Menninger's motives for suicide in the notes of completed and attempted suicides.

Brevard, Lester, and Yang in 1990, studying Menninger's motives for suicide, reported more evidence for the wish to be killed (i.e., self-blame or self-punishment) in suicide notes for completed suicides than in parasuicide notes for attempted suicide; however, they did not control for age and sex. A comparison of notes written by completed and attempted suicides that controlled for age and sex showed no differences in the presence of content which reflected Menninger's three motives for suicide, including the wish to be killed.     

Love and achievement motives in women's and men's suicide notes

It is often assumed that women kill themselves because of love and men because of achievement problems. The authors evaluated the suicide notes of 56 U.S. adult women and men with regard to love and achievement motives. Love themes were significantly more common than achievement themes, independent of sex and age. This suggests that, at least for U.S. adults who leave suicide notes, relationship concerns may be a dominant component of the motivation for suicide.     

Correlates of rates of suicide and homicide committed by different methods

The social correlates of suicide rates by each method over time in the USA from 1950 to 1985 were very different, suggesting that suicides by different methods may not be sociologically identical behaviors. Homicide rates by each method, however, showed a more consistent pattern of social correlates.     

Correlates of suicide ideation in high school students: the importance of depression

English-Canadian (104 boys, 96 girls) and French-Canadian (272 boys, 286 girls) high school students participated in this study of the relationship between suicide ideation and selected variables (age, gender, self-esteem, locus of control, stress, social support, anomy, health, alcohol use, and drug use), with the effect of depression removed. Partial correlation analyses showed that removal of the effect of depression resulted in a loss of or a reduction in the respective relationships between suicide ideation and its correlates. The results suggest that researchers must control for depression if they want to ascertain true correlates of suicidal behavior.     

Children's understanding of motives for deception

This study examines the problem of why some motives are understood at an earlier age than others. Currently, the accepted explanation for this is that general cognitive level constrains children's reasoning in the social domain. An alternative explanation is that an important process in understanding others is projection. To investigate this young boys and girls from two age groups were presented with cartoon stories depicting situations involving altruistic deception and self-centred deception. Pairs of matched cartoon stories, each of which came in two versions, differing only in motive type were constructed. As predicted, self-centred deception was understood earlier than altruistic deception. These results are congruent with the idea that the underlying process in understanding others is projection.     

Multiple motives for participating in adventure sports

ObjectivesThe purpose of the present study was to explore possible multiple motives for participation in different adventure sports.DesignQualitative design, specifically an inductive-deductive approach informed by reversal theory, was used to analyze participation motivation data.MethodData was collected using the Scanlan Collaborative Interview Method (SCIM; Scanlan, Russell, Wilson, & Scanlan, 2003). Participants were very experienced adventure sport participants involved in riversurfing, mountain biking, kayaking, mountain climbing and hang gliding.ResultsThe results indicated that the participants' motivation was multifaceted. While some participants shared common motives, these were often described in different orders of importance by different participants. The range of motives for adventure sport participation found included: goal achievement, risk taking, social motivation, escape from boredom, pushing personal boundaries and overcoming fear, as well as connecting with the natural environment, and pleasurable kinaesthetic bodily sensations from moving in water or air.ConclusionsThe authors argue for a continuation of a recent trend to provide a more comprehensive picture of the complexities of human motivation for participation in adventure sports which go beyond excitement- or thrill-seeking behaviour.     

Self-monitored motives for smoking among college students.

College student smokers (N = 50) were asked to carry electronic diaries for 14 days and record smoking events (n = 1,139). They indicated why they were smoking each cigarette on a checklist of potential motives. Results suggest that a desire to reduce craving (62.8% of occasions) and habit/automatic processes (42.8%) were the most frequent motives. More dependent and daily smokers were especially likely to endorse smoking to reduce craving and for habit/automatic reasons and were less likely to cite coping with negative emotion as a reason for smoking. Dependent and daily smokers were more likely to endorse at least 1 dependence-like motive and were less likely to exclusively attribute smoking to nondependence motives. Self-monitored motives appeared valid, according with conceptually related states, activities, and events in the diary records. Diary-recorded motives were compared with smokers' responses to a retrospective motives questionnaire administered at baseline. The 2 assessment modes produced discrepant estimates of the most influential motivational processes. Questionnaire responses incompletely forecast conceptually similar diary-reported motives. Dependence and daily smoking showed a different pattern of associations with diary-based versus retrospective motives measures.     

Students' Machiavellianism and motives for communicating with instructors

This study investigated the relationship between scores of college students (N=210, 114 women, 95 men, 1 unidentified; Mage=19.3 yr., SD=2.8) on Machiavellianism and their motives for communicating with their instructors in the classroom. Students' Machiavellianism scores were positively but weakly related to three motives of Functional (r=.22, p<.01), Excuse-making (r=.16, p<.05), and Sycophancy (r=.17, p<.05).     

