Understanding Psychology (10th Ed)

 Module 
30 
Human Needs and Motivation: Eat, Drink, and Be Daring 
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326 Chapter 
10 
Motivation and Emotion
People who have higher affi liation needs are particularly sensitive to relation-
ships with others. They desire to be with their friends more of the time and alone 
less often, compared with people who are lower in the need for affi liation. However, 
gender is a greater determinant of how much time is actually spent with friends: 
Regardless of their affi liative orientation, female students spend signifi cantly more 
time with their friends and less time alone than male students do (Cantwell & 
Andrews, 2002; Johnson, 2004; Semykina & Linz, 2007).
The Need for Power: Striving 
for Impact on Others
If your fantasies include becoming president of the United States or running Micro-
soft, your dreams may refl ect a high need for power. The  need for power,  a ten-
dency to seek impact, control, or infl uence over others and to be seen as a 
powerful individual, is an additional type of motivation (Lee-Chai & Bargh, 2001; 
Winter, 2007; Zians, 2007).
As you might expect, people with strong needs for power are more apt to belong 
to organizations and seek offi ce than are those low in the need for power. They also 
tend to work in professions in which their power needs may be fulfi lled, such as 
business management and—you may or may not be surprised—teaching (Jenkins, 
1994). In addition, they seek to display the trappings of power. Even in college, they 
are more likely to collect prestigious possessions, such as electronic equipment and 
sports cars. 
Some signifi cant gender differences exist in the display of need for power. Men 
with high power needs tend to show unusually high levels of aggression, drink heav-
ily, act in a sexually exploitative manner, and participate more frequently in competi-
tive sports—behaviors that collectively represent somewhat extravagant, fl amboyant 
behavior. In contrast, women display their power needs with more restraint; this is 
congruent with traditional societal constraints on women’s behavior. Women with high 
power needs are more apt than men to channel those needs in a socially responsible 
manner, such as by showing concern for others or displaying highly nurturing behav-
ior (Maroda, 2004; Winter, 1988, 1995, 2007; Schubert & Koole, 2009).