A Hierarchical Taxonomy of Human Goals 2001

P1: GYQ
Motivation and Emotion [me] pp272-moem-346408 September 29, 2001 16:49 Style file version Nov. 19th, 1999
Motivation and Emotion, Vol. 25, No. 3, September 2001 (°

C 2001)
A Hierarchical Taxonomy of Human Goals1

Ada S. Chulef,2 Stephen J. Read,2,3 and David A. Walsh2
This paper presents a hierarchical taxonomy of human goals, based on similar-

ity judgments of 135 goals gleaned from the literature. Women and men in 3 age
groups—17–30, 25–62, and 65 and older—sorted the goals into conceptually sim-
ilar groups. These were cluster analyzed and a taxonomy of 30 goal clusters was
developed for each age group separately and for the total sample. The clusters
were conceptually meaningful and consistent across the 3 samples. The broad-
est distinction in each sample was between interpersonal or social goals and
intrapersonal or individual goals, with interpersonal goals divided into family-
related and more general social goals. Further, the 30 clusters were organized
into meaningful higher order clusters. The role of such a taxonomy in promot-
ing theory development and research is discussed, as is its relationship to other
organizations of human goals and to the Big Five structure of personality.
Goals are fundamental to human behavior, playing a central role in both its en-
actment and its understanding. Consistent with this centrality, wants and needs
are among the earliest things that children communicate (Gelman, 1990), and
goals are basic concepts across all cultures (Wierzbicka, 1991, 1992). Further-
more, goals seem to be central elements underlying a host of social concepts,
including traits (Borkenau, 1990; Fleeson, Zirkel, & Smith, 1995; Read, Jones, &
Miller, 1990), roles (Read, 1987; Schank & Abelson, 1977) and situations (Miller,
Cody, & McLaughlin, 1994; Read & Miller, 1989). Yet despite this fundamental
role in human behavior and understanding, we have only the sketchiest idea of
how human goals are structured and organized (Austin & Vancouver, 1996). Such
1 This research was conducted as a doctoral dissertation by the first author under the direction of
the second author and was supported by Grant R01008106 from the National Institute on Aging to
David A. Walsh.
2 University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California.
3 Address all correspondence to Stephen J. Read, Department of Psychology, University of Southern
California, Los Angeles, California 90089-1061; e-mail: read@rcf.usc.edu.
191
0146-7239/01/0900-0191$19.50/0 °
C 2001 Plenum Publishing Corporation
P1: GYQ
192 Chulef, Read, and Walsh
limited knowledge greatly hinders the development of the field. Lack of a widely
accepted conceptual structure obstructs communication among researchers, in-
hibits the systematization and integration of the growing array of research, and
slows the development of theory, thus hobbling our journey toward a systematic
understanding of human motivation.
How should we approach the development of such a structure? Allport (1937)
and others (for a review and history, see John, Angleitner, & Ostendorf, 1988) have
argued that over the millennia important regularities in human behavior would be
noticed and encoded in the language people used to talk about social interaction.
These theorists suggested that one example of this kind of language is traits. Thus,
the argument went, by examining the structure and dimensions underlying trait
terms we could construct a roadmap of the patterning of behavioral sequences
deemed central in human interaction. Arguments such as these laid a fruitful
groundwork for exploring—through pursuit of what became the “Big Five”—the
major dimensions underlying trait terms. The success of this enterprise suggests
that it might be quite fruitful to apply this strategy to the more fundamental concept
of goals.
Although several researchers have attempted to develop such a taxonomy
(e.g., Ford & Nichols, 1987; Murray, 1938; Wicker, Lambert, Richardson, &
Kahler, 1984), these previous attempts have some serious limitations. It was the
purpose of the present study to create a taxonomy of human goals that was based
on a wide search of the constructs used in the motivational literature and that was
empirically generated, rather than being based on the theoretical preconceptions
of the researchers, as were most previous attempts. Such a taxonomy would place
work in this area on a firmer conceptual foundation.
GOALS AND BEHAVIOR
Goals are stable, higher-order entities that function as abstract, organizing

structures and remain fairly stable over time (e.g., Austin & Vancouver, 1996;
Ford & Nichols, 1987; Higgins & Sorrentino, 1990; Pervin, 1989; Read & Miller,
1989; Schank & Abelson, 1977; Sorrentino & Higgins, 1986; Wilensky, 1983).
The goals an individual has—and the interactions among them—play a crucial
role in understanding and predicting the behavior in which individuals engage.
Work on goals has taken a number of forms. Within the realm of personality
and social behavior, for instance, researchers have been interested in individual
differences in the goals people hold and in their relationship to observed behavior.
Pervin and Furnham (1987), for example, perceive goals as “person variables” that
provide a source of consistency and continuity in behavior. Ford (1987; also see
Miller & Read, 1987, 1991) proposes that in order to understand what an indi-
vidual does, one crucial factor to consider is the individual’s personal goals and
aspirations (“the directive function”). And Read and Miller (1989) perceive goals
P1: GYQ
A Hierarchical Taxonomy of Human Goals 193
as central aspects of individual differences in personality. In fact, they have argued

that traits can be understood as goal-based concepts (see also, Borkenau, 1990;
Fleeson et al., 1995; Read et al., 1990; Read & Lalwani, 2000). In addition to this
pure focus on goals, other goal-like constructs that have been proposed include
Little’s “personal project,” an interrelated sequence of actions intended to achieve a
personal goal (Little, 1983); Emmons’s “personal striving,” a motivational entity
that, he proposes, describes individuals’ propensities toward behavior and captures
recurring, typical, goal-seeking behavior (Emmons, 1986); Cantor and Kihlstrom’s
“life task,” a problem on which an individual is currently working (Cantor &
Kihlstrom, 1987); and Klinger’s “current concern,” the state between commitment
to a goal and either attainment or disengagement from it (Klinger, 1987).
The goal construct has also proven useful within the realms of decision mak-
ing, behavioral choice, and planning: Beach and Mitchell (1987) perceive goals
as leading agents in individuals’ decisions to engage in a given course of action;
Feather (1990) proposes that what a person chooses to do in a situation is related
to the expectations he or she holds and to the subjective value of the outcomes that
may follow the action, where the subjective value of an outcome is affected by its
relation to the individual’s goals; and Wilensky (1983) argues that the process of
planning one’s own behavior cannot be carried through without knowledge and
appropriate use of one’s goals—the organizers of experience (Miller, Galanter, &
Pribram, 1960).
Interest in the goal construct is also strong in the social perception and attri-
bution areas. Knowledge about an actor’s goals and motives is seen as a means
to understanding observed behavior and interpersonal interactions (Heider, 1958;
Jones & Davis, 1965; Read, 1987; Read & Miller, 1989; Wilensky, 1983). And
Schank and Abelson (1977), in their model of social understanding, view goals
as structures that represent and control sequences of behavior such as scripts and
plans. Further, an increasing number of researchers and theorists have focused on
the impact of individuals’ interaction goals (e.g., Fiske & Neuberg, 1990; Hilton
& Darley, 1991; Jones, 1990) and goals such as accuracy or need to justify a con-
clusion (e.g., Kruglanski, 1989; Sorrentino & Short, 1986) on social perception.
A second direction of work has been the effort to create instruments to assess
individuals’ goals. Braithwaite and Scott (1991) provide a thorough review of exist-
ing measures. An examination of these tools—e.g., Allport, Vernon, and Lindzey’s
Study of Values (Allport, Vernon, & Lindzey, 1960); Gorlow and Noll’s Empiri-
cally Derived Value Constructions (Gorlow & Noll, 1967); and Rokeach’s Value
Survey (Rokeach, 1967, 1973, 1979)—reveals that no consensus exists among
instrument writers regarding what constitutes a comprehensive list of human mo-
tivators, which motivational domains need to be tapped, and what the best way is
to sample items from each of those domains.
The generation of a comprehensive list of human motivations and the cre-
ation of a conceptually sound taxonomy or classification of these motivations has
P1: GYQ
been a third, related, area of interest aimed at attaining a better understanding of

