Technical Report - International Military Testing Association

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Identified the strengeh of six dimensions of motivational values or
factors which are useful in predicting whether an officer or en epliated
mm will plan on staying in the military service as a career. These
factors which are tested by objective type teats ure support, conformity,
recognition, independence, bcnevalence, snd leadership. ~1~0, they are
currently conducting extensive research in developing devices which ~111
predict cthich officers and enlisted uen will be the nest proficient
dcring their &my careers.
Cattell and his co-workers hsve spent the last fifteen yesra in
trying to develop objective measures of motivational strength. They
studied the amjor evaluative instruments produced by others, their devices,
and the known general psychological principles in the areas of moeivatlon,
learning theory, etc. (& example of the kind of principle referred to
here is that of information. In general, i.e., after we discount the
Influence of intelligence and general breadth of interest, a person knows
more about what he is interested in, more about those courses of action
to which he is comieeed, than he does about what he is not interested
in.) Cattell developed m-me seventy-five devices of his own and poktulatcd
8omf2 sixty new principles. Prom this moss of nnterial, he found
through factor ana?ytic atudies,*seven basic raotivational ccmponents.
ihree of these seem to correepond in content to the functfonr ascribed by
Prcud to the Id, Ego, and Superego. The others have been named Physlological
Interest, Repressed Cmplexes, Impulsivity or Urgency, and
Persistence. These qualities can be ascribed in varying proportion to
any drive. Second order facto- analysis of these motivational components
resulted in two second order factors: (1) Integrated, or that which is
essentially a conscious and experienced expression, and (2) Unintegrated,
or that which is essentially unconscious and mainly wishfug and tension.
The two most important working concepts of Cattell in his theoretical
treatment of motivation have been termed “erg” and “seneiment,”
respectively, for the constitutions1 � ud acquired patterns found
opmationally as factors in dynamic measures by experiments. The term
“erg” is used instead of drive because ehe latter term drags in all
manner of clinical and other assumptions about “instincts” and so on,
whcrers the ergic paeterns are experimentally demonstrable. How?Wr, In
popular terms an erg is a drive or source of reactive energy directed
toward a pareicular goal, nuch as fear, mating, assertiveness, aad so on.
By contrast, a rentiment is an acquired aggregrate of attitudes built up
by learning and social experience, but also, like an erg, a source of
motivational energy and interest. Both ergs and senti;?rants, though
essentially ccmnmn In form, are developed to different degreee in different
people. Cattell and his co-workers found factor analytic evidence for some
twenty motivational dimemions in a broad rampling of variables.
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