McClelland Acquired Needs Theory

What McClelland acquired needs theory is

McClelland acquired needs theory (نظرية الحاجات المكتسبة), also called the three needs theory, is a theory of motivation. In the form commonly presented, it holds that people acquire psychological needs through experience and upbringing, that the strength of these needs differs from one person to another, and that the most prominent at work are the need for achievement, the need for affiliation and the need for power.

An employee in whom the need for achievement is dominant looks for work in which the employee sees the effect of the effort. One in whom the need for affiliation is dominant looks for warm relations with colleagues. One in whom the need for power is dominant looks to influence others. The theory is attributed to the American psychologist David McClelland and is associated in the literature with his 1961 book “The Achieving Society”.

The theory is a psychological theory of motivation that is applied to work. What follows is an explanation of the theory and of its limits. It does not claim that knowing an employee’s dominant need predicts the employee’s performance, or that people fall into separate categories.

Where the theory comes from

McClelland’s 1961 book “The Achieving Society” is recorded in Crossref with its chapters, among them chapters on achieving societies in the past and in the modern world and on entrepreneurial behaviour. An article by McClelland and Burnham titled “Power Is the Great Motivator” is recorded in Crossref within the 2017 book “Leadership Perspectives”. The literature attributes it to Harvard Business Review.

Secondary summaries online say that the scoring system for needs in the projective test called the Thematic Apperception Test was developed with John Atkinson, and that the method for measuring the achievement motive was described in the book “The Achievement Motive” in 1953. The original date of the McClelland and Burnham article is not established here, and we did not verify the text of any of these works, so we quote nothing from them and our description is a summary in our own wording of what writers circulate.

The word “acquired” in the name means that the needs are learned from experience and are not born with the person. That is what the summaries say about the theory. Summaries also propose that, because needs are learned, a need can strengthen or weaken through experience and training.

The three needs

The names of the needs vary between books, and the descriptions below are our summary:

• The need for achievement. A wish to do the work better than it has been done before, to set challenging goals that can be reached, and to know the outcome of the effort. Summaries describe a person with this need as preferring tasks whose result the person controls, and as seeking comments on performance.
• The need for affiliation. A wish for friendly relations and acceptance by others. Summaries describe a person with this need as putting cooperation and harmony first, and as possibly avoiding situations that produce disagreement.
• The need for power. A wish to influence others and to steer what happens. The summaries distinguish power sought for personal superiority from power sought to serve a goal that goes beyond the person.

The needs do not exclude one another. One person can hold all three at different levels, and “dominant” means the one that stands highest in that person relative to the others. The summaries present no ranking among the needs, which distinguishes them from the needs arranged in levels in the hierarchy of needs.

How the needs are measured

The summaries attribute to McClelland the use of the Thematic Apperception Test. The person is shown ambiguous pictures and asked to write a story about each, and a trained scorer then reads the stories and counts the themes that point to each need. The idea of the test is that what a person imagines reveals what the person is preoccupied with, so the person is not asked directly.

Simpler instruments, such as agree or disagree questionnaires, can be used in an establishment. They are useful for discussion, but secondary summaries point out that the scores of these questionnaires do not necessarily match the results of the projective test.

How the theory relates to nearby concepts

• The theories of what drives people to work are gathered under work motivation. McClelland’s theory adds to them the idea that the dominant need differs between individuals.
• Hygiene factors are separated from motivators in the Herzberg two factor theory. The need for achievement overlaps with what that theory calls motivators, such as achievement, recognition and responsibility. The two theories start from different points: one classifies factors in the work environment and the other classifies people.
• Basic psychological needs, namely autonomy, competence and relatedness, are the core of self determination theory. Both theories include a social need (affiliation here, relatedness there), but self determination theory presents three basic needs that are satisfied or not, while McClelland’s theory makes needs differ in strength between individuals.
• Comments close to the event may suit a person who wants to know the outcome of the effort; see continuous feedback.
• Exercises taken from the job and observed by assessors, as in an assessment centre, are a method different from the Thematic Apperception Test in measuring what a candidate inclines toward.
• Linking an amount to a specific result, as in a performance bonus, can suit someone who wants to see the effect of effort, and does not necessarily suit someone in whom another need dominates.