human motivation and its effects on behavior (for further discussion see Austin &
Vancouver, 1996). As Ford and Nichols (1987) have suggested, no consensus exists
regarding what such a list of motivations should look like. As early as the 1930s,
McDougall (1933) presented a list of 13 instincts and Murray (1938) posited 44
“variables of personality” as forces that determine behavior. Later, Maslow (1943)
introduced a hierarchy of 5 kinds of human needs, Cattell (1957) presented 16
“Ergs,” Rokeach (1973) generated a list of 18 instrumental and 18 terminal values,
and Schank and Abelson (1977) proposed 6 goal types. Schwartz (1992) exten-
sively examined the cross-cultural generality of 11 major value types and their
organization. These are but a few of the individual efforts that could be men-
tioned (see Braithwaite & Scott, 1991; Ford & Nichols, 1987; and Wicker et al.,
1984).
In the presence of numerous tools that vary so widely in the sets of goals
(or values) they include and in the way these goals are structured within the mea-
sure, and given the lack of consensus on the universe of human motivators, the
development of a taxonomy that classifies human goals into conceptually mean-
ingful clusters and that offers a detailed organization of these clusters would be
an important contribution. This paper attempts to move us closer to this goal. The
resulting taxonomy should (1) include a comprehensive list of goals based on an
extensive survey of the various domains of human motivation and that incorporates
a representative set of items; (2) provide a categorization of these goals into se-
mantically similar clusters that are conceptually meaningful and representative of
laypeople’s perceptions of how goals fit together, rather than based on researchers’
preconceptions; and (3) present the structure of these clusters.
A widely accepted taxonomy of human goals would have important theoreti-
cal and conceptual benefits. As John (1990) noted in his discussion of the Big Five
and its role in the field of personality, development of an adequate taxonomy of a
scientific domain often plays a number of fundamental roles in the development of
that field. First, such taxonomies aid communication among researchers, providing
a standard vocabulary or language. In the absence of such a vocabulary it is very
difficult for researchers to know whether they are studying the same or different
things, drastically slowing progress in the field. As John notes, the proliferation
of personality concepts and scales and the lack of any widely accepted descrip-
tive vocabulary has made an integrated view of the field of personality almost
impossible.
Second, taxonomies aid in the integration and systematization of findings and
theories in a domain. They give us some sense of where things belong, and of what
things go together and what things do not. And once we have some sense of how
things are related, we can begin to study why they go together the way they do.
Thus, a third role of consensually accepted taxonomies is that they help fa-
cilitate theory development and the development of causal models of the domain.
Although initially descriptive, many taxonomies, such as the periodic table of the
P1: GYQ
elements and biological taxonomies, have played a major role in theory devel-
opment and the development of causal and dynamic theories of the taxonomic
structure. Attempts to explain the relationships among members of different cat-
egories can often drive theory development. In biology, for example, taxonomies
have played a major role in theories of the evolution and development of species.
Thus, development of an adequate taxonomy of human goals should greatly
aid the development of the study of human motivation. It should aid scientific com-
munication, help in the systematization and integration of research, and facilitate
the development of more adequate theories of human motivation.
In addition to aiding our understanding of human motivation, such a taxonomy
could play a broader role in the field of personality. Two of the most fundamental
units in personality are traits and motives (or goals or needs) of various types.
In fact, many theorists (e.g., Allport, 1937; Alston, 1970, 1975; Borkenau, 1990;
Miller & Read, 1987; Pervin, 1983; Read & Miller, 1989) have argued that these
two types of units may be fundamentally intertwined, that goals or motives may
be a fundamental component of many traits. If so, a widely shared taxonomy
would be of great value to examining the ways in which traits and goals are
related.
Unfortunately, one barrier to examining the relationship between these two
constructs is the lack of any widely accepted taxonomy of the two domains. This
makes it difficult to determine the extent to which the two kinds of units may
overlap or share common territory.
Recent work on such trait taxonomies as the Big Five (for a review see
Goldberg, 1990; John, 1990) or the Interpersonal Circumplex (Wiggins, 1973,
1979) has gone a long way toward providing a well-established and relatively
widely accepted conceptual structure for traits. Although there is still disagreement
about the validity of the Big Five (e.g., Briggs, 1989; Hull & Renn, 1994; Mershon
& Gorsuch, 1988), work on a goal taxonomy is far more primitive and nothing even
approaching the Big Five exists as a conceptual structure for motivational concepts.
This lack makes it quite difficult to examine the extent of overlap between the two
kinds of units. One major aim of the current research is to take a major step toward
the development of such a taxonomy and contribute to a deeper understanding of
these two fundamental domains of personality and their interrelations.
A widely accepted hierarchical taxonomy would also provide many practical
and empirical advantages: It would have heuristic value for those interested in hu-
man motivation and its relation to everyday behavior—the comprehensive list of
goals would be applicable throughout various domains of motivation, and would
serve as a common framework for the study of motivated behavior. It would, for
instance, be useful in studies that have required subjects to elicit their own idio-
graphic motivators (e.g., Emmons, 1986); the use of a common set of goals based
on a general taxonomy would facilitate comparisons among subjects. Further-
more, this taxonomy would provide a broad and flexible framework within which
to study motivated behavior: A set of molecular (lower order) goals organized into
P1: GYQ
a hierarchy would give the researcher the choice of assessing human motivation at
a more finely differentiated, molecular level or at a more molar level.
A number of attempts at the difficult task of creating a taxonomy of human
goals can be found (for further discussion see Austin & Vancouver, 1996). Wicker
et al. (1984), for instance, generated a list of 46 goals (10 goals were added to that
list in a second study, for a total of 56 goals) and asked subjects to rate the valence
of each goal (“How much do you want it?”). The ratings were then subjected to
factor analysis and cluster analysis. Goal categories were, thus, created on the ba-
sis of the valence ratings the subjects produced. Unfortunately, an examination of
the resulting clusters shows that goals that are not conceptually similar clustered
together. For instance, “a good marriage,” “romantic involvement,” “support from
others,” “getting an education,” and “responsibility” formed a cluster that Wicker
and his colleagues labeled “Social institutions.” That conceptually heterogeneous
clusters were obtained is not surprising, as a cluster analysis that is done on non-
standardized scores, as Wicker et al.’s was, will be sensitive to similar mean ratings
of items, as well as similar patterns of responses across individuals.4
A further problem may have been created by Wicker et al.’s use of importance
ratings as the basis for their taxonomy of human goals: There is no particular
reason to think that similarity in importance necessarily maps onto conceptual
or semantic similarity, or taps into ways in which goals may be organized in
common motivational structures. Although we might think that items that are
similar conceptually tend to be similar in importance, there is no reason to think
that the reverse is true, that items that are similar in importance are also similar
conceptually.
In another effort to develop a goal taxonomy, Schwartz (1992) has extensively
examined the structure of human goals across a wide range of cultures to ascer-
tain what aspects of the structure are similar across cultures. However, his work
does not provide a hierarchical taxonomy, as he focused on one level of analysis,
consisting of 10 major clusters resulting from a smallest space analysis (a form of
4 This occurs because distance measures between two items essentially measure the similarity between
the profile of responses to the two items across respondents. For nonstandardized scores the similarity
between the two profiles is a function of two factors: the differences in the elevation or grand mean
of the profiles of the two items, and the shape of the profiles. In contrast, standardized scores subtract
out the grand mean of the item from the individual responses and thus the distance for standardized
scores is only a function of similar profiles. For example, consider three items with identical profiles
across subjects. That is, there is a perfect correlation among them. But now suppose items A and B
have means of 8, whereas item C has a mean of 4. Using nonstandardized scores, A and B would be
closer to each other than they would be to C, even though all have exactly the same profile across
subjects. Conversely, consider a case where the three items A, B, and C have very different profiles
and are totally uncorrelated with each other. Again, A and B would be closer than either would be to
C, even though the shapes of the profiles are totally different. Thus, for nonstandardized items, two
items may be somewhat similar because they receive very similar mean ratings across the sample,
even though the shape of the profiles may not be all that similar. And two items with exactly the same
profile may be somewhat different from each other because they have different mean ratings.
P1: GYQ
multidimensional scaling). Moreover, Schwartz also relied on importance ratings

