Influence of Respondent Sets on Two Objective Measures of Achievement Motivation

Abstract

Among the advantages recognized for Mehrabian's and Hermans' tests of achievement motivation are their relative ease of administration and scoring. Specifically, both measures are thought to be relatively free of the need for the controlled administration conditions necessary for comparable projective measures of achievement motivation. The writers investigated the degree to which the two measures were sensitive to systematic response bias by having respondents stimulated to elicit cognitive sets likely to result in faking behavior. The results indicated that respondents were able to influence scores systematically on both measures and that the potential influence of external stimuli should be recognized by users of these tests.

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References

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