(no relation to me)
Quick update on an older page, now moved to WordPress format…..
It seems that I am not the only David McClelland in the world. In fact there are many. My father is one for a start – and a wonderful example he is. His father was also a David McClelland, so I come from a long line of them. All of us, doing what we can to get by. Hoping to make our mark on the world.
But there is one David McClelland who certainly made his mark. And he isn’t related to me.
John Fredlund contacted me after trying to find WWW information on my namesake, a famous psychologist. As there isn’t any other page (to our knowledge) that has information on this other, famous, David McClelland, I created this page to give an outline on him below.
Eliot Rabinovich co-authored this text along with John Fredlund. You can mail John at fredlund@intr.net
Since I created this page back in October 1996, I have received mail from all over the world. It seems there is very little information on the web about this particular David McClelland. I have received some very touching thank you messages for making this information available.
David McClelland (psychologist) passed away in 1998.
His obituary is below
David McClelland
Psychologist
David McClelland (1917-1998) Is a Boston-based Psychologist whose behavioural science work has influenced three generations of organisational behaviour specialists. His extensive research covers several areas of business-related and organisational behaviour issues. An expert on human behaviour, McClelland is a distinguished Research Professor of Psychology at Boston University and a Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Harvard University in Cambridge Massachusetts. He also founded and directs Mcber, a human resources management-consulting firm.
McClelland’s central disciplines are human behaviour and sociology. He is internationally acclaimed for his early work in measuring human needs and motivation. He has also achieved recognition for his studies in human competence and qualifications as central factors in personnel selection.
Human Needs and Motivation.
During the 1940’s, McClelland and a group of experts revolutionised the field of organisational behaviour studies through their experimentation with the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT). This methodology involved measurement of human needs and motivation through the usage of pictorial displays. McClelland’s innovative conclusions from the Tat Studies indicated that people acquired different needs over time as a result of life experiences. He identified three needs that affect motivation of organisational behaviour both of individuals and organisations:
- Need for Achievement – The desire to do something better or more efficiently to solve problems, or to master complex tasks.
- Need for Affiliation – The desire to establish and maintain friendly and warm relations with others.
- Need for Power – The desire to control others, to influence their behaviour, or to be responsible for others
At that time, his results were tested on social environments in developed and developing countries with meaningful and effective results. In his preeminent book “The Achieving Society” (1961, Van Nostrand), McClelland isolated certain psychological factors to demonstrate by rigorous quantitative methods that the needs above are generally but positively linked to economic development. During the 1970’s, McClelland applied his research findings to private and public organisations. Initially, McClelland profiled behaviour and motivation patterns in managers through defining three characterisations:
- Institutional Management – High in Power Motivation and Inhibition.
- Affiliative – High in Affiliation Motivation
- Personal Power – Inhibition Is Low and Motivation for Personal Power Is High.
McClelland refined these conclusions and, in several articles, indicated that the need for power is the most important characteristic for a manager’s success. He claimed that the need for achievement alone would not make a person a good manager. While achievement motivated people to “to do things for themselves and want concrete short-term feedback on their performance so that they can tell how well they are doing,”[1] the manager’s job seemed to call more for someone who can influence people than for someone who does things better alone. That is why, in motivational terms, McClelland expected the successful manager to have a greater need for power than a need for achievement. Recently, [2] McClelland complemented his twenty-year old argument with additional knowledge about companies where decentralisation has taken place and has become a dominant factor. He asserted that the decentralisation of functions can cause the need for achievement to become a critical contributor to managerial success.
Hunt, Osborn, and Schermerhorn have synthesised McClelland’s work with that of Frederick Herzberg and others. Hunt, et al, believe that McClelland’s findings are particularly useful when each need is linked with a set of work preferences such as individual responsibility, challenging but achievable goals, interpersonal relationships, influence over other persons, attention and recognition. In addition, they have indicated that learning about these needs would make possible to relate every Individual with the need profiles required to succeed in various types of jobs.
Human Competence and Qualifications as Central Factors in Personnel Selection.
