Measuring the Motives of Political Actors at a DistanceProcedures and Materials for Scoring Motives at a DistanceSelecting Political Actor(s) or Group(s)The first step in any at-a-distance research is to select the persons or
groups to be studied. Obviously this depends on the questions and
interests of the researcher, but some aspects of this decision have
important implications for the overall design of the research.
Election Appropriate Comparison MaterialThe results of motive imagery scoring are raw motive imagery scores,
typically expressed in images per one thousand words. By them-
selves, these scores are difficult to interpret, since they are undoubt-
edly affected by many factors besides the actual motives of the polit-
ical actor: the type of discourse (prepared speech, informal remarks,
answers to interview questions, written letters, reports, telegrams,
diaries, etc.), the intended audience (an individual leader, a friend, a
public audience, the mass media), the occasion (an electoral campaign,
an inauguration, a crisis speech, a relaxed interview), the political
atmosphere (what issues are salient), and the compositional mode
(reflective prose, spontaneous remarks, off-the-cuff utterances).
With so many other potentially obscuring factors, researchers may
wonder how it is ever possible to detect the effects of individual
motives. The answer lies in establishing a comparison sample against
which to evaluate these raw scores. Such comparisons are a way to
hold constant (or at least to make an effort to hold constant) these
other, extraneous factors.
Once a comparison group is identified, the raw motive imagery
scores of all persons (those being studied and the comparisons) can be
pooled and converted to standardized form. (A standard score is the
raw score minus the mean of the entire pooled group, all divided by
the standard deviation of the pooled group. It describes a person's
raw score in comparison to those of the rest of the standardization
group. Scores from the Scholastic Aptitude Test or Graduate Record
Examination, for example, are expressed in standardized form, with
an overall mean of 500 and a standard deviation of 100.) Once raw
scores have been standardized on the basis of the scores of the com-
parison sample, they can then be compared to any other scores from