Relationship between Dominance and Achievement among Self-Report Measures 1

Abstract

The need for dominance has something in common with the need for achievement in that both have clear relevance to the study of behavior in organizations. Yet in the literature a belief has persisted that the similarities end here, i.e., that dominance and achievement are essentially orthogonal. While this conclusion may be valid among nonself-report measures of these variables, it cannot be extrapolated to self-report measures because these two general measurement techniques tap into fundamentally different patterns of motives and are not mere substitutes for each other. Based on the results of surveys administered to three samples of adults (total N = 703) and using scales derived from both the Manifest Needs Questionnaire and the Personality Research Form, present analyses point to a strong relationship between self-reported dominance and achievement.