of goals, rather than conceptual relatedness.
An alternative approach to the construction of a general-purpose catego-
rization of human motivators is the use of semantic similarity judgments of the
goals (instead of importance judgments) as the basis for cluster formation. This
approach might result in a more appropriate taxonomy, as it would tap into the
conceptual structure shared by members of a particular culture. Ford and Nichols
(1987) took a step in this direction. They produced a set of goals (on the basis
of discussions and interviews with colleagues, students, and counseling clients)
and then organized them into categories on the basis of an “extensive review
of the literature on achievement motivation, personality, and social motivation”
(p. 294). Their taxonomy divides goals into two major groups—“Within-person”
and “Person–environment,”—which are further subdivided into three more levels
of goals.
However, this taxonomy was verified by presenting laypeople with the theory-
based categories and asking them if these made sense to them. The categories, thus,
may largely reflect the authors’ knowledge of the field, rather than subjects’ naive
perceptions of how goals fit with one another. Asking subjects whether they agree
with an experimenter-provided set of categories is quite different from asking
subjects to generate their own categories.
Conceptual similarity judgments made by subjects unfamiliar with formal
psychological models of human behavior could provide us with valuable informa-
tion regarding the structure of the goals that underlie, and guide people’s behavior
and the manner in which goals are experienced by individuals. This study took
this approach. It aimed at the creation of a taxonomy of human goals based on
the semantic-similarity judgments of naive subjects (laypeople) who sorted a quite
extensive set of goals into conceptually homogeneous categories. This set of goals
was generated through a review of the literature on human motivators. As described
in detail below, similarity-based hierarchically organized clusters were attained by
asking subjects to sort 135 goals into categories on the basis of their thematic
(semantic) similarity, and applying hierarchical cluster analysis to these similarity
judgments. This approach should help provide the field with a common language
to describe and categorize motivational constructs.
We further wished to examine whether we would find the same conceptual
structure across individuals of different ages. To test this we examined three groups:
undergraduates (17–30 years of age, M = 19), older adults (63–92 years of age,
M = 73.5), and subjects whose ages fell between these two groups (25–62 years of
age, M = 40.3). In sum, this study was aimed at the generation of a conceptually
sound taxonomy of human goals; one that would (1) include a fairly comprehen-
sive set of goals sampled from an extensive set of motivational domains, (2) tap
into laypeople’s conceptual organization of goals, and (3) be fairly similar across
different groups of people.
P1: GYQ
METHOD
Subjects
Three different groups of people participated in the study. The three groups
differed greatly in age, with each taken from a different age range, and they also
differed somewhat on other demographic variables. The first group consisted of
70 undergraduate students (30 men and 40 women) who participated in return for
extra credit in their class in Introduction to Psychology at the University of Southern
California. They ranged in age from 17 to 30 (M = 19), were mostly single, and
varied in ethnic background (50% were Caucasian, 27% were Asian, 11% were
Hispanic, 2.9% were African American, and the remainder were “Other”).
The second, “middle-aged,” group, consisted of 28 subjects (11 men and
17 women), who ranged in age from 25 to 62 (M = 40.3) and covered a broad range
of ethnic, occupational, and socioeconomic groups. Of these, 19 were staff and
faculty at the University of Southern California who responded to a memo asking
for their participation; the memo was sent to 80 individuals randomly selected
from the campus directory. The other 9 subjects included 4 graduate students and
5 acquaintances of the experimenters. For their participation, subjects received two
free movie tickets.
The third sample included 75 older adults ranging in age from 63 to 92
(M = 73.5). Two did not complete the sorting task and were deleted from the
sample, resulting in a final sample of 27 men and 46 women. The vast majority of
this sample was Caucasian. Twenty-six belonged to a senior club affiliated with a
Christian church, whereas 47 belonged to a senior group affiliated with a Jewish
Community Center, both located in Southern California. Fifty-nine percent were
married, 36% were widowed, and the remaining 5% were either divorced (4%) or
single (1%). Most of these participants were active within their communities at the
time of the study (e.g., they attended lectures, trips, dance lessons, and exercise
classes organized by their respective groups). They furthermore varied widely in
socioeconomic status. In exchange for each participant’s help, a donation of $10.00
was made to his or her club/center.
Materials
Development of the Goal List
Table I shows the list of 135 goals that was attained through the process
detailed below. This list contains only “high-level” goals, which were defined as
motivational entities that could be worded in concrete and unambiguous terms
and to which subjects could readily relate (e.g., “having physical ability, agility,”
“standing up for my beliefs,” “feeling safe and secure”). Goals that referred either
P1: GYQ
Table I. List of 135 Human Goals Derived From the Psychological Literature
Abbreviation Full label
Achieving salvation Achieving salvation

Arts Appreciating the arts
Aspirations Achieving my aspirations
Attracting sexually Being able to attract, please, sexually excite a sexual partner
Avoiding failure Avoiding failure
Avoiding guilt Avoiding feelings of guilt
Avoiding rejection Avoiding rejection by others
Avoiding stress Avoiding stress
Being able to fantasize Being able to fantasize, imagine
Being affectionate Being affectionate toward others
Being ambitious Being ambitious, hard-working
Being better than others Being better than others, beating others
Being carefree Being lighthearted, carefree, enjoying life
Being clean Being clean, neat (personal care)
Being conventional Maintaining conventional views, avoiding innovation
Being creative Being creative (e.g., artistically, scientifically, intellectually)
Being curious Being curious, inspecting, learning
Being disciplined Being disciplined, able to follow-through with projects I start,
following my intentions with behavior
Being free Having freedom (being a free person)
Being good looking Being good looking
Being honest Being honest, loyal, respectful, courteous, considerate with others
Being in love Being in love
Being innovative Changing my ways, being innovative in the way I live my life
Being intelligent Being intelligent
Being likeable Being likeable, making friends, drawing others near
Being logical Being logical, consistent, rational
Being passionate Being really passionate about something
Being playful Being playful, cheerful, acting for fun
Being popular Being in the center of things, being popular
Being practical Being practical
Being private Keeping to myself, being private
Being recognized Being admired, recognized by others
Being reflective Being reflective, not impulsive
Being respected Being respected by others
Being responsible Being responsible, dependable
Being self-sufficient Being independent, self-reliant, self-sufficient
Being socially attractive Being socially attractive, exciting, fascinating, impressing others
Being spontaneous Being spontaneous
Being unique Being unique, different, exceptional
Belonging Belonging to social groups, feeling like part of a group
Bills Being able to meet my financial needs, not worry about bills,
expenses, etc.
Buying things Buying things I want
Cared for Being taken care of
Career Having a career
Career knowledge Keeping up to date with career-related knowledge
Cause Being committed to a cause (e.g., earth, environment, anticrime,
antidrugs)
Charity Being charitable, helping the needy
Close children Being close to my children
(Continued )
P1: GYQ
Table I. (Continued )
Close spouse Being close to my spouse

