Why we need implicit measures of motivation: The case of implicit prosocial motivation Athanasios Chasiotis Tilburg University Implicit motives represent the first motivational system to be shaped in a human being’s ontogeny and have far reaching consequences for individuals’ development, their feelings and their behavior across different cultures. They are measured by operant motive tests using the Picture Story Exercise (PSE), in which participants can express personal fantasies without any self-­‐reference or restriction to actual life contexts. Therefore, these tests are better qualified for assessing contents of preverbal developmental phases and manifestations of unconscious affective dispositions than explicit self-­‐reports on motivational dispositions. Focusing on the prosocial component of the implicit power motive, we demonstrate its validity and applicability across cultures by reporting results of recent empirical studies in evolutionary, developmental, and cross-­‐cultural psychology and propose that if we are to do a better job at predicting behavior both within and across cultural groups, we need to supplement our typical reliance on explicit measures with implicit measures of motivation, beliefs, and values. Selected references: Aydinli, A., Bender, M., Chasiotis, A., van de Vijver, F. J. R., & Cemalcilar, Z. (2014). When Does Self-­‐Reported Prosocial Motivation Lead to Helping? -­‐ The Moderating Role of Implicit Prosocial Motivation. Motivation and Emotion, 38, 645-­‐658. DOI: 10.1007/s11031-­‐014-­‐
9411-­‐8. Chasiotis, A. & Hofer, J. (in press). Implicit prosocial power motivation: Views from evolutionary and developmental cross-­‐cultural psychology. In N. Baumann, T. Goschke, M. Kazen, S. Koole, & M. Quirin (Eds.), Julius Kuhl liber amicorum in honour of his 65th birthday: Berlin: Springer. Chasiotis, A., Bender, M., & Hofer, J. (2014). Childhood context explains cultural variance in implicit parenting motivation: Results from two studies with six samples from Cameroon, Costa Rica, Germany, and PR China. Evolutionary Psychology. 12(2): 295-­‐317. epjournal.net/3240.