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CLINICALUPDATE
of standards, and to strive to succeed. The need for power is
the need to make others behave in a way that they would not
have behaved otherwise. The need for affiliation is the desire
for friendly and close interpersonal relationships. A person’s
levels of these three needs are typically measured by reacting
to a set of pictures included in the Thematic Apperception Test.
Predictions about motivation can be made from a study of the
three-needs theory. McClelland found that high achievers
differentiate themselves from others by their desire to do things
better. High achievers like moderately challenging goals. They
avoid what they perceive to be very easy or very difficult tasks.
Individuals with a high need to achieve prefer and are strongly
motivated in work situations with personal responsibility,
feedback, and an intermediate degree of risk.
Applications to Dentistry: On the one hand, try to identify the
type of need your patient valued most and try to focus on that
for motivation. On the other hand, similar to the Maslow’s
theory, this theory gives us a remainder that there are different
types of needs that the patient requires. Identification of
individuals with a high need for achievement can be useful in
selecting motivation methods.
preferable to assigning goals whenever resistance is expected.
People will do better when they get feedback on how well they
are progressing toward their goals because feedback acts to
guide behavior and self-generated feedback has been shown
to be a more powerful motivator than externally generated
feedback. Several contingencies exist in goal-setting theory.
Feedback influences the goal-performance relationship. Goal
commitment is most likely to occur when goals are made
public, when the individual has an internal locus of control, and
when the goals are set by the individual rather than assigned.
The other contingency is self-efficacy. It is an individual’s belief
that one is capable of performing a task. The higher one’s selfefficacy,
the more confidence one has in one’s ability to
succeed in a task. So, in difficult situations, people with low
self-efficacy are likely to reduce their effort or give up
;1altogether, whereas those with high self-efficacy seem to
response to negative feedback with increased effort and
motivation, whereas those with low self-efficacy are likely to
reduce their effort when given negative feedback. Finally,
national culture is a contingency that also affects goal-setting
theory. One may conclude that intentions, as defined by hard
and specific goals, are a powerful motivating force in goal-
Goal-setting theory
Would you have done better in dental school had
your teacher in the phantom head course said, ‘you
should strive for a grade B or above on all your tooth
preparations’ rather than telling you just to ‘try your
best’? Research on goal-setting theory addresses
these issues, and the findings were impressive in
term of the effect that goal specificity, challenge, and
feedback have on performance 6 . This is the
proposition that specific goals increase
performance, and difficult goals, when accepted,
result in higher performance than easy goals 6 . What
is known about goals as motivators? Intention to
work toward a goal is a major source of job
motivation. Specific and challenging goals are
superior motivating forces. Specific hard goals
produce a higher level of output than do generalized
goals. There is no contradiction that goal-setting
theory says that motivation is maximized by difficult
goals, whereas achievement motivation is
stimulated by moderately challenging goals. As goalsetting
theory deals with people in general;
achievement theory is based only on people who
have a high need for achievement. Difficult goals are
still recommended to motivate the majority of
people. The conclusions of goal-setting theory apply
to those who accept and are committed to the goals.
Difficult goals will lead to higher performance only if
they are accepted. People will try harder if they
participate in the planning and formulation of goals
although it cannot be said that participation is
always desirable. Participation is probably
Dental Asia • May / June 2008
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