Motive Imagery and The Spread of Ideas

A couple weeks ago I ran a quick survey on my website, Those Answers, in order to gather data about the affect (if any) that motive imagery may play on the spread of ideas. I was interested in finding out if there was one particular class of motive imagery that people are more or less likely to disseminate.

Motive imagery is a psychological phenomenon that is rooted in the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT), in which a person tells a fantastical story about anything or may be guided by the use of images, sounds, or ideas. Based on the language and tones that people use to elicit their thoughts, whether they are stern or sweet, hopeful or sad, angry or happy, can indeed tell you about the current psychological state of that individual.

Motive imagery is then broken down into three core categories (there is actually a fourth dimension to motive imagery, but that will not be explained in this post). The classifications of motive imagery are rather simple, but are phenomenally complex when one explores their intricacies and how they were originally determined.

There is achievement motive imagery, which is based on positive evaluations, a desire to do better, positive goal oriented performance, or unique acts performed. There is affiliation/intimacy motive imagery, which is based on the longing for togetherness, sad feelings about separation, or the desire to help in a genuine way. Finally, there is power motive imagery, which is based on force and regulation and a need to impress others.

Motive imagery was established in the early 1950's by a famed psychologist at Harvard named David McClelland. McClelland asserted that by categorizing and collecting data on these TAT tests, one could establish deep, underlying motivations that people possessed. His work has been built on further by David Winter at the University of Michigan and Richard Boyatzis at Case Western Reserve University.

I am currently conducting an in depth research study on the role motive imagery plays in the corporate world. As I go on this adventure, my mind wanders, and I felt like gathering some data on another aspect of human psychology that motive imagery may be responsible for, and that is the dissemination of ideas.

When people hear information, they need to interpret that information for themselves, process it, store it, and then if they engage in social activities in which they can share that information, disperse it if they decide it is worthy.

I think that the concept of the transfer of ideas is mind blowing. Essentially, an idea is birthed in someone's mind, is uttered in a usable form of language to another organism that can go through the process described above, and then that other organism, feeling so compelled by the information they received makes a conscious decision to seek out and share other organisms with which it can spread the idea or information further.

There is a great deal of relevance to this dissection. In today's world where information is readily available and accessible at all times almost anywhere on the planet (newspapers, phones, Internet, television, etc.), one ought to wonder how human's decide on which ideas are the most pertinent, important, and really, worthy of our own cognitive functioning.

As a result of this inundation of information and knowledge, advertisers and news media have started to rely more heavily on Word of Mouth Marketing (WOMM), which is considered the best form of sharing ideas because it has the greatest impact and lasting effect on the individual with whom the idea is being shared.

Thus, are there ways to ensure that this information is disseminated more frequently? How do you encourage your idea or information to be spread via Word of Mouth? Is there a way to improve the odds?

With these questions in mind, I conducted the following study which I explain here:

• Idea Dissemination Study

Starting at 6:00 am on November, 19 2008 until 9:00 am November, 24 2008, a group of 36 individuals were randomly sampled and were asked to take a survey. The individuals were sampled from my current Friends list on my Facebook account.

I feel the sample is validly random just based on the mere nature of the demographics of my friends, but in order to further substantiate the validity, I cross checked the locations from which the survey was accessed via Google Analytics over the November 19 to November 24 time period, and there were 83 unique visits from 40 cities around the United States. A majority of the visits came from Ann Arbor, Michigan, but there were several from: Bloomington, New York, Ypsilanti, Chicago, Northbrook, Palo Alto, Ft. Collins, Greencastle, Manhattan, etc.


The 36 individuals who filled out the survey were given the following information when filling out the survey, "Provided are some 'News Headlines' pulled from the same news source. Please determine which one of the three options provided in each case you would most likely share with another person."

The news source (newspaper, television, magazine, etc.) was left up to the individual. Future studies may want to classify which news source the participant is reading the "News Headline" from because there may be some variability between sources.

Participants were then asked to select a single headline from a list of three options. The three options provided headlines in one of each of the three forms of motive imagery (achievement, affiliation, and power). News headlines varied and were on several different topics from energy, to the Big Three, to the Economic Crisis, to Shrimp and Picnics.

Individuals were then asked, "Why?" after each selection, in which they could write down anything they wanted. Most of them made comments relating to their choice in picking the headline. It was an optional field for all five questions, and some fields were indeed left blank.

The participants then submitted their answers and were taken to a screen that explained the nature of the study and further reading that they could do on the topic.

