Motivational determinants of risk-taking behavior.

There are two problems of behavior which any theory of motivation must come to grips with. They may finally reduce to one; but it will simplify the exposition which follows to maintain the distinction in this paper. The first problem is to account for an individual's selection of one path of action among a set of possible alternatives. The second problem is to account for the amplitude or vigor of the action tendency once it is initiated, and for its tendency to persist for a time in a given direction. This paper will deal with these questions in a conceptual framework suggested by research which has used thematic apperception to assess individual differences in strength of achievement motivation (1, 14, 15). The problem of selection arises in experiments which allow the individual to choose a task among alternatives that differ in difficulty (level of aspiration). The problem of accounting for the vigor of response arises in studies which seek to relate individual differences in strength of motivation to the level of performance when response output at a particular task is the dependent variable. In treating these two problems, the discussion will be constantly focused on the relationship of achievement motivation to risk-taking behavior, an important association uncovered by McClelland (14) in the investigation of the role of achievement motivation in entre-