Workaholism, self-esteem, and motives for money

This study examined correlations of workaholism types among 69 male and 86 female undergraduate business students. Three types were considered (Work Addicts, Work Enthusiasts, and Enthusiastic Addicts) using measures developed in 1992 by Spence and Robbins. Correlates included personal demographics, self-esteem, and motives for money. Work Addicts indicated significantly lower self-esteem than both Work Enthusiasts and Enthusiastic Addicts; the workaholism types mentioned above did not differ on motives for money, however.     

Fertility cycle patterns in motives for sexual behavior

Three studies examined the relationship between fertility, as indexed by day in cycle or salivary estradiol levels, and reported motives for sexual intercourse. Data from university and community samples in both cross-sectional and repeated-measures designs showed that sex-for-intimacy motives are endorsed significantly less by women who are relatively more fertile or show higher salivary estrogen levels. Sex for enhancement, self-affirmation, and partner approval also declined, although the data were less consistent. The remaining motives (coping and power) showed no consistent patterns across fertility status. Results suggest that sexual motives are rooted partly in woman's biology and are discussed in terms of plausible evolutionary mechanisms that might promote female "choosiness" at midcycle.     

Interpersonal and noninterpersonal interactions, interpersonal motives, and the effect of frustrated motives

A new circumplex model of interpersonal interaction emphasizes the motives that drive interpersonal behaviors and the negative affect (such as anger) that occurs when a strongly activated motive is frustrated. This study examined the model experimentally by varying conditions designed to activate and frustrate interpersonal motives. One hundred twenty-nine students engaged in text-based discussions using a computer. Three factors were varied: (a) activation of interpersonal motives--participants believed the interaction was interpersonal (with a human) or noninterpersonal (with a computer); (b) individual differences in motive activation--assertive and nonassertive participants were compared (strong vs. weak motive to influence others); and (c) level of frustration of activated motives--the "partner's" messages contained dominating or nondominating language. Participants who believed their interaction was interpersonal produced more interpersonal behaviors of various types. Assertive participants who interacted with a dominating and apparently human partner produced a disproportionate amount of hostility, indicating anger ascribed to frustrated motives.     

Motives for suicide in suicide notes from women and men

Suicide notes written by 16 adult women and 16 men were evaluated by 16 nonprofessional adult judges with regard to love or work problems as suicide motives. Consistent with current theory on gender and suicidal behavior, women and men did not differ in love or work motives.     

Memory for pro-social intentions: When competing motives collide

Memory for future actions, or prospective memory (PM), often involves remembering to do things for others. The present article explores the motivational mechanisms underlying memory for pro-social intentions through the manipulation of the social relevance of goals and presence of material rewards during an activity-based PM task. Results revealed that memory for the intention was better under pro-social than under standard conditions. However, when a material reward was introduced under pro-social conditions, it had the detrimental effect of reducing prospective remembering. Ongoing task performance was faster under pro-social than under No PM and standard PM conditions and it was unrelated to PM performance. In addition, the outcome of the ratings of two independent groups of participants confirmed that people are not aware of the potential conflict between pro-social and self-gain motives. Taken together, these new findings extend current PM theories by suggesting a prominent role of latent motivational mechanisms in guiding memory for pro-social intentions.     

Testing multiple motives in feedback seeking: The interaction of instrumentality and self protection motives

Research indicates that information received from feedback seeking is valuable for both individual and organizational outcomes. Previous research examining the feedback seeking process has consistently suggested that individual's feedback behaviors are directly influenced by three motives. Specifically, individuals are instrumentally motivated to obtain valued information but are also motivated to protect and/or enhance their ego and to protect others' impressions of them (Ashford, Blatt and VandeWalle, 2003). The current study simultaneously examined these motives by testing the interactive effects of them on feedback seeking behavior. As predicted, they did significantly interact and the results present a deeper understanding of these motives and how employees weigh various factors in deciding whether to seek feedback within the organization.     

Appearance vs. health motives for exercise and for weight loss

Objective

This study had three primary aims: (1) to investigate differences between restrained and unrestrained eaters in their reasons for exercise and their motives for losing weight; (2) to investigate the association of appearance and health motives for exercise and for losing weight with body image concerns; and (3) to determine whether appearance motives for exercise and for losing weight mediate the link between internalized societal standards of attractiveness and body image concerns.

Design

Cross-sectional survey.

Method

205 women completed measures of dietary restraint, reasons for exercise, motivation for losing weight, internalization of societal standards of attractiveness, and body image concerns.

Results

Unrestrained eaters were more motivated to exercise and to lose weight for health reasons than for appearance reasons, whereas restrained eaters were equally motivated by appearance and health reasons. Appearance-based motives for exercising and for losing weight were positively associated with body image concerns, whereas health-related reasons for exercise were negatively associated with body image concerns. Furthermore, in a multiple mediation analysis, appearance motives for weight loss mediated the relation between internalization of societal standards of attractiveness and body image concerns, but appearance reasons for exercise did not.

Conclusion

These findings indicate that appearance-based motives for exercise and weight loss are associated with negative outcomes. Efforts to promote exercise and weight management should emphasize the health benefits rather than the implications for appearance.