Motives in Words
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The words of swords
Robert Hogenraad
Catholic University of Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
Keywords: computer-aided content analysis; motive dictionary; survival
narratives; war; words as predictors.
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Abstract
McClelland predicts that when scores of low affiliation and high power coincide in
political texts, violent events occur some time later. This coincidence, he calls “the
imperial motivation”, i.e., the use of one’s own accumulated power to save the
others, even against their will. With the help of PROTAN, a computer-supported
content analysis system, and of a new computer-readable dictionary meant to
assess the rates of affiliation and power in texts, one analyzes four types of survival
narratives in order to test out the theory of imperial motivation on literary texts.
Even with this version 1.0 of the new dictionary, one can verify that “the imperial
motivation” is at work in literary texts as well.
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The words of swords
What this paper’s essential subject is concerns the interactions between two
motives, the Need for Affiliation, and the Need for Power. A quick foreword
should suffice to give traffic signals to readers to get the core meaning of this
project. The project is enough exciting that it cries out loud for the one thing it
lacks: it is unfinished.
The will to power (or to conquer) counts among the major myths of
modernity, i.e., from the 16th century to quite nowadays. Barbarism was described
by Bartolomé de Las Casas in 1556 in “The Black Legend”: “Estirpar y raer de la
haz de la tierra” [(As for those that came out of Spain, boasting themselves to be
Christians, they took two several waies) to extirpate this Nation from the face of the
Earth, the first whereof was a bloudy, unjust, and cruel war which they made upon
them: a second by cutting off all that so much as fought to recover their liberty, as
some of the stouter sort did intend)1. The will to power climaxed in the Nazi period;
here, one has the choice among many quotations: “Es mußte der schwere Entschluß
gefaßt werden, dieses Volk von der Erde verschwinden zu lassen” [The difficult
decision had to be taken to make this people disappear from the earth] (Heinrich
Himmler, Speech at Posen, October 6, 1943)2. The will to power is not limited to
the roughage of terror and genocides. It extends to the myth of survival, and its
accompanying survivor’s guilt and anxiety, leading many survivors to commit
suicide, as did Primo Levi for one, in April 1987: surviving Auschwitz, surviving
as a hostage in Beirut in the late 80's, or surviving after a shipwreck on a deserted
island, requires always imposing one’s will on a hostile environment. The will to
power is present also in the myth of alchemy (as the glorification of the art of
imposing one’s will on matter in order to transform it); Goethe’s “Faust”
(1808/1999) is the epitome of the will of eternal knowledge3.
McClelland (1975b) has developed a theory that analyzes the Need for
Power as well its interactions with another motive, the Need for Affiliation. The
best definition of the Need for Affiliation lies in Forster’s passage “If I had to
choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should
have the guts to betray my country”, this in the section “What I believe” of E.M.
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Forster’s 1951 “Two cheers for democracy”. This motive is close to McAdams’
1982 notion of need for intimacy, as “when one is concerned with establishing,
maintaining, or restoring a positive emotional relationship with a person, or simply
likes or wants to be liked by someone else” (from the TAT test scoring guidelines
in http://uwf.edu/coehelp/wbi98/wnast/class/fifteen.htm). And finally, in the
introduction to Platonov’s (1999/2001) novel “Happy Moscow”, Eric Naiman
comments about “individual ascetics who love the whole of humanity so much that
they are ashamed of intimacy with another person” (p. xxii), this about the
pseudo-collective pleasure parodied in the novel.
The Need for Power refers to the impact one wants to have on another
person, as by getting or keeping control over somebody else. The following extract
from William Golding’s “Lord of the flies” illustrates this need: “(Memories of) the
knowledge that they had outwitted a living thing, imposed their will upon it” (1954,
p. 74, underlining mine); this sentence comes after the boys succeeded to kill a wild
pig on the uninhabited island on which they were stranded after a plane crash.
McClelland (1975b, in particular chapter 9 “Love and power: The
psychological basis of war”, pp. 314-359; see also McClelland, 1975a ) goes one
step further and argues that when the Need for Power in political texts is increasing
while the Need for Affiliation or intimacy is decreasing, one can predict that brutal
and violent events, such as wars, rebellions, and various forms of revolt, will occur
within some time after. The coincidence of low affiliation and high power, he calls
“the imperial motivation”4, i.e., the use of one’s own accumulated power to save
the others, whether they liked it or not. Both McClelland (1975b) and Winter
(1993) have accumulated evidence in this sense.
