The Psychological Assessment of Political Leadersthe images of achievement and affiliation that characterized his ear-
lier motive profile: "But if Congress will just sit down with me and
work out a reasonable solution... we can create an historic achieve-
ment."
Of course the 1995—96 transformation in Clinton's political for-
tunes involved many factors other than Clinton's motives: for exam-
ple, good advice about strategy and tactics, opportunities furnished
by Republican miscalculations and mistakes, and plain luck. But
good advice, opportunities, and luck do not automatically effectuate
themselves. My point here is that the changes in Clinton's motive
profile increased his readiness to take advantage of these opportunities,
to use the good advice, and to feel comfortable with the new directions.
Another president, with an unchanged high achievement/low power
profile, might have ignored the advice and maintained a self-defeat-
ing course.
The two analyses of Bill Clinton show how motive profiles can be
used in different ways to understand political leaders: (i) to predict
initially the broad outlines of the leader's performance—especially
vulnerabilities and opportunities—in office, and (2) to understand
the underlying psychological basis of changes in the leader's behav-
ior over time.
Notes- Motives are generally conceptualized as relatively fixed dispositions. On
the other hand, no motive operates at the same level of strength or intensity all
the time. (Consider the case of hunger, for which even the highest levels can be
satisfied, temporarily, with food.) Thus apparent "changes" or fluctuations in
observed levels of motive imagery can be thought of as reflecting different amounts
of arousal of a stable dispositional motive (see Atkinson 1982). However, there is also
evidence that motives can change over time, either as a result of developmental
and aging processes (see Veroff 1983; Veroff, Reuman, and Feld 1984; Veroff
and Smith 1985) or in response to certain extraordinary events or influences (see
McClelland and Winter 1969). - The following example, from Johnson's inaugural address, illustrates his
achievement and affiliation motives in combination:
For the hour and the day and the time are here to achieve progress
{achievement} without strife, to achieve change without hatred—not
without difference of opinion, but without the deep and abiding divisions
which scar the union [affiliation] for generations.