The information that the participants submitted was then collected in a database and then converted into an Excel document. The number of times each motive imagery category was then calculated as a proportion of the total amount of responses. There was one question left blank by the 36 participants, which means that there were 179 (instead of 180) responses.

• Results

To analyze the data, I used a one-proportion z-test (equation seen below) in order to test each motive imagery category against the null hypothesis that there is an equal likelihood that each motive imagery category would be selected. Therefore, I expected each motive imagery category could be selected one-third or 33.3% of the time.


A z-score allows you to attain a standard score in which you can then determine the p-value, or the probability of obtaining a result at least as extreme as the one that was actually observed, given that the null hypothesis is true. The p-value is defined by the area under the curve in a normal distribution, seen below. The maximum area of a normal distribution with a z-score is 1. The z-score is found on the x-axis of the graph. Based on this z-score table, the p-value is found by subtracting the z-score from 1, essentially subtracting the shaded area from the whole graph, which gives the probability of observing as extreme a result as the outcome observed.
In order for a result to be considered statistically significant, it ought be at least below 5%, which is quite a liberal p-value. In this experiment, I consider results below 5% to be statistically significant.

The results of the survey were:

• Achievement Motive Imagery Sentences Selected: 60/179 or 0.335 (33.5%)
• Affiliation Motive Imagery Sentences Selected: 73/179 or 0.408 (40.8%)
• Power Motive Imagery Sentences Selected: 46/179 or 0.257 (25.7%)
  

By doing the one-proportion z-test for each of the three motive imagery categories, I arrive at the following z-scores:

• Achievement Motive Imagery: 0.05
• Affiliation Motive Imagery: 2.11
• Power Motive Imagery: -2.17

By using a z-score table, provided here, I find the p-values:

• Achievement Motive Imagery: 0.5199 or 51.99%
  
• Affiliation Motive Imagery: 0.9826 or 98.26%
  
• Power Motive Imagery: 0.015 or 1.5%

These are very fascinating results that need a little further discussion.

• Discussion

Based on the findings of this study, it appears as though there is a significant relationship between affiliation and power motive imagery and dissemination of ideas. This can be deduced by the relatively high and low p-value scores. The score of 98.26% indicates that in only 1.74% of the cases would I expect to find an equally extreme result as those found in this study. That is well under 5%. Additionally, the 1.5% from power motive imagery reveals that in only 1.5% of cases would I expect to find the results that I found for power motive imagery and idea dissemination, which is also below 5%. Unfortunately, achievement motive imagery cannot reject the null hypothesis that it would be equally distributed because of its p-value of 51.99%, well above 5%.

These results indicate to me that ideas that are framed with affiliation motive imagery in mind are most likely to be disseminated, while those ideas that are framed with power motive imagery are least likely to be disseminated.

There are several shortcomings of this research that counter these statistical findings. For instance, the survey just asked individuals which statements they "would most likely share" with another person, and doesn't test it practically. The actual act of telling has not yet occurred, and is thus just the best guess on the behalf of the participant.

Furthermore, and building on the previous idea, participants may have selected headlines that just interested them and not one's they would necessarily take the time to spread to others. Several people cited in their "why?" statements that the article interested them, however, many also made reference to the fact that the headline interested people they knew, which leads one to believe that the idea was generated with the other people in mind. These conflicting points are irreconcilable in the scope of this study, and I urge others to address this in the future.

It is counter-intuitive that ideas that are warm and fuzzy, the type that are common to affiliation motive imagery, would likely be disseminated. Studies have shown that the news is filled with violence and negative stories, and people are more likely to spread that kind of news (Source). These findings go against that notion, especially when power motive imagery headlines, more common for force, control, and regulation was least likely to be disseminated. Perhaps the issues and characters involved in the headline is more significant. That idea is beyond the research question of this study.

• Conclusion

The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of the three categories of motive imagery on the frequency in disseminating ideas. In order to evaluate this, a short survey was given to 36 randomly sampled individuals in which they selected headlines that they would most likely share with others.

The findings indicate a statistically significant result for affiliation motive imagery and power motive imagery. Affiliation motive imagery headlines were shown to be most likely to be disseminated while power motive imagery headlines were shown to be least likely to be disseminated. Both were statistical at the 5% level.

Deciding on which issues are most important to us may indeed be a function of motive imagery, but these findings need to be further substantiated with more testing. There are several alternative hypotheses that were not addressed in this study that may impact the validity of the results.

Maybe it is just all about the words we hear and how we hear them that makes a subconscious decision about what is most important to us and what we choose to tell others. These results are but a a first step in finding the answer.