Analyzing the imperial motivation in the fields of economy and politics is
the ultimate purpose of this project. Many would urge social scientists to do so, and
the sooner the better. However, one suspects that reality –that is, the news you hear
or see in the media for example– is not that transparent: Constraints of all sorts,
censorship, incomplete or false information, not to mention disinformation or
strategies of deception, make it difficult to assess reality with clarity. On February
10, 2002, “The Sunday Times” titled on page 5 “Dostoevsky can teach you about
terror”, this about screenwriter Tony Marchant saying, after filming “Crime and
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Punishment”, that “our present crisis is all there”. And in the foreword to an
English translation of Gogol’s “The Government Inspector”, Sergei Mashinsky has
it that “For a large portion of the 19th century literature in Russia was the only
legal platform for impassioned protests against the tyranny of the ruling
landowning class” (Gogol, 2000, p. 7). By and large, if imperial motivation
possesses any psychological reality, it could be easier to put one’s finger on it in the
analysis of fiction than in the analysis of a real event (Handelman, 1985;
Hogenraad et al., 2002).
Four literary exemplars were content analyzed: two survival narratives
(Willam Golding’s 1954 “Lord of the Flies”, and Daniel Defoe’s 1791 “Robinson
Crusoe”), one alchemist narrative (Goethe’s 1808/1999 “Faust”), and one narrative
of transformation –as a variant of an alchemist narrative–, Franz Kafka’s
(1916/1996) “The Metamorphosis”.
Method
Literary texts
Golding’s novel was scanned, the other narratives were secured from the
Gutenberg database http://www.promo.net/pg/. “Lord of the Flies” is William
Golding's best-known novel. It is the story of a group of boys who, after a plane
crash, set up a fragile community on an uninhabited island. As memories of home
recede and the blood from frenzied pig-hunts arouses them, the boys' childish fear
turns into something deeper and more primitive. At first, they enjoy the freedom of
the situation but soon divide into fearsome gangs which turn the paradise island
into a nightmare of panic and death. “Lord of the Flies” is composed of 12 chapters,
accounting for 61,709 words, of which 5,520 are different words. Pruning
declensions reduces the number of different words to 3,518.
“Robinson Crusoe” (Defoe, 1791/1994) recounts the story of a stranded
sailor, seemingly alone on an island, who rediscovers himself through resilience
and spirit, until his meeting with Man Friday (whom he rescues from a most certain
death). The narrative was divided into its 20 chapters. The narrative makes up
121,232 words, of which 6,190 are different. Thus figure comes to 4,688 after
pruning.
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Goethe’s “Faust” describes a man making a pact with the devil (alchemy),
yet, more than that, it is also a survival narrative (Wood, 2000) –through
resignation and renouncement (“Stirb und werde”)–, as in the words of The Lord in
the “Prologue in Heaven”: “A good man in his darkest aberration, /Of the right
path is conscious still”5 (the full résumé of Faust’s complex story is available at
http://www.levity.com/alchemy/faust.html. The 33 scenes of “Faust” (Part 1 and 2)
are composed of 63,609 words and 8,185 different words (6,716 after pruning).
Kafka’s “Metamorphosis” is the parable (of alienation, of humility) about a
man, Gregor Samsa, who wakes up one morning transformed into a giant insect.
Although ostracized by his family, Gregor manages to keep a positive relationship
with his sister (at least for a time), yet dies in the end. The short story was divided
into 25 segments each of the same number of words, 886, except the last segment
(894 words), making a total of 22,258 words, 2,876 different words, and 2,142 after
pruning)
Content analysis
Changes in the two motives in the corpuses were assessed with the help of
the PROTAN content analysis system (Hogenraad, Daubies & Bestgen, 1995).
Among other things, PROTAN allows using a categorizing procedure for analyzing
the content of a text. This procedure is based on semantic dictionaries. Categorizing
words is a quasi-experimental procedure in the sense that, having selected a list of
relevant words –such as a list of abstract words–, we compare all the words of the
text to all the words of a dictionary. A dictionary, in textual analysis, is no more
than a list of words organized into categories. When we apply a dictionary to a text,
we are merely looking for matches between a word in a dictionary and a word in a
text: We count the number of word matches in each category and take the
percentage of the number of word matches.
