On the structure of motives: beyond the 'big three'

Abstract

"Stressing common features of motives and values, an attempt is made to outline a general and parsimonious taxonomy for classifying motives by borrowing from Schwartz' (1992) value theory. This is achieved by applying two basic dimensions found in value research to the structural analysis of motives. The tenability of this approach is tested by analyzing multitrait-multimethod matrices of different motivational indicators by means of multidimensional scaling. Results support the hypothesized distinction and structure of stable motivational domains." (author's abstract)