Content with myself Being happy, content with myself, having inner harmony, freedom
from inner conflict
Contribution Making a lasting contribution to society
Control of environment Being in control of the environment
Control over others Having control over others
Decisions for others Being in a position to make decisions for others
Defense vs. criticism Defending myself against others’ criticisms or attacks
Descendants Having enough money to leave for my descendants
Different experiences Having new and different experiences
Difficult things Accomplishing difficult things
Easy life Having an easy and comfortable life
Education Getting an education
Educational degree Obtaining an advanced educational degree
Entertaining others Amusing, entertaining others
Erotic relationship Having an erotic relationship
Ethical Being an ethical person
Exciting life Having an exciting, stimulating life
Exercising Being physically active, exercising regularly
Exploring Seeking new things, exploring, being adventurous
Fashion Keeping up with fashion
Feeling close to family Feeling close to my parents, siblings, grandparents
Feeling meshed Having emotional intimacy, feeling really meshed with another
Feeling safe Feeling safe and secure
Finding higher meaning Finding higher meaning in life, coherence, harmony, oneness
Firm values Having firm values
Flexibility Having flexibility of viewpoint, being broad-minded, open
Freedom of choice Having freedom of choice
Good marriage Having a good marriage
Good parent Being a good parent (teaching, providing, transmitting values)
Having friends Having friends I love, close companionship
Help from family Receiving help from my parents, siblings, grandparents
Helping others Helping others, cooperating, giving support
Hobbies Devoting time to amusements, having recreation, entertainment,
hobbies
Intellectual conversations Having intellectual experiences, conversations, discussing
interesting topics
Job Having a job I really like
Knowing many others Knowing and being on familiar terms with many others
Knowing myself Knowing myself, being in touch with myself
Leader Being a leader
Learning art Learning more about art
Life’s limitations Accepting life’s limitations
Living close to family Living close to my parents, siblings, grandparents
Looking distinguished Carrying myself well, looking distinguished
Looking fit Looking physically fit
Looking young Looking young
Mature romantic Having a mature romantic relationship
Mature understanding Having a mature understanding of life
Mechanical ability Having mechanical ability
Mental health Being mentally healthy
P1: GYQ
Table I. (Continued )
Mentor Having a mentor, someone to guide me

Money Making a lot of money
Novel ideas Having original, novel ideas
Nutrition Being physiologically healthy, maintaining a healthy weight, eating
nutritious foods
Others to rely Having others to rely on
Others’ trust Having others’ trust
Overcoming failure Overcoming failure, putting myself back on my feet after a failure
Own guidelines Setting and following my own guidelines
Peace of mind Having peace of mind
Personal growth Experiencing personal growth
Persuading others Influencing, persuading others
Physical ability Having physical ability, agility
Physical fitness Being in good physical condition, physically fit
Pleasing God Pleasing God
Providing family Providing my spouse or children (or both) with a feeling of financial
security and a home to come back to
Pursuing ideals Pursuing my ideals, fighting for things I believe in
Religious faith Maintaining religious faith
Religious traditions Engaging in religious traditions
Rich social life Having a rich, active, social life
Romantic experiences Having romantic experiences
Seeking equality Being involved in seeking equality, brotherhood, equal opportunity
for all
Seeking fairness Seeking fairness
Seeking justice Seeking justice
Self-esteem Having high self-image, self-esteem, self-respect, feeling good about
myself
Setting examples Setting good examples
Sexual experiences Enjoying sexual experiences
Sharing feelings Sharing feelings with close friends
Stability Having stability in life, avoiding change, adhering to my ways and
life style
Stable family life Having a stable, secure family life (with my spouse or children, or
both)
Standing up for beliefs Standing up for my beliefs
Support from others Receiving support from others on projects I believe in
Taking care of family Taking care of my parents, siblings, grandparents
Taking risks Not being fearful, being able to take risks
Teaching Developing others (teaching, sharing knowledge)
Things in order Keeping things in order (my desk, office, house, etc.)
Thinking intellectually Being able to think intellectually (handle data, extract ideas, devise
hypotheses, analyze, synthesize information)
Well-being Protecting my well-being, avoiding pain
Wisdom Having wisdom
World beauty Experiencing a world of beauty (going to museums, concerts, being
with nature)
Note. The goals with which subjects were presented are listed alphabetically. The abbreviated labels
are used in Figs. 1 through 4. The “full labels” were given to subjects.
P1: GYQ
to a very specific desired end state (e.g., visiting my sister this Sunday, finishing
up this one article that has been sitting on my desk for the last year) or to a highly
abstract end state—one too ethereal to serve as a good predictor of behavior (e.g.,
achieving my highest values)—were excluded.
The process of generating the list of human goals started with a review of
the literature on human values, goals, motives, and needs; this produced an initial
list of 136 items, including Murray’s 44 “variables of personality” (20 manifest
needs, 8 latent needs, 4 “inner state” variables, and 12 general traits, Murray,
1938), Rokeach’s 18 instrumental and 18 terminal values (Rokeach, 1973), and
the 56 goals that were included in Wicker, et al.’s study (Wicker et al., 1984).
These lists were chosen because of their apparent comprehensiveness and because
of their overlap with other theorists’ lists, such as McDougall’s set of instincts
(McDougall, 1933) and Maslow’s set of human needs (Maslow, 1970). For exam-
ple, McDougall’s “gregarious instinct” is similar to Wicker’s “having a rich social
life” and “being socially attractive,” Rokeach’s “true friendship,” and Murray’s
“n Affiliation.” And Maslow’s “esteem” is similar to Rokeach’s “self-respect, self-
esteem,” Wicker’s “improving self-image,” and Murray’s “n Counteraction.”
An examination of the content of these goals/values made it evident that many
of the descriptors used to define the goal labels in the various authors’ lists included
two or more subgoals that were different from one another. These descriptors
were, thus, separated into their components. For instance, Rokeach’s “mature love
(sexual and spiritual intimacy)” was separated into sexual and relationship-related
goals, respectively. Many of Murray’s needs were also separated into their various
components, as they seemed to include identifiably different goals. For example,
“n Affiliation (to draw near and enjoyably co-operate or reciprocate with an allied
other; to adhere and remain loyal to a friend)” was divided into goals such as “being
likable, making friends, drawing others near,” “helping others, cooperating, giving
support,” and “having friends I love, close companionship.”
A set of 168 human motivators was thus obtained. These motivators were
then subjected to a stringent screening procedure, which checked for (1) clar-
ity (e.g., Wicker’s “Achievement,” a goal too broad to be readily understood,
was divided into a number of goals, including “accomplishing difficult things”
and “achieving my aspirations,” in an attempt to define “achievement” in a less
ambiguous way); (2) redundancy (e.g., Wicker’s “self-knowledge” and Murray’s
“knowing oneself”—a component of his Endocathection need—were collapsed
into one goal); and (3) relevance (e.g., Murray’s “repressed Exhibitionism (the
desire to show off and expose one’s body in public)” was deleted, as this was not
considered a goal likely to be important in a general taxonomy of human goals).
The goals obtained were then compared to other researchers’ lists, in a search
for missing items. For instance, Ford and Nichols’ “fulfilling social roles” and
“community” (aspects of their Integration goal, Ford & Nichol, 1987) led to the
inclusion of “being charitable, helping the needy” (a goal to which both Wicker
and Rokeach had alluded), and their “physiological well-being” goal led to “being
P1: GYQ
physiologically healthy, maintaining a healthy weight, eating nutritious foods” and