The relationship between truly acquired human needs and job design links McClelland’s needs and motivation theory to his latest research topic: Personnel Selection and Competencies. In an article in the Financial Times (October 12, 1994), Richard Donkin and McClelland analysed this area of organisational behaviour and concluded that “Value-adding”qualities in an individual are not totally related with academic achievement. They indicated that, from a cost effectiveness stand-point, it Is better to hire for core motivation and trait characteristics and develop knowledge and skills. Chris Dyson, a colleague of McClelland at Hay/Mcber in the United Kingdom explained, “you can teach a turkey to climb a tree, but it is easier to hire a squirrel.”
McClelland criticises psychometric testing as a way to predict what a person can do if asked to do it. He remains convinced that the best approach is to study the way people do their work in order to find how they do it best. Hence his definite position on using competencies in assessment of job performance.
If you found this page was of any use to you, you may also enjoy these sites:
PSC/RD – Competencies: A Brief Overview of Development and Application to Public and Private Sectors
Obituary
From the April 09, 1998 edition – Harvard University Gazette
David McClelland, Former
Professor of Psychology, Dies
David Clarence McClelland, former professor of psychology, died of heart failure March 27 in his Lexington home. He was 80.
Recognized internationally for his expertise on human motivation and entrepreneurship, McClelland taught and researched for 57 years. He is remembered for his unconventional methods in studying human personality.
McClelland was born in Mt. Vernon, N.Y. A graduate from Wesleyan University in 1938, he acquired a master’s degree in psychology from the University of Missouri and a doctorate in psychology from Yale University in 1941.
In 1963, he started McBer, a consulting company that aided managers in assessing and training employees. During the same year, the National Education Association received McClelland’s proposal to offer seventh-graders in good academic standing college scholarships to encourage motivation at an early age. He published a persuasive article in The American Psychologist in which he stated that commonly used I.Q. and personality hiring tests were poor predictors of competency. He argued that companies should hire based on competency in relevant fields, and do away with SAT scores. His once-radical ideas have grown to become standard instruments in many corporations.
McClelland focused more on relationships among motivation, the quest for power, and physical and emotional stress as he approached the end of his career.
He was an instructor at Connecticut College and a professor at Wesleyan University before joining the Harvard faculty in 1956. He began teaching at Boston University in 1987 and remained there until his death.
A fellow of the American Academy of Sciences and the author of several books including Personality, The Achievement Motive, and The Achieving Society, McClelland received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1958.
His first wife, Mary Sharpless McClelland, died in 1980. He leaves his second wife, Marian Adams McClelland; four daughters, Catherine Dole of Morristown, N.J., Sarah McMullen of Downey, Calif. and Mira and Usha, both of Lexington; three sons, Duncan of Winchester, Jabez of Bethesda, Md. and Nicholas of Marblehead; and nine grandchilden.
Praise for this page |
I don’t like to brag, but this seems to be just about the only information on David McClelland available on the web. Here’s some of the mail I’ve received… My name is John McMullen, I am the son of Sarah McMullen, the daughter of David McClelland, whose works you have outlined in your website.Thank you for helping my Grandfather’s memory live on. I believe he still abides, just not in this physical realm, and I am sure he appreciates what you have done as well. Though the world may know him for his great accomplishments in psychology and motivation, I’ll remember him for his great love for me and my family.sincerely,John Gary McMullen Hi, David, great job on the David McClelland review — both I had a chance to work with David on n-Aff, n-Pow, n-Ach stuff when I A wonderful man, especially in his ability to integrate personal Thanks for keeping his work (and his personality) alive. Best wishes, Barclay Hudson, bhudson@fielding.edu Dave-thanks so much for me and my many students that I hope will find thanks again……..Ken Murrell David, Thanks for your information on McClelland. I’m a student at BYU, it’s 1:00 in the morning and I got a 5 page paper due. Thanks for taking the time to make that info available. Brian McNamara Hi there – My name is Jamie and I’m am a student at St. Thanks again. —–Jamie Symonds
David–I’m a student at Northwestern University, and I have to write an 8-page paper on McClelland. You’ve made my life a lot easier. Thanks. Big thank you from the very north of Scotland. On researching McClelland for a speech that my husband had to make at a Personnel Conference, we could find very little information on McClelland (lots about Maslow, etc) in any of the literature we could get our hands on. As a last resort we decided to search the web and found your page. It contained all the info we needed and more. Very informative. Well done. Very many thanks again. Thanks for the info on your web page. I’ve been looking all over for information on affiliation needs in human behavior! I learned about it in Psychology years ago but didn’t know whose theory it was. Cheers Mate! I want to say thank you very much for the informative page on your name, his name,…????(ha, ha, ha) Seriously…Your page helped me out when I was in a bind. Good luck and keep up the good work. Hi David, Enjoyed your page on David McClelland. I am teaching an Applied Psych. class this fall; if I quote you, I’ll credit you. I had to do a short report on David McClelland for my Psychology class, and although I had little trouble finding information on experiments, I couldn’t find anything about his personal history. Thank you for your web page! But I do have one unanswered question…do you know where he was born? Thank you so much!!! Your page was very informative. I noticed that someone asked for David McClelland’s place of birth. I discovered that he was born on May 20, 1917 and died on March 27, 1998. His New York Times April 5th obituary states that he was born in Mount Vernon, New York. Thanks for your help in my research!
