliability,
concurrent validity, and criterion validity.

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