Power Motivation

Power motivation is the operationally defined psychological term for what is often called the desire for power, the will to power (Nietzsche) or even the aggressive drive (Freud). People with high levels of power motivation want to have impact on other people or the world at large, or to acquire prestige and reputation in the eyes of others. The notion that power is a basic goal in human social life, and that individuals differ in the extent to which they seek power, is rooted in such classical Greek concepts as Empedocles' dualism of strife (versus love), Thucydides' conclusion in the “Melian Dialogue” (A History of the Peloponnesian Wars) that “the strong do what they have the power to do and the weak accept what they have to accept,” and Plato's account of the decline of the ideal state and the rise of the despot. Modern cognate psychological concepts include Alfred Adler's “striving for superiority” and Henry Murray's “need dominance.”

Whereas people who want power usually attempt to get it by various means and often succeed, power as a motive must be distinguished from other powerrelated concepts such as social roles that permit (or encourage) power behaviors, skill in using power, the feeling of being powerful, and positive or negative values about the exercise of power (such as authoritarianism, Machiavellianism, or Gandhi's nonviolent “truth force”).

The power motive is conceptualized as a stable disposition or potential. It is aroused by various situations and stimuli involving power, which create anticipations and lead the person to take appropriate instrumental activity. Thus the overall power motive reflects individual differences in the kinds and range of experiences that arouse the motive, and how quickly and to what level it is aroused as well as in the refractory period or time it takes for the motive to “recover” after engaging in power behavior (this last is analogous to how soon a person feels hunger after eating).