We investigated basic need satisfaction and leadership self-efficacy as psychological antecedents of college students’ motivation to lead (MTL), while controlling for individual differences by gender and academic class. Preliminary analyses revealed significant gender differences with males scoring higher than females on calculative MTL and classification differences with seniors scoring higher on affective-identity MTL compared to less advanced students in college. When these demographic differences were controlled for, need satisfaction for competence was significantly associated with all 3 types of MTL through the mediation effect of leadership self-efficacy. Need satisfaction for relatedness was significantly associated with social-normative MTL and calculative MTL.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.