title: Toward a comprehensive taxonomy of human motives.
abstract: A major success in personality has been the development of a consensual structure of traits. However, much less progress has been made on the structure of an equally important aspect of human psychology: motives. We present an empirically and theoretically structured hierarchical taxonomy of 161 motives gleaned from a literature review from McDougall to the present and based on the cluster analysis of similarity judgments among these 161 motives, a broader sampling of motives than previous work. At the broadest level were: Meaning, Communion, and Agency. These divided into nine clusters: Morality & Virtue, Religion & Spirituality, Self-Actualization, Avoidance, Social Relating, Family, Health, Mastery & Competence, and Financial & Occupational Success. Each divided into more concrete clusters to form 5 levels. We discuss contributions to research on motives, especially recent work on goal systems, and the aiding of communication and systematization of research. Finally, we compare the taxonomy to other motive organizations.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, United States of America.
authors.forename: Jennifer R
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Talevich
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, United States of America.
authors.forename: Stephen J
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4562-7248
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Read
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, United States of America.
authors.forename: David A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Walsh
authors.affiliation: Ranker, Los Angeles, CA, United States of America.
authors.forename: Ravi
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Iyer
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, United States of America.
authors.forename: Gurveen
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Chopra
mesh_terms: D000124:Achievement; D001362:Avoidance Learning; D002322:Career Mobility; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D005190:Family; D015438:Health Behavior; D000070497:Healthy Lifestyle; D006801:Humans; D009014:Morals; D009042:Motivation; D012919:Social Behavior