Toward a comprehensive taxonomy of human motives.

• Published in: PLoS ONE
• Main Authors: Jennifer R Talevich, Stephen J Read, David A Walsh, Ravi Iyer, Gurveen Chopra
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2017-01-01
• Online Access: http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC5322894?pdf=render

A major success in personality has been the development of a consensual structure of traits. However, much less progress has been made on the structure of an equally important aspect of human psychology: motives. We present an empirically and theoretically structured hierarchical taxonomy of 161 motives gleaned from a literature review from McDougall to the present and based on the cluster analysis of similarity judgments among these 161 motives, a broader sampling of motives than previous work. At the broadest level were: Meaning, Communion, and Agency. These divided into nine clusters: Morality & Virtue, Religion & Spirituality, Self-Actualization, Avoidance, Social Relating, Family, Health, Mastery & Competence, and Financial & Occupational Success. Each divided into more concrete clusters to form 5 levels. We discuss contributions to research on motives, especially recent work on goal systems, and the aiding of communication and systematization of research. Finally, we compare the taxonomy to other motive organizations.