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Journal ArticleDOI

Measuring the motives of public officials at a distance: An exploratory study of american presidents

TLDR
The inaugural addresses of American presidents from 1905-1969 were scored for the need for achievement (n Ach) and the need to power (n Power) using procedures originally developed for scoring individual TAT protocols as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract
The inaugural addresses of American Presidents from 1905-1969 were scored for the need for Achievement (n Ach) and the need for Power (n Power), using procedures originally developed for scoring individual TAT protocols. The resulting motive scores are closely related to the consensus judgment of historians and political scientists concerning those Presidential administrations. Thus the technique of scoring speeches for psychological imagery appears to be a promising way to measure the personality characteristics of significant political actors, who are usually unavailable for standard personality assessment procedures. Moreover, the technique appears to have promise for predicting the future course of political action, given the motive scores of actors. Several methodological issues are discussed.

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Citations
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The Achieving Society

TL;DR: The authors argued that cultural customs and motivations, especially the motivation for achievement, are the major catalysts of economic growth and proposed a plan to accelerate economic growth in developing countries by encouraging and supplementing their achievement motives through mobilizing the greater achievement resources of developed countries.
Journal ArticleDOI

Leader Appeal, Leader Performance, and the Motive Profiles of Leaders and Followers: A Study of American Presidents and Elections

TL;DR: In this paper, three leader trait and leader-follower interaction models of leader appeal and leader performance are evaluated with data about the motive profiles of American presidents and American society, in both cases measured at a distance.
Journal ArticleDOI

Sociocultural context of individual creativity: a transhistorical time-series analysis.

TL;DR: Information from cultural and political archival sources was aggregated to form time series spanning 127 generations of European history and creative development was found to be affected by the following: role model availability, political fragmentation, imperial instability, and political instability.
Journal ArticleDOI

The chief executive: A breed apart

TL;DR: This study tested the theory that the characteristics of British chief executives would be different from that of the subordinate top management team from which they emanated, particularly within the corporate category.
References
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Book

The Social System

TL;DR: In the history of sociological theory, Talcott Parsons holds a very special place. as discussed by the authors presents a major scientific and intellectual advance towards the theory of action first outlined in his earlier work.
Book

The Achieving Society

TL;DR: This paper argued that cultural customs and motivations, especially the motivation for achievement, are the major catalysts of economic growth and proposed a plan to accelerate economic growth in developing countries by encouraging and supplementing their achievement motives through mobilizing the greater achievement resources of developed countries.
Posted Content

The Achieving Society

TL;DR: This article argued that cultural customs and motivations, especially the motivation for achievement, are the major catalysts of economic growth and proposed a plan to accelerate economic growth in developing countries by encouraging and supplementing their achievement motives through mobilizing the greater achievement resources of developed countries.
Journal ArticleDOI

The Social System.

TL;DR: In the history of sociological theory, Talcott Parsons holds a very special place. as mentioned in this paper presents a major scientific and intellectual advance towards the theory of action first outlined in his earlier work.