“being physically active, exercising regularly” (goals closely related to Wicker’s
“being in good physical condition”). Furthermore, Ford and Nichols’ “Having tran-
quility (peace of mind, serenity, avoiding stress)” led to “having peace of mind,
avoiding stress.” Psychology faculty and graduate students at the University of
Southern California were then asked to volunteer any goals they thought were miss-
ing from the resulting set. “Having emotional intimacy, being really meshed with
another” (inspired by Lynn Miller’s romantic-relationship goals (personal com-
munication, July, 1990)), and “being unique, different, exceptional” were added
to the list.
This resulted in a list of 134 goals. The final set of 135 goals resulted from run-
ning seven (pilot) subjects whose input led to (1) the deletion of Murray’s “seeking
and enjoying sensuous impressions” (subjects did not understand this goal); (2) the
division of “having peace of mind, avoiding stress” into its two component goals,
and “seeking fairness and justice” into “seeking fairness” and “seeking justice”;
and (3) the rewording of goals such as “being able to understand, repair, construct
mechanical devices” and “having aesthetic appreciation and judgment,” which
respectively became “having mechanical ability” and “appreciating the arts.”
The list of goals was thus developed through a painstaking procedure that
included not only a review of the literature but also thorough deliberation among
a team of researchers. Many of the procedures used to develop other goal lists
have been less thorough. For example, Ford and Nichols created their 26-goal list
by interviewing and “intensely probing” students and colleagues and counseling
clients about their own wants, needs, desires and objectives (without going to
the literature). And Wicker chose his original set of 46 goal statements from a
list of about 200 “general, psychogenic, and seemingly important goals” (Wicker,
1984, p. 288) that he “intuitively generated” without explicit recourse to prior
classifications (10 goals were then added to his list, which were obtained through
asking 110 subjects to “write their 4 most important current goals or aspirations,”
and asking 5 graduate students to list as many “humanly important general goals”
as they could).
Undoubtedly, we have not captured all important human goals. However, the
current list of goals is the most extensive that has been analyzed and thus provides
a broad base for further work.
The Sorting Task
As stated above, the primary purpose of this study was to create a taxonomy
of human goals that would be based on the semantic similarity of the 135 goals, and
which would reflect the perceptions of people unfamiliar with formal psychological
models of human behavior. To obtain subjects’ similarity-based categories, sets
of 135 index cards (300 × 500 ), each card containing one of the goals, were created.
P1: GYQ
Subjects were asked to sort the 135 goal cards into groups such that goals that fell
under a common “theme” or “topic” went together.
The Goal Importance Measure (GIM)
This instrument was designed to measure the importance that subjects as-
cribed to each of the 135 goals. This measure was included so that we could
examine whether the items in the conceptual clusters identified from the cluster
analysis of the sorting task were also similar in importance. That is, was it the
case that items that were identified as being semantically similar or conceptually
related were also related in individuals’ motivational structures?
This measure required subjects to rate how important each goal was for them in
their current lives, on a scale anchored by 1 (not at all important) and 11 (extremely
important). Subjects were instructed to place an “N/A” (nonapplicable) next to any
goal(s) that did not apply (to their current lives). This addition to the instructions
was a result of running the first seven (pilot) subjects: The issue came up more
than once that certain goals were very important to subjects but that they did not
affect their current lives. For instance, more than one PhD holder volunteered that
“obtaining an advanced educational degree” deserved an “11,” as they really valued
education, but having reached this goal made rating the importance it conveyed for
them “at this point in their lives” difficult. This is a very different situation from the
one in which a graduate student currently pursuing a doctoral degree would find
herself: Both the student and the doctor value obtaining an advanced educational
degree enormously; however, this is a “current concern” (to use Klinger’s term;
Klinger, 1987) for the student only.
Procedure
Participants in the middle-aged and the undergraduate samples were run

individually, whereas, because of logistical reasons and space availability, sub-
jects in the older sample were run in groups of up to five individuals. These
subjects were seated away from each other in an attempt to decrease social com-
parison and pressures posed by others’ performance. Participants were specifi-
cally instructed to work by themselves and at their own pace, and not to worry
about time constraints. All participants were told that the purpose of the study
was to gather some information about people’s goals and how they are grouped
together.
They were first given the Goal Importance Measure and asked to rate, on an
11-point Likert scale, how important each of the 135 life goals was for them “at
this point in their lives.” The Goal Importance Measure was administered before
the sorting task so that subjects would have an opportunity to become familiar with
the goals before having to engage in the sorting task, which required them to think
P1: GYQ
about interrelationships among the goals. As stated above, they were asked to write
“N/A” (nonapplicable) next to any goal that did not apply to their current lives.
Participants were told that there “obviously [were] no right or wrong answers”
and that at the end of that task they would be handed a deck of cards and given
further instructions. Every participant was informed that he or she had the option
to terminate participation at any point without penalty (two participants took that
option).
Once subjects finished the Goal Importance Measure, they were asked to sort
the 135 cards into groups. They were asked to “leave their own values aside” and
to objectively sort the cards “on the basis of how similar the goals are to one
another, that is, on the basis of common themes, or topics, under which you see
them falling.” They were instructed to form as many groups as they needed, not
exceeding 30 groups. They were also told that they could have as many cards in
each group as they wished and that, again, there were no right or wrong answers.5
All participants were told that at the end of the sorting task they would be asked to
label each group of goals they had generated; that is, they would have to “come up
with a name for each group which summarized the content of the goals included
in it.” This task was aimed at helping subjects focus on topic-based (instead of
value-based) groups. At the end of the sorting task, demographic data (i.e., age,
gender, ethnicity, marital status) were collected and participants, as a reward for
their participation, received (1) class bonus points (young), (1) two movie tickets
(middle), or (3) signed a receipt for a $10.00 donation in their name (older). This
procedure took a total of 1–2 hr (younger people tended to finish the tasks more
quickly than did older adults).
RESULTS
Cluster solutions were obtained for the overall sample and for each of the three
subsamples using Ward’s agglomerative hierarchical cluster procedure (Ward,
1963). Input for each of the four cluster solutions was in the form of a 135 ×
135 matrix of the frequency with which each pair of goals was sorted together.
Each cell could range from zero to the total number of subjects in the sample, repre-
senting the number of subjects who sorted together the two goals that met at those
coordinates. This matrix was entered into a cluster routine that generated clusters
on the basis of the distance scores among pairs of goals. A Squared Euclidean
proximity measure was used to assess this distance. This measure, recommended
by SPSS-X for use with Ward’s method, computes distances between two cases
5 Severalolder adults had difficulty with the sorting task. A frequent challenge was the necessary
switch between a task tapping into one’s motives (filling out the GIM) and this cognitive task which
required them to “leave their own values aside” and think about the goals in an objective manner.
Elaborations of the instructions that proved helpful included an analogy, volunteered by one of the
older participants, between the sorting task and the categorization of goals “as if I were to file them
away, regardless of how I feel about them.”
P1: GYQ
(x and y) by summing the squaredP differences between the values of the clustering
variables: Distance (x, y) = i (xi − yi )2 .
The cluster routine produces a hierarchical organization of goals, depicting
how they are categorized at various levels. It uses an agglomerative process, which
includes four steps: (1) It calculate the proximities between the initial clusters (the
135 individual cases); (2) it combines the two nearest clusters into one; (3) it then
recomputes the proximities between existing clusters and the newly formed cluster;
and (4) it repeats the second and third steps until all cases have been combined in
one all-encompassing cluster (SPSS-X, 1988). This produces a hierarchy of cluster
solutions, “ranging from one overall cluster to as many clusters as there are cases.
Clusters at a higher level can contain several lower-level clusters, but within each
level, the clusters are disjoint (each item belongs to only one cluster)” (SPSS-X,
1988, p. 405).
The procedure used here (Ward’s) is widely used in the social sciences (Ward,
1963). This method is also known as the “within-groups sum of squares or the error
sum of squares (ESS)” method and is designed to optimize the minimum variance
within clusters. It has been found to outperform other clustering methods in many
cases (Aldenderfer & Blashfield, 1984).
In the following we first present the aggregate solution obtained by clus-
tering the sorting data of all 171 subjects. We then describe the similarities and
dissimilarities among the solutions for the different groups.
Solution for Total Sample
The solution based on the total sample is presented first, as it constitutes