The motive dictionary
The motive dictionary rests on three pillars which are the Need for
Achievement (N-Ach), the Need for Affiliation (N-Aff), and the Need for Power
(N-Pow). It is built from several sources: the Philip Stone's General Inquirer
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categories (version IV) (see the General Inquirer home page
http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~inquirer) (Stone et al., 1966), to which were added
some categories of Colin Martindale's Regressive Imagery Dictionary (1975),
some categories of the Lasswell value dictionary (Namenwirth & Weber, 1987; see
also the General Inquirer home page), and a few words from David Heise's 1965
article "Semantic differential profiles for 1,000 most frequent English words" that
had not yet been included in the main motivation dictionary. Several words of these
categories were modified or deleted, while other ones were added, so as to stay as
close as possible to McClelland's theoretical frame of reference. Elias Canetti's
(1960) "Crowds and Power" was also a useful resource of items for elaborating the
power motivation categories. The motivation dictionary is built so that a word
assigned to one category cannot be present in another one except the superordinate
category to which its category belongs. N-Ach makes up 887 entries in the
dictionary, N-Aff, 622, and N-Pow, 1,068 (Table 1).
INSERT TABLE 1 ABOUT HERE
Results
“Lord of the Flies”
After correction for autocorrelations (Hogenraad, McKenzie, & Martindale,
1997), N-Aff exhibits a U-shaped profile as in Figure 1 [R² = .45, F(2, 9) = 3.7, p <
.06], while N-Pow exhibits the opposite one [R² = .80, F(1, 10) = 35.38, p < .0001].
The correlation between the observed scores of N-Aff and N-Pow is -.73 (n = 12, p
= .007, with confidence interval running from -.91 to -.26).
INSERT FIGURE 1 ABOUT HERE
“Robinson Crusoe”
In “Robinson Crusoe”, N-Aff unfolds as a U-shaped curve [R² = .70, F(3,
16) = 12.65, p < .001], and so does N-Pow [R² = .42, F(2, 17) = 6.08, p < .05].
However, here, the correlation between affiliation and power (observed scores) is
.74, (n = 20, p = .0001, confidence interval running from .44 to .89) (Figure 2).
Motives in Words
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INSERT FIGURE 2 ABOUT HERE
“Faust”
No significant profile could be uncovered for N-Aff, but a positive linear
trend was uncovered for N-Pow (not shown here) [R² = .23, F(1, 33) = 9.12, p <
.01]. Yet, the correlation between the observed values of N-Aff and N-Pow is -.49
(n = 33, p = .004, confidence interval running from -.71 to -.17).
“The Metamorphosis”
An opposite picture (Figure 3) appears when one analyzes Kafka’s
“Metamorphosis”, i.e., affiliation goes upward, even if moderately, while power
goes downward [R² = .24, F(1, 23) = 7.42, p < .05 for affiliation, and R² = .23, F(1,
23) = .23, p < .05]. However, the correlation between affiliation and power is non
significant.
INSERT FIGURE 3 ABOUT HERE
Discussion
In Figure 1 (“Lord of the Flies”), the inverse relationship between power
and affiliation is almost perfect until chapter 7, that is, at the point where the group
breaks down and new affinities are recreated between the boys, causing the
affiliation curve to go up again. At the opposite, in “Robinson Crusoe”, the
relationship between affiliation and power is positive (and also significant). But in
this latter case, the survival narrative does not develop into a major conflict, as it
did in “Lord of the Flies”. Of the four stories, “Robinson Crusoe” is the only one
that ends for sure in a positive way: Robinson is saved; it is also the only survival
story in which the correlation between affiliation and power is positive. In the other
three stories (“Lord of the Flies”, “The Metamorphosis”, and “Faust”), the issue is
rather negative: death occurs in all; and the correlations between affiliation and
power are negative in all cases (even if power declines steadily in the Kafka’s short
story6, contrary to what happens in the other three stories). Even Faust dies blind,
Motives in Words
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and frustrated, after struggling with Baucis and Philemon, –only to have his soul
saved quite near the end by the Angels playing a trick on Mephisto; yet here too, the
correlation between affiliation and power is negative. For those who wish to think
further about the idea, the following suggestion, in the form of a quotation from
Primo Levi’s (1958/2001) “If this is a man”: “Survival without renunciation of any
part of one's own moral world (...) was conceded to very few superior individuals”
(p. 98).
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Notes
1. On Bartolomé de Las Casas’ defense of the Indians, see
http://www.gonzaga.edu/faculty/campbell/enl310/casas.htm
2. For a collection of quotations from officials of the Nazi regime on the fate of the
Jews, see http://www.holocaust-history.org/nazis-words/.
