David Clarence McClelland

Background

David Clarence McClelland was born on May 20, 1917 in Mount Vernon, New York, United States; the son of Clarence Paul McClelland and Mary Elizabeth McClelland.

Education

David McClelland graduated from Jacksonville High School in Illinois in 1933. He received a Bachelor of Arts from Wesleyan University in 1938, a Master of Arts from the University of Missouri in 1939 and a Doctor of Philosophy in experimental psychology from Yale University in 1941.

Career

McClelland's began his career as an instructor at Connecticut College. Then he was appointed as an instructor at Wesleyan in 1941, in addition to taking a part-time lecturer position at Bryn Mawr College from 1944 to 1945. David became the chairman of the psychology department at Wesleyan in 1946. Over the next ten years, he lectured in social psychology in Saltzburg, Austria, at the Saltzburg Seminar in American Studies, and at Harvard University. In 1956, he left Wesleyan to become a professor of psychology at Harvard. He remained this position till 1986, becoming professor emeritus. In 1963, McClelland and his associate Berlew co-founded McBer Consulting Company.

David McClelland published a series of books on motivation, including Studies in Motivation, The Achieving Society, and The Roots of Consciousness. He continued to publish books on achievement, including Power: The Inner Experience and Human Motivation. His once radical ideas have become standard instruments in many corporations.

Achievements

• David Clarence McClelland has been listed as a noteworthy psychology educator by Marquis Who's Who. He also received a Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award from American Psychological Association in 1987 and a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1958. David is listed at number 15 on the American Psychological Association’s list of the 100 most eminent psychologists of the 20th century.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Power Is the Great Motivator

    (In this provocative exploration into the nature and value...)

    1976
  • Human Motivation

    (Human Motivation offers a broad overview of theory and re...)

    1987
  • The Achieving Society

    (This classic book provides a factual basis for evaluating...)

    1961
  • The Achievement Motive

    (This book makes three discrete contributions to the theor...)

    1953
  • Power: The Inner Experience 1975
  • Motives, Personality, and Society: Selected Papers 1984

Views

David McClelland proposed a content theory of motivation based on Henry Murray's theory of personality, which sets out a comprehensive model of human needs and motivational processes. In McClelland's book, The Achieving Society, he asserted that human motivation comprises three dominant needs: The need for achievement (N-Ach), the need for power (N-Pow) and the need for affiliation (N-Affil). The subjective importance of each need varies from individual to individual and depends also on an individual's cultural background. He also claimed that this motivational complex is an important factor in the social change and evolution of societies. His legacy includes the scoring system which he co-developed with John William Atkinson for the Thematic Apperception Test. The TAT is used for personality assessment and in achievement motivation research.

The acquired-needs theory developed by David McClelland, called "McCelland's Theory of Needs" (sometimes as the "Three Need Theory" or the "Learned Needs Theory"), draws on Henry Murray's model of personality. McClelland proposed that an individual's specific needs are acquired over time and are shaped by one's early life experiences. According to McClelland, most of human needs and/or motives can be classified as achievement, affiliation, and power. He found that a person's motivation and effectiveness in certain job functions are influenced by these three needs. Thus, the importance of a particular need depends upon the position.

Quotations: "Understanding human motivation ought to be a good thing. It should help us to find out what we really want so that we can avoid chasing rainbows that are not for us. It should open up opportunities for self-development if we apply motivational principles to pursuing our goals in life."

"Outstanding American men seem to see power as something you use in order to correct someone who's wrong, to change them, to show them you see more in this situation than the boss does. Outstanding American women, on the other hand, see power as a resource, something you can use to get people together, to gain commitment."

Membership

David Clarence McClelland was a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Phi Beta Kappa and Sigma Xi.

Connections

David McClelland married Mary Sharpless on June 25, 1938. In December 1980, Mary died. On October 10, 1981, he remarried, to Marian Adams. David had seven children - Mira, Jabez, Catherine, Duncan, Nicholas, Usha and Sarah.

Father:

Clarence Paul McClelland

Mother:

Mary Elizabeth McClelland

Spouse:

Miriam Adams

child:

Mira McClelland

child:

Jabez McClelland

child:

Catherine McClelland

child:

Duncan and Nicholas McClelland (twins)

child:

Usha McClelland

child:

Sarah McClelland

late spouse:

Mary Warner Sharpless

References

• Psychologists on Psychology
  1977
• The Making of Psychology: Discussions with Creative Contributors
  1976