Motivation and Personality: Handbook of Thematic Content Analysis

Motivation and Personality is the first book to be devoted primarily to content analysis systems for assessment of characteristics of the individuals, groups, or historical periods that create verbal materials. Part I discusses general issues including the merits of content analysis and its relation to other contemporary methods of motivation and personality assessment, the determinants of thematic apperception and the use of thematic methods in survey research and for the analysis of archival and naturally-occurring verbal materials. Part II presents 14 different coding manuals, each with an introductory chapter, and Part III deals with methodological considerations and materials for learning how to obtain and code verbal materials. The volume will serve as a handbook for researchers who wish to use content analytic methods for research in personology, experimental psychology, or social science, and also as a reference work providing information about content analytic measures of motives for achievement, affiliation, intimacy, and power, as well as measures of personal causation, conceptual complexity, uncertainty orientation, explanatory style, psychological stances toward the environment, self-definition, and responsibility. The various systems, research regarding the background of the systems, and practice materials are included to create a book that is both reference and handbook.