3. For alchemy narratives, see http://www.levity.com/alchemy/
4. Tzvetan Todorov (2000) recently coined the expression of “la tentation du bien”
(the temptation of the good) which is even closer to the idea of using one’s power to
save the others. Todorov’s book has been translated into Spanish [“Memoria del
mal, tentación del bien”. Península: Barcelona, 2002], but not yet into English.
5. “Ein guter Mensch, in seinem dunklen Drange, Ist sich des rechten Weges wohl
bewusst”.
6. The recurrent negative force (“le moi haïssable”) of Kafka’s characters –and
their acquiescence in a totalitarian nightmare (Chamberlain, 2002, p. 23)– is
repeated in a recent novel “Insect dreams” (Estrin, 2002) where Kafka’s hero,
Gregor Samsa, is given a rich life ahead.
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Acknowledgment
Acknowledgment is made to the National Fund for Scientific Research, Belgium
(Grant no. 1.5.061.02, 2001-2002). Reprint requests should be addressed to Robert
Hogenraad, Psychology Department, Catholic University of Louvain, 10 Place du
Cardinal Mercier, B-1348 Louvain-la-Neuve (Belgium); e-mail
Robert.Hogenraad@psp.ucl.ac.be
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Brooke
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Chamberlain, L. (2002, March 15). The Faustian roach [Review of Marc Estrin’s
“Insect Dreams”]. The Times Literary Supplement, 23.
Defoe, D. (1791/1994). Robinson Crusoe. London: Penguin.
Estrin, M. (2002). Insect dreams. New York: Bluehen.
Forster, E. M. (1951). Two cheers for democracy. London: Arnold.
Goethe, J. W., von. (1808/1999). 'Faust': The first part of the tragedy (John
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Heise, D. R. (1965). Semantic differential profiles for 1000 most frequent words in
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influence in content analysis: The production of new social knowledge.
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Table 1. Categories and subcategories of the motive dictionary
Category
Subcategory
N. of words
Examples
and roots
Achievement
887
Instrumental
115
labor, market
Need**
52
craving, wish
Goal**
39
aim, merit
Try**
82
competitive, risk
Means**
161
expedient, plan
Persist**
39
constant, lasting
Complete**
36
founder, success
Finish**
60
erase, quit
Means***
39
cost, equip
Fail**
107
default, flounder
Transaction gain***
67
accretion, boost
Transactions***
89
install, release
behavior*
Affiliation
622
Affection*
67
mate, sweetheart
Social behavior*
86
answer, escort
Affiliation**
330
accompany, couteous
Affect loss***
10
alone, indifference
Affect participants***
62
dad, mistress
Affect words
42
family, nostalgic
Positive affect***
26
affable, thoughtful
Power
1068
Power**
551
ambition, justice
Power gain***
23
emancipate, nominate
Power loss***
44
captive, weak
Power ends***
8
plead, recommend
Power conflicts***
154
adversary, invade
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Power
60
arbiter, reciprocal
52
patriarch, detective
32
emissary, orator
Power doctrine***
21
conservatism, dogmatic
Power authority***
24
legitimate, reign
Residual power
99
colonialism, terrorize
cooperation***
Power authoritative
participants***
Power ordinary
participants***
words***
* RID subcategory; ** Harvard IV subcategory; *** Laswell subcategory
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Figure captions
Figure 1. Need of Affiliation (N-Aff) and Need for Power (N-Pow) (observed and
fitted) in the 12 chapters of William Golding’s “Lord of the Flies”.
Figure 2. Need of Affiliation (N-Aff) and Need for Power (N-Pow) (observed and
fitted) in the 20 chapters of Defoe’s “Robinson Crusoe”.
Figure 3. Need of Affiliation (N-Aff) and Need for Power (N-Pow) (observed and
fitted) in the 25 segments of Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis”.
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Figure 1. Need of Affiliation (N-Aff) and Need for Power (N-Pow) (observed and
fitted) in the 12 chapters of William Golding’s « Lord of the Flies ».
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Figure 2. Need of Affiliation (N-Aff) and Need for Power (N-Pow) (observed and
Fitted) in the 20 chapters of Defoe’s “Robinson Crusoe”.
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Figure 3. Need of Affiliation (N-Aff) and Need for Power (N-Pow) (observed and
fitted) in the 25 segments of Kafka’s «The Metamorphosis»