David McClelland

David Clarence McClelland (1917 to 1998) was an American psychologist best known for a theory of motivation built on three needs: achievement, affiliation and power. Born in Mount Vernon, New York, he earned a bachelor's degree at Wesleyan University, a master's at the University of Missouri and a PhD in experimental psychology at Yale in 1941. He joined Harvard in 1956, where he spent thirty years and chaired the Department of Psychology and Social Relations, then moved to Boston University in 1987 and received the American Psychological Association Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions. He developed new scoring systems for the Thematic Apperception Test, favoured operant measures over self-report questionnaires, applied his work on the need for achievement to economic development and entrepreneurship, and led the move to job competency studies through the Behavioral Event Interview. A 2002 survey ranked him the 15th most cited psychologist of the 20th century.