the best estimate of the general population because of its larger size and basis in
three fairly different samples. Figure 1 presents the hierarchical organization of
the clusters—up to a 30-cluster solution. On the left side of the figure are labels
for each of the 30 clusters. The labels were generated by the authors, based on an
inductive analysis of the items in the category that attempted to best summarize the
contents of the cluster. The numbers running along the top of the figure, from 29
to 1, indicate the number of clusters at that level. For each step up in the hierarchy,
two clusters at the previous level have been amalgamated into one cluster. Thus, at
→
Fig. 1. Cluster solution for total sample. Goal labels presented in Fig. 1 (and all other figures) are
abbreviated versions of the actual labels. Refer to Table I for explanations of goal abbreviations. Some
of the interesting nodes at which groups of clusters join have been identified by letters. Identifiers
mentioned in text match those included in figures. Cluster labels were inductively arrived at by the
authors, and members of a team of researchers. Labels are written in lower case when they do only
a fair job at summarizing the contents of a cluster. Cluster labels have been omitted when the goals
contained in a cluster were highly heterogeneous. Node identifiers (letters or numbers) have been kept
constant across solutions containing similar higher order clusters. Labels for several clusters have been
omitted because of the heterogeneity of their contents.
P1: GYQ
207
P1: GYQ
level 29, two of the clusters at level 30 have been combined, resulting in 29 clusters.
Level 2 indicates that there are two broad clusters at that level. Further, points on
the figure where lower level clusters combine to form conceptually interesting
higher level clusters have been identified by a capital letter.
The tree was “cut” at 30 clusters because this solution seemed to make the
most conceptual sense, and finer distinctions did not seem to add substantially to
the meaning of the solution. Further, the goals that fell in each of the 30 clusters
seemed to go together, such that each cluster could be assigned a label that sum-
marized its contents. This number of categories was also chosen because it was the
number subjects were asked not to exceed when sorting the goals into groups. For
consistency and comparability across solutions all trees were cut at 30 clusters.
As Fig. 1 shows, at the highest level of the hierarchy, goals were divided into
(A) those related to Sex & Romance, Marriage, and Family and (B) all other goals,
pointing to the dramatic conceptual difference perceived by subjects between life
experiences that involve family members and those that do not. These other goals
then divide into (C) general Interpersonal goals (goals related to one’s interaction
with people in general) and (D) Intrapersonal goals. Thus, we see that at a very high
level subjects made a broad distinction between Interpersonal and Intrapersonal
goals. General Interpersonal goals (C), in turn, subdivide into Physical goals (both
health and appearance) (E), and a large higher order cluster (F) that further divides
into a cluster (N) containing goals related to Friendship and to Belonging, Social
Recognition, and Social Approval, and a large cluster consisting of several lower
level clusters containing goals related to Receiving from others, Avoiding rejec-
tion, general Positive social qualities (such as being respected and being honest),
Teaching and helping others, and Leadership.
Intrapersonal goals (D), in turn, subdivide into several major clusters. One
cluster (O) contains lower level clusters related to Freedom, Ethics and Idealism,
Social awareness, and Religion, although Religion joins this higher level cluster
only at a high level in the hierarchy. Another cluster (J) subdivides into Aesthetic
goals, goals related to being Creative, a cluster concerned with Being flexible and
Open to new experiences, and Entertainment-related goals. A third large cluster
(I) divides into one cluster containing subclusters related to Psychological well-
being, and Stability and Safety, and a second cluster containing (1) Personal growth
(including “Finding higher meaning,” which formed a cluster by itself at level 30,
but joined Personal growth at level 29), and (2) sets of goals related to Order,
Achievement, and Self-sufficiency and Self-determination. The fourth large cluster
(K) contained one cluster concerning Finances and two other clusters, one related
to one’s Career and one to Education and Intellect.
In sum, for the total sample goals fell into three major clusters: (1) Family,
Marriage, Sex, and Romance; (2) Interpersonal goals related to interacting with
people in general; and (3) Intrapersonal goals. The general Interpersonal goals then
subdivided into a number of other subclusters, such as physical goals including
Health and Appearance, goals related to Friendship, Belonging, Social recognition,
P1: GYQ
and Social approval, and several clusters of goals related to Receiving from others,
Avoiding rejection, general Positive social qualities (such as being respected and
being honest), Teaching and helping others, and Leadership. The Intrapersonal
goals also subdivided into a number of subclusters, such as a set consisting of
various clusters related to Freedom, Ethics, Social awareness, and Religion; an-
other set containing clusters related to Aesthetics, Creativity, Entertainment, and
Openness to experience; a third set related to Psychological well-being, Safety
and Stability, Personal growth, Achievement and Self-determination; and a final
set with clusters concerning Finances, Career, and Education and Intellect.
Comparison of Overall Solution With the Three Subsamples
To provide a framework for understanding how particular age groups are

