McClelland's Theory of Needs
David C. McClelland’ın “Gereksinimler Kuramı”, Henry A. Murray’ın 1938 yılında ortaya attığı ve insan davranışlarının nedeni oluşturduğunu ifade ettiği 20’nin üzerindeki bir dizi gereksinimden yalnızca başarı, güç ve yakın ilişki gereksinimlerini içeren bir kuramdır. McClelland bu üç gereksinimden genellikle başarı gereksinimi üzerinde yoğunlukla çalışmış olsa da, birçok araştırmasında bu üç gereksinimi birlikte test etmiştir.
McClelland (1961) stated that the importance of these needs that shape behavior can be seen in their effects on interpersonal relationships, academic achievement, choice of lifestyle and job performance.
1. Success Requirement: Murray (1955) defined the need for achievement (nAch) as a desire or disposition to "overcoming difficulties, using power, striving to do difficult things as quickly and well as possible". McClelland (1976) on the other hand, the need for achievement; He defined it as “doing good work or engaging in actions where it is important to compete with a standard of excellence”. According to this approach, achievement motivation is expressed through behaviors such as undertaking a difficult task, confronting uncertainty, and taking personal responsibility for the results of one's performance (Sagie and Elizur, 1999: 376).
Research shows that individuals with high achievement motivation tend to act in certain ways. Accordingly, the following features will be seen in these individuals (McCelland, 1961, 1965):
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Individuals with a high need for achievement feel the need to demonstrate their success by taking calculated risks, not taking neither big nor small risks.
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These individuals need quick and precise feedback to understand at what level they have achieved their intended goal.
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It is common for these people to be motivated by success and to take great pleasure in success.
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These individuals constantly occupy their minds with the work of their goals.
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They are extremely determined to take personal responsibility as people targeted for success.
McClelland (1961) also introduced macro propositions for the need for success, and in his book "The Achieving Society", he presented a series of proofs of the relationship between the economic development status of the countries at that time and the measured achievement motivation levels in those countries. Using his studies in different countries, he defined entrepreneurship as a tool that transforms success motivation into economic growth and development. As a result, McClelland (1961) stated that because the socialization process in some societies creates a high achievement motivation, those societies can produce more entrepreneurs.
2. Power Requirement: Power requirement; It can be defined as “…the tendency to achieve satisfaction through controlling the means of influencing others” (McClelland & Winter, 1969, 38). Individuals with a high need for power show a desire to control their environment, financial and material resources, knowledge and other people (McClelland & Burnham, 1976).
Alfred Adler mentioned long ago that power is a great goal of all human activity. Adler saw the nature of man as something that a person learns through his acquisition to control the powers he has over himself, and that the satisfaction of the person depends precisely on his ability to act on the environment (Birch and Veroff, 1966: 76).
Winter (1991) states six basic indicators of power requirement as follows (Apospori et al., 2004: 147):
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Pretty powerful behaviors that can have an impact on other people.
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To establish control or control, especially by gathering information or spying on others.
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Attempting to influence, trying to convince, persuade, or prove something.
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To advise, support, or help, even when not expressly asked for.
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to influence others; and
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Showing strong emotional reactions to the actions of others.
3. Close Relationship Requirement: Individuals with a high need for close relationships spend more time maintaining their social relationships and meet this need by participating in groups, choosing to be loved and adopted (Kreitner & Knicki, 2004: 267). The person who has such a strong need is on the way to seek positive emotional relationships with others. This relationship can be explained by the word “friendship”. Tendency to love others, to be embraced and loved by them or to forgive and be forgiven, to react to the deterioration of interpersonal relations, to try to restore the deteriorated relations, can be shown as the symptoms of the need for close relations (Can, 1985: 71).
The presence of other people is necessary for people with a high need for intimacy. Such people will want to communicate with others, understand their feelings, and will feel comfortable in an environment of good interpersonal relations (Onaran, 1981: 215). Winter (1991) states the four basic indicators of the need to establish relationships as follows (Apospori et al., 2004: 147):
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Showing positive, friendly, or very close feelings towards other people.
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Feeling negative about the disruption or interruption of a friendly relationship, or wanting to revive it again.
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Demonstrate behaviors based on close relationships; and
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Developing behaviors such as helping, helping, and showing friendly attention.
In evolutionary times, such a requirement was supposed to carry both survival and reproductive benefits. While groups shared resources, they had benefits such as protecting their members against external dangers and enabling mating (Beck, 2004: 378).
McClelland claimed that since the need for close relationship, power, and achievement is learnable, it would not fit into a static hierarchical order (as in Maslow, for example). This is because different people feel different needs at different levels. Therefore, there are no "satisfaction-series" or "inhibition-regression" relationships between motives (Northcraft and Neale 1990: 142). While Maslow and other researchers suggested that motives are instinctive, McClelland's study emphasized the importance of the social environment context outside of work in the development of motives or needs (Brooks, 2003: 60).
The achievement motivation theory formulated by McClelland has undergone two revisions over time. The first is the risk taking model developed by Atkinson (1957). According to this model, "strength of motivation", "probability of success or failure (expectation)" and "incentive value of success or failure (valance)" are multiplied to form a combination in determining the level of challenge in the case of success. The second and more obvious change was made by Bernard Weiner, a student of Atkinson. He also rearranged motives as tendencies to make certain causal attributions for success and failure situations (Thrash and Eliot, 2001: 3).
