Need for Affiliation free essay sample

Situations that include fear often lead people to want to be together and trigger a need for affiliation. Research done by Schacter (1959) shows that fear that comes from anxiety increases the need for the person to affiliate with others who are going through the same situation or that could help them through the stressful event. The strength of this need changes from one person to the next, there are moments that people just want to be together. The need for affiliation for an individual can vary over short amounts of time; there are times when individuals wish to be with others and other times to be alone. In one study, completed by Shawn OConnor and Larne Rosenblood, beepers were distributed to the students. The students were then asked to record, when their beepers went off, whether or not they wanted to be alone or if they wanted to be with others at that particular moment. This study was done to observe how frequently college students were in the presence of others and how frequently they were alone. The next step in this study asked for the students to record whether, at the time their beeper went off, they wanted to be alone or in the company of others. This response that they gave usually reflected which of the two situations they were experiencing the next time their beepers went off. The information retained from this study helped to show the strength of an individuals need for affiliation. [4] By showing how frequently they obtained the presence of others when they felt that it was what they wanted at that moment it showed how strong their need for affiliation was at that particular moment. Depending on the specific circumstances, an individuals level of need for affiliation can become increased or decreased. Yacov Rofe suggested that the need for affiliation depended on whether being with others would be useful for the situation or not. When the presence of other people was seen as being helpful in relieving an individual from some of the negative aspects of the stressor, an individuals desire to affiliate increases. However, if being with others may increase the negative aspects such as adding the possibility of embarrassment to the already present stressor, the individuals desire to affiliate with others decreases. Individuals are motivated to find and create a specific amount of social interactions. Each individual desires a different amount of a need for affiliation and they desire an optimal balance of time to their self and time spent with others. The pioneering research work of the Harvard Psychological Clinic in the 1930s, summarised in Explorations in Personality, provided the start point for future studies of personality, especially those relating to needs and motives. David C. McClellands and his associates investigations of achievement motivation have particular relevance to the emergence of leadership. McClelland was interested in the possibility of deliberately arousing a motive to achieve in an attempt to explain how individuals express their preferences for particular outcomes — a general problem of motivation. In this connection, the need for achievement refers to an individuals preference for success under conditions of competition. The vehicle McClelland employed to establish the presence of an achievement motive was the type of fantasy a person expressed on the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT), developed by Christiana Morgan and Henry Murray, who note in Explorations in Personality that hen a person interprets an ambiguous social situation he is apt to expose his own personality as much as the phenomenon to which he is attending Each picture should suggest some critical situation and be effective in evoking a fantasy relating to it (p531). The test is composed of a series of pictures that subjects are asked to interpret and describe to the psychologist. The TAT has b een widely used to support assessment of needs and motives. The procedure in McClellands initial investigation was to arouse in the test audience a concern with their achievement. A control group was used in which arousal was omitted. In the course of this experiment, McClelland discovered through analyzing the stories on the TAT that initial arousal was not necessary. Instead, members of the control group — individuals who had had no prior arousal — demonstrated significant differences in their stories, some writing stories with a high achievement content and some submitting stories with a low achievement content. Using results based on the Thematic Apperception Test, McClelland demonstrated that individuals in a society can be grouped into high achievers and low achievers based on their scores on what he called N-Ach. McClelland and his associates have since extended their work in fantasy analysis to include different age groups, occupational groups, and nationalities in their investigations of the strength of need for achievement. These investigations have indicated that the N-Ach score increases with a rise in occupational level. Invariably, businessmen, managers, and entrepreneurs are high scorers. Other investigations into the characteristics of the high achievers have revealed that accomplishment on the job represents an end in itself; monetary rewards serve as an index of this accomplishment. In addition, these other studies found that the high achievers, though identified as managers, businessmen, and entrepreneurs, are not gamblers. They will accept risk only to the degree they believe their personal contributions will make a difference in the final outcome. These explorations into the achievement motive seem to turn naturally into the investigation of national differences based on Max Webers thesis that the industrialization and economic development of the Western nations were related to the Protestant ethic and its corresponding values supporting work and achievement. McClelland and his associates have satisfied themselves that such a relationship, viewed historically through an index of national power consumption, indeed exists. Differences related to individual, as well as to national, accomplishments depend on the presence or absence of an achievement motive in addition to economic resources or the infusion of financial assistance. High achievers can be viewed as satisfying a need for self-actualization through accomplishments in their job assignments as a result of their particular knowledge, their particular experiences, and the particular environments in which they have lived.