similar and different in the way they conceptualize motivational constructs, the
solution based on the total sample will be compared in detail to the solutions
for the three subsamples. Although we recognize that each of the subsamples
contributes to the overall solution, and thus the similarity of the subsamples to
the overall solution is somewhat artifactual, using the overall solution in this way
provides a conceptually useful way of organizing the comparison among solutions.
Comparison of Fig. 1 with Figs. 2, 3, and 4 (solutions produced by the under-
graduates, middle sample, and the older adults, respectively) reveals a fair amount
of similarity in the hierarchical arrangement of clusters produced by the total sam-
ple and those produced by the subsamples. The division into three major clusters
(Family-related, Interpersonal, and Intrapersonal) is found in all four solutions,
and the clusters that fell under each of these major categories for the total sample’s
solution also were clustered together by the three subsamples. Within each of the
three major categories, the extent to which subsamples grouped together lower
level clusters varied. These similarities and differences will be described within
each of the three major clusters.
Family, Marriage, Sex, and Romance Clusters
The same conceptual topics were included in this category by all people. The
differences lay in the lower level distinctions. Thus, the older adults divided, as the
total sample did, these goals into Marriage (“good marriage,” “close spouse”) and
Family (including goals related to both parental and immediate family). However,
younger adults grouped together Marriage and Immediate family and distinguished
these from Parental-family goals. This difference between the younger and older
adults disappears at higher levels in the hierarchy. At level 22 in the undergraduate
solution, the 10 goals in the Family and Marriage clusters merge and form one
cluster. The same happens for the older adults, but a little higher, at the 15-cluster
level.
P1: GYQ
Fig. 2. Cluster solution for younger group.
210
P1: GYQ
Fig. 3. Cluster solution for middle group.
211
P1: GYQ
Fig. 4. Cluster solution for older group.
212
P1: GYQ
Also included in node A were goals related to Sex and Romance. The seven
goals included in this cluster were consistently sorted together (by all subsamples as
well as the total sample). It is interesting to note that even though Sex and Romance
goals consistently clustered with Family-related goals, they were perceived by
younger and older adults (and by the total sample) as fairly distinct from the latter,
as they remained alone until the 4-cluster level. Finally, the middle sample differed
from all the other groups in including Finances in this cluster, and in particular with
Family goals. This may be related to the much greater likelihood that individuals
in the middle group were raising a family. Both the older and the younger groups,
as well as the overall sample, placed the Finance cluster in the Interpersonal goals
higher order cluster.
Students’ perception of being married and having children as different from
being close to and interacting with their parental family might be related to the fact
that the students who participated in the study were single and, thus, perceived
marriage and parenthood as life experiences that take place together. The older
sample, on the other hand, included mostly married and widowed individuals who
probably no longer had frequent contact with their parental family or their children.
“Interpersonal” Clusters
In the overall sample, as well as in the subsamples, the higher order category
formed by Interpersonal goals (C) contains, broadly, (1) Physical appearance and
health goals, node E (except for the middle subsample who placed these in the
Personal goals cluster), (2) goals related to having Friends and Belonging, Social
recognition, and Approval, which at node F join (3) goals related to Defending
against rejection, Helping and Giving to others, Receiving support from others,
and Leadership. The same basic clusters are found in all the subsamples, although
there are some differences in the specifics of how they are related to one another.
“Intrapersonal” Clusters
Intrapersonal higher order clusters for the total sample subdivide into 5 major
clusters: (1) Religion, which is a fairly distinct cluster, as it does not join (2) goals
related to Freedom, Ethics (and Idealism)—which in turn join Social awareness—
until the 6-cluster level; (3) goals related to being Creative, Flexible, and Open to
new, exciting experiences, which join Entertainment and then Aesthetics-related
goals; (4) goals related to having Personal growth (including “finding higher mean-
ing in life”), which join goals related to having Order, Achieving one’s goals and
being Self-sufficient, Disciplined and Determined, and then join goals related to
Psychological well-being, and Stability and Safety; and finally (5) goals related
to Career, Intellect and Education, which, interestingly, join Financial goals at
level 10.
P1: GYQ
The 5 higher order clusters delineated above are also found, in slightly differ-
ent shapes and forms, within the three subsamples’ solutions: Religion, which also
joins Social awareness, Idealism and Freedom in the undergraduate and middle
group solutions, remains very distinct in all three solutions. However, in the older
adult sample, although Social awareness, Idealism (and Ethics), and Freedom (G)
are also found together, they are not contiguous to Religion.
A cluster containing Excitement, Entertainment and Openness-related goals,
such as Flexibility and Creativity (H) can also be found in all subsamples. An
Aesthetics cluster is also related to these other clusters for the overall sample, the
young and middle groups, but not for the older group.
Node I, at which gather goals related to Personal growth, Stability, Safety,
Well-being, Achievement, Self-sufficiency, and Self-determination, can also be
found, to different extents, in the three subsamples’ solutions. In the case of un-
dergraduates, I also includes Ethics and Finances. In the case of the middle group
and the case of the older adults, I also looks quite similar to the other solutions: It
includes goals related to Security, Stability, Personal growth, and Self-sufficiency,
but does not include Achievement-related goals.
Lastly, the total sample’s Career, Intellect, and Education cluster (L) is also
found in the undergraduate solution and can be seen in the older adult solution
joined to clusters tapping into Achievement and Order. However, in the middle
group the Intellect cluster is relatively distant from the Education and Career
cluster, only joining at a relatively high level.
Summary
In sum, the solutions generated by the total sample and the three subsamples
have numerous elements in common, both at high and low levels of abstraction,
indicating the existence of stable sets of conceptually based clusters that are shared
by a diverse group of people and, thus, should prove useful in the construction of
tools aimed at gaining a better understanding of the motivational basis of behavior
(across diverse groups of people). The major distinctions among goals were repli-
cated: (1) Family, Marriage, and Sex & Romance constituted a distinct cluster; and
(2) Interpersonal goals—including those related to having a Social life, Friends,
Support, Recognition, and the opportunity to Give to others and Lead others—were
different from (3) Intrapersonal goals, which included goals related to Idealism,
Ethics, Freedom and Social awareness; Flexibility, Openness, Excitement and
Entertainment; Intellect, Career and Education; Personal growth, Self-determina-
tion, Psychological well-being, and Stability and safety; Achievement, Order, and
Personal care; Aesthetics; Religion; and Finances. Moreover, numerous lower level
clusters showed high levels of replicability among these very different groups of
individuals, demonstrating that this conceptually based organization of human
goals does a good job of capturing the conceptual organization of goals perceived
by a wide range of individuals.
P1: GYQ
Table II. Adjusted Rand Indices for Pairwise Comparisons

of Sorts Obtained From Different Subject Groups
Young to old .53
Young to middle .60
Old to middle .55
Average of subgroups to each other .56
Quantitative Comparisons Among the Samples
We first present a measure of the overall agreement among the solutions and
then present a more detailed analysis of the extent to which the same clusters were
found across the solutions. Overall degree of agreement was computed using the
adjusted Rand index (Hubert & Arabie, 1985), which calculates the proportion
of times that all possible pairs of items are sorted together or separately in two
different cluster solutions, adjusted for chance. The index ranges from 1 to 0,
where 1 indicates that sorting of pairs of items was identical in the two solutions
being compared, whereas 0 indicates that pairs of items were sorted together and
separately no more than would be expected by chance. An adjusted Rand index of
.71 can be interpreted as meaning that the two cluster solutions being compared
show 71% agreement, over and above what would be expected because of chance
(Collins & Dent, 1988).
Table II presents the adjusted Rand indices computed on all possible pair-
wise comparisons of the solutions for the Undergraduate, Middle-Aged, and Older
Adult samples. As Table II shows, there was an average of 56% agreement, above
chance.
A more detailed analysis of the degree and type of agreement was then calcu-
lated by comparing the amount of agreement among the solutions at the 30-cluster
level. This was done by calculating the percent agreement for each of the 30 clus-
ters for each of the three subsamples compared to the Total solution. This more
detailed level of analysis can be found in Table III, for the total sample as compared
to the undergraduate subsample; in Table IV, for the total sample compared to the
middle sample; and in Table V, for the total sample as compared to the older-adult
subsample.
As the three tables show, pairs of clusters tended to match reasonably well,
although they varied in the degree of match. The tables present the percent agree-
ment and the number of matching goals for each cluster. The last column gives the
sum of the matching and unique nonmatching goals, which was the denominator
for the calculation of the percent agreement.
Inter-Item Consistency of Importance Ratings Within Each Cluster
We were also interested in whether goals that were judged as conceptually

similar also hung together in terms of how important they were to the same group
P1: GYQ
Table III. Degree of Agreement per Pair of Clusters Between the Total Sample’s (N ) and Undergra-
duates’ (U ) Sorting-Based Solutions
No. of matching
Cluster nos. for
Degree of No. of goals plus no. of
each solutiona
agreement matching unique unmatched
N U Clusters (%) goals goals
1 1 Sex and Romance 100 7 7

