AUTHOR=Schultheiss Oliver C. TITLE=Are implicit motives revealed in mere words? Testing the marker-word hypothesis with computer-based text analysis JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychology VOLUME=Volume 4 - 2013 YEAR=2013 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00748 DOI=10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00748 ISSN=1664-1078 ABSTRACT=

Traditionally, implicit motives (i.e., non-conscious preferences for specific classes of incentives) are assessed through semantic coding of imaginative stories. The present research tested the marker-word hypothesis, which states that implicit motives are reflected in the frequencies of specific words. Using Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC; Pennebaker et al., 2001), Study 1 identified word categories that converged with a content-coding measure of the implicit motives for power, achievement, and affiliation in picture stories collected in German and US student samples, showed discriminant validity with self-reported motives, and predicted well-validated criteria of implicit motives (gender difference for the affiliation motive; in interaction with personal-goal progress: emotional well-being). Study 2 demonstrated LIWC-based motive scores' causal validity by documenting their sensitivity to motive arousal.