Are Implicit Motives "Visible" to Well-Acquainted Others?

In this study, we compared self-ratings and informant ratings of personality as predictors of implicit motives, need for achievement (nAch), and need for affiliation (nAff). A total of 120 participants wrote creative stories to 5 images from the Picture Story Exercise ( Smith, 1992 ) and completed the Revised NEO Personality Inventory ( Costa & McCrae, 1992 ). Three well-acquainted informants rated each participant's personality with the Big Five Inventory ( John & Srivastava, 1999 ) and Saucier's (1994) Mini-Markers. Consistent with the study hypotheses, peer ratings of Conscientiousness significantly predicted nAch scores after controlling for word count and self-rated Conscientiousness. Contrary to hypotheses, peer ratings and self-ratings in all 5 domains did not significantly predict nAff scores. The findings are considered in the interest of bridging the gap between trait and motive concepts in personality assessment.