Nichole lopez
From
However, I need to clear up an error I found. I was very surprised to see They are all family friends of ours from way back. Mary and David were like Best, Megan Holt
rose jonas
Our branch of the McClellands comes from Glenluce, Scotland in the 1860’s. I have to my good fortune a handy reference on my clan’s existence in the form of an autobiography that was created by my great grandfather Charles Paul McClelland. There were three MaClellan brothers that migrated from Glenluce, Scotland to America. Alexander came in 1868, David in 1870 and Charles Paul in 1871. Alexander MaClellan was a Gardner for a large nursery in Dobbs Ferry, NY. Charles Paul started as a store clerk in Dobbs Ferry and went on to be a lawyer, New York state senator and finally a Supreme Court judge in the US Custom Court of Appeals. Charles the judge had two children Meade and Charles Paul II. Somewhere in the 1880’s judge MacLellan changed the spelling of his name to McClelland. He used to spell his last name as MacLellan not MaClellan and then changed it to McClelland. This was because he was surrounded by so many Irishman that constantly misspelled his name. Dave My grandfather Charles Paul McClelland was a Methodist minister and president of MacMurry College in Jacksonville, Ill. He had a large family of five children. Charles Paul III(my father), David, Carol, Betty, and Janet. David had five children Kate McClelland-Dole Morristown N.J. My father Charles Paul McClelland and Hugh McClelland started the Clan MaClellan in America about 1982 from a conversation during a golf game in North Carolina. He would be absolutely be amazed on how popular it has become. Dick McClelland told me about 7 years ago that they had about 6,000 members worldwide, so who knows how big it is today. Hugh would recruit people at the highland games at Grandfather mountain and publish the news letter and my dad would keep track of the dues and make sure the newsletters were mailed out. Doug McClelland
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| David was my uncle and brother to my mother Mary Carol. I knew him well. We both spent our summers at Yelping Hill in West Cornwall, Connecticut. David wrote many of his books in the cabin he built there. Yelping HIll was a commune of sorts, where the members leased their cabins from the Yelping Hill Association and were expected to contribute to the upkeep of the extensive land held by the association. In the early days, meals were prepared and served at the barn. At the hayloft, professors made presentations on their work. Most of the members of the association were professors at elite universities. I stayed in the cabin my Grandfather Clarence McClelland built down the hill from David’s cabin.
My Grandfather was the President of McMurray College in Jacksonville, Illinois for 27 years and a Methodist minister. His father was the President of the New York State Senate, was considered for the Vice Presidency but ended up as the Chief Justice of the US Customs Court in Washington. He emigrated from Scotland. My brother Ron who still owns the cabin on Yelping Hill has been a law professor for many years at New England Law School in Boston. David had five children, three older, two younger than me, three boys and two girls. My brother and I knew them well. I really need to research the whereabouts of my many cousins, their children and yes grandchildren. Malcolm Chester. |