Experiences of intimacy and power: Relationships between social motives and autobiographical memory.

Abstract

Open-ended recollections of autobiographical memories were collected in two samples. The memory protocols were coded for themes of interpersonal intimacy (love and friendship, reciprocal communication or sharing, helping others and being helped, and tender interpersonal touching) and personal power (perceived strength, powerful inspiration, having impact, vigorous activity, and increased fame or recognition). Subjects' intimacy and power motive scores were also obtained by a prior administration of the Thematic Apperception Test. Subjects scoring higher in intimacy motivation recalled specific peak experiences, great learning experiences, and (to a lesser extent) satisfying experiences that contained a preponderance of intimacy themes, whereas subjects scoring lower on the motive did not. A similar relationship between power motivation and power themes in peak experiences and satisfying experiences was obtained. In addition, a positive correlation between the power motive and expressed feelings of anger in reports of unpleasant experiences was found. No relationship, however, was found between motive scores and themes of intimacy or power in reports of experiences seen by the subjects as less personally meaningful, such as neutral experiences and, for intimacy motivation, unpleasant, experiences. Remembering Meaningful ExperiencesThe notion that personality variables such as motives, attitudes, and interests selectively influence human memory is common psychological lore (Mandl,er, 1975;Rapaport, 1942). One of Freud's (1901Freud's ( /1960 crucial clinical insights was that certain forms of forgetting do not reveal cognitive deficit at all, but are motivationally induced. Coming from the perspective of experimental psychology, Bartlett (1932) believed that an important factor guiding a person's reconstruction of past experiences was his or her attitudes toward them, including relevant motives, emotions, and interest pat-The research was funded by National Science Foundation Grant #BNS7817933 to David C. McClelland. The author would like to thank David for his support and valuable comments. Additional thanks go to Rebecca Pallmeyer, Laura Booth, Roberta Drews,, and Mike Losoff for thejr assistance in data coding.Requests for reprints should be sent to

Culture and concepts of power.

“…One strength of this study is the unobtrusive assessment of power concepts. Rather than collecting self-reports of power beliefs, as in Study 1, we tapped power associations by assessing, through independent ratings, the vividness of emotional memories associated with implicit motivations (see McAdams, 1982;Woike et al, 2003, for a discussion about the implicit nature of these measures). The results suggest that culturally Table 4 Means…”

The Effects of Social Roles and Personality Motives on Autobiographical Memory

“…People with high motives for agency are concerned with personal power, achievement, and independence, whereas those with high motives for communion or intimacy are concerned with interdependence, nurturing, and collectivism. A recent body of research has provided growing support for the suggestion that individuals with agentic motives and those with communal motives process information in different ways (e.g., McAdams, 1982McAdams, , 1985Woike, 1994aWoike, , 1995Woike, Gershkovich, Piorkowski, & Polo, 1999).…”

The Self and Autobiographical Memory: Correspondence and Coherence

“…Similarly, in examining the relationship of turning point and other significant personal memories to overall themes of the personality, McAdams (1982;McAdams, Hoffman, Mansfield, & Day, 1996) has consistently found that power-oriented memories are linked to individuals' agentic motives, while intimacy-oriented memories reflect communal motives in individuals. Jardine (1999) found that her sample of women counselors who experienced life transitions during their clinical training associated themes from their self-defining memories with their set of "possible selves" (Markus & Nurius, 1986).…”