A hypothetical example: a questionnaire of 12 statements

Suppose a hypothetical establishment gave a salesperson a short questionnaire of 12 statements, four for each need, each rated from 1 to 5. The maximum for one need is 4 × 5 = 20 points. The totals were 18 for achievement, 11 for affiliation and 14 for power. The shares of the maximum are 18 ÷ 20 = 90% for achievement, 11 ÷ 20 = 55% for affiliation and 14 ÷ 20 = 70% for power. The gap between the highest and the lowest score is 18 minus 11 = 7 points, which is 90 minus 55 = 35 percentage points.

A quick reading suggests that achievement is the highest need in this employee on this questionnaire. Challenging goals and frequent comments on results may suit the employee, and the manager notes that a role requiring much teamwork may not give the employee what the employee looks for.

The calculation does not say that the employee will succeed or fail in a particular role. A questionnaire of 12 statements is a weak instrument, and the answers can change with the circumstances in which they were given. The figures are hypothetical and set to illustrate. They do not represent an establishment or a study, and the example does not mean that 90% is a customary score.

The example also guards against a mistake: comparing the needs with one another as if they were equivalent measures. The number of statements is the same, but their content differs, so a higher score does not show that the matching need is more important in a particular role.

Where the theory is limited

• Measurement is disputed. The projective test needs trained scorers, and its reliability and validity vary between the secondary sources.
• Inference from society to individual. The 1961 book deals with societies, and the summaries say that the book linked achievement themes in the texts of a society to its economic growth a generation later. That link does not establish a cause.
• Stability of the need. The summaries present the needs as acquired, but they do not detail how a need changes, and secondary summaries criticise the theory for not attending to change in needs over time.
• Three needs only. Secondary summaries also criticise the theory for reducing a person to three needs.
• The effect of a need on managerial success. Secondary summaries say that achievement predicts success among managers at lower levels and not at higher ones, and that a manager’s work needs influence over people more than individual excellence.

How the theory is misunderstood

• Sorting employees into fixed types. One employee is called an achievement type and another an affiliation type, and their roles are judged from it, though the needs differ in strength and do not separate people.
• Treating a short questionnaire as a test for hiring or promotion decisions. Its result is an indicator for discussion and not a proof.
• Generalising across cultures. Findings from one society cannot be assumed for another without testing.
• Treating the need for power as blameworthy. The term describes a wish to influence, and not a judgement on the person.

The role of human resources

Human resources can use the idea as a tool for questions and not for classification. What does this employee look for in the work, and does the role provide it? An employee who looks for a clear effect of effort may suit a specific goal and close monitoring, one who looks for relationships may suit teamwork, and one who looks to influence may suit leading an initiative.

A manager can ask employees in coaching what satisfies and occupies them, and listen before judging. Selection decisions should not be built on the theory without stronger instruments and independent review.

What the evidence allows

We do not state that knowing an employee’s dominant need raises the employee’s performance or predicts it. We did not verify the text of any of McClelland’s works, and in the sources we reviewed we found no published figure that we adopt for the effect of matching a role to a need in workplaces, nor any source on how these needs are distributed in Saudi establishments, so we state nothing about either.

Some of what the summaries convey, such as the association between motive and economic growth, does not establish a cause. The theory is treated as a framework for widening the questions we ask about what motivates people, and it is judged by what is observed at work. Did the employee become clearer about what the employee looks for? Did the role make that possible? Did the conversation between the employee and the manager improve? Any decision after that turns on the role, the person and the establishment.

This is an explanation of the concept, not legal advice.