ABSTRACT
David McClelland’s achievement motivation theory is really a concatenation of theories having to do with human needs. These needs are characteristically measured via the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT), a projective test that assesses both conscious and unconscious motives (see Miner 2005, Chapter 4; 2007, Chapter 4; and 2008, Chapter 1). As a projective, it gives special attention to unconscious considerations and this fact as well as the nature of the theorizing serves to classify achievement motivation theory as essentially unconscious in nature. The theory is rated at the four-star level of validity, and its importance rating averages out at 5.15. The validity of the theory is attested to both by meta-analyses (see Spangler 1992) and by a large number of reviews of a nonquantitative nature. That the TAT incorporates unconscious as well as conscious motives is demonstrated by Spangler’s (1992) finding that it adds variance above and beyond what is obtained using conscious motivation alone (from self-report indexes).