14 14 Social awareness 100 6 6
5 5 Physical health 100 5 5
8 10 Receiving from others 100 4 4
13 13 Religion 100 4 4
21 28 Psychological well-being 100 4 4
30 30 Finances 100 4 4
7 11 Friendship 100 3 3
28 21 Career 100 3 3
17 16 Aesthetics 100 3 3
20 19 Entertainment 100 3 3
9 7 Defense vs. rejection 100 2 2
Sum 12 48
6 6 Social life 88 7 8
22 29 Stability and Safety 86 6 7
12 12 Leadership 83 5 6
4 4 Physical appearance 80 4 5
24 23 Personal growth 78 7 9
11 9 Teaching and Giving others 75 3 4
25 27 Dexterity and Personal care 67 2 3
Sum 7 34
19 18 excitementb 60 6 10
3 3 parental family 50 4 8
18 17 creative mind, openness 50 3 6
29 20 intellect 50 3 6
10 8 positive social qualities 50 2 4
26 26 achievement 43 3 7
27 24 self-determination 43 3 7
16 15 freedom 40 2 5
Sum 8 26
2 2 33 2 6
15 25 33 2 6
23 22 0 0 3
Sum 3 4
a Cluster numbers identify each solution’s clusters in the order presented in the particular solution’s
figure. (Top cluster = 1, Bottom cluster = 30)
b Labels written in lower case focus on the matching subset of the goals contained in the pair of clusters
compared. Other goals that were included in either cluster are not described.
of people. This would give us some insight into whether items that are similar
conceptually also have similar motivational importance. To assess this, we per-
formed an inter-item consistency analysis (standardized Cronbach’s alpha) of the
importance ratings for the goals in each of the 30 clusters in the total solution
(The analysis is based on the entire sample.). As Table VI shows, the inter-item
P1: GYQ
Table IV. Degree of Agreement per Pair of Clusters Between the Total Sample’s (N ) and Middle
Aged Group’s (M) Sorting-Based Solutions
No. of matching
Cluster nos. for
each solutiona
N M Clusters (%) goals goals
24 27 Personal growth 100 8 8

10 6 Positive social qualities 100 3 3
2 2 Marriage 100 2 2
16 29 Freedom 100 2 2
Sum 10 40
3 3 Family 88 7 8
13 16 Religion 80 4 5
30 5 Finances 75 3 4
Sum 6 26
6 9 social lifeb 63 5 8
28 30 career 60 3 5
15 18 ethics and idealism 57 4 7
21 26 psychological well-being 50 4 8
26 25 achievement 43 3 7
27 24 self-determination 43 3 7
19 21 excitement 40 4 10
9 11 defense vs. rejection 40 2 5
11 7 helping others 40 2 5
Sum 9 30
29 23 intellect 38 3 8
25 14 personal care 33 1 3
22 28 22 2 9
18 22 13 1 8
23 4 0 0 3
Sum 5 7
a Cluster numbers capture the order in which clusters are listed in their respective clustering-solution
figures. Use these numbers to identify clusters that lack a label.
compared. Other goals that were included in either cluster are not described.
consistency of importance ratings for most of the clusters is high, ranging from
.89 to .61. The cluster containing “mechanical ability” was the only one showing
very low inter-item consistency. The clusters produced by the total sample, thus,
hang together not only in terms of their conceptual meaning but also on the basis
of how important the goals they contain are to the same people.
P1: GYQ
Table V. Degree of Agreement per Pair of Clusters Between the Total Sample’s (N ) and Older
Adults’ (OA) Sorting-Based Solutions
No. of matching
Cluster nos. for
each solutiona
N OA Clusters (%) goals goals
6 7 Social life 100 8 8

3 3 Family 100 8 8
13 13 Religion 100 4 4
28 17 Career 100 3 3
26 16 Achievement 100 3 3
2 2 Marriage 100 2 2
9 9 Defense vs. rejection 100 2 2
16 28 Freedom 100 2 2
Sum 13 57
29 18 Intellect and Education 83 5 6
15 27 Ethics and Idealism 80 4 5
25 15 Dexterity 67 2 3
Sum 7 26
30 30 financesb 60 3 5
23 26 “find higher meaning” 50 1 2
10 11 positive social qualities 50 3 6
22 22 stability vs. avoidance 45 5 11
19 20 flexibility 40 4 10
Sum 5 16
27 24 36 4 11
24 23 27 3 11
21 4 20 1 5
18 19 17 1 6
11 29 0 0 5
Sum 5 9
a Cluster numbers capture the order in which clusters are listed in their respective clustering-solution
figures. Use these numbers to identify clusters that lack a label.
compared. Thus, other goals that were included in either cluster are not described.
DISCUSSION
The same high level division of goals was found across all the solutions:
(1) A higher order cluster of goals thematically related to Family and Marital
P1: GYQ
Table VI. Inter-Item Consistency (Cronbach’s Alpha) of Importance Ratings for

Each of the 30 Sorting-Based Clusters Produced by All 171 Subjects
Standardized
Cluster Number of items Cronbach’s alpha
Religion 4 .8951
Physical health 5 .8678
Sex and Romance 7 .8587
Social recognition and approval 8 .8497
Aesthetics 3 .8361
Flexibility, openness, and excitement 10 .8179
Physical appearance 5 .8118
Social awareness 6 .8097
Personal growth 8 .7987
Leadership 5 .7942
Self-sufficiency 7 .7822
Marriage 2 .7764
Career 3 .7584
Psychological well-being 4 .7401
Family 8 .7380
Creativity 3 .7351
Positive social qualities 3 .7320
Ethics and idealism 4 .7178
Finances 4 .7064
Stability and safety 7 .6864
Friendship 3 .6838
Defense vs. rejection 2 .6650
Receiving from others 4 .6597
Freedom 2 .6513
Teaching and helping others 4 .6420
Intellect and education 5 .6202
Achievement 3 .6143
Entertainment 3 .6121
Dexterity 2 .1523
“Finding higher meaning” 1 N/A
relationships, which were perceived by subjects as conceptually similar to—but

distinct from—goals related to Sexual and Romantic relationships; (2) a distinct
group of goals related to being physiologically Healthy and physically Attractive;
(3) a higher order “Interpersonal” cluster that was subdivided on the basis of the
kinds of interpersonal relationships people tend to have, namely (a) Friendship,
(b) Belonging to social groups and having the Approval and Recognition of others,
(c) Receiving help and Support from others; (d) Defending oneself against negative
social input (rejection, criticism), (e) Being good to others and Giving (sharing
knowledge, being honest and trustworthy, helping), and (f) Leadership; and (4) a
set of clusters of “Intrapersonal” goals including the following themes: (a) Social
awareness, Idealism, and Freedom; (b) Ethics and morality; (c) Religion; (d) Flex-
ibility, Excitement, and Openness to new experiences, Creativity, Aesthetics, and
Entertainment; (e) Intellect, Career, and Education; (f) Achievement and Order;
P1: GYQ
(g) Finances; (h) Personal growth; (i) the need for Stability, Security, and Safety;
and (j) Self-determination and Independence.
The lowest level clusters tend to be semantically homogeneous and they
meaningfully merge into broader categories at increasingly higher levels of ab-
straction, forming a hierarchical structure. Moreover, not only are these clusters
easily labeled and interpreted, but they also are fairly replicable, as was revealed
by the comparisons among the clustering solutions produced by three widely dif-
ferent age groups. It thus seems that this conceptual organization of goals taps into
semantic distinctions that members of a particular culture share. Furthermore, it
lends itself to the identification of subsample specific clusters that clearly describe
the conceptual perceptions of different groups of people (young, middle-aged, and
older adults) and can be used by researchers and practitioners to address the needs
of specific sectors of the population.
The similarity-based clusters reflect the way in which laypeople who share a
common culture conceptually organize the various motivational domains of expe-
rience. These clusters also hang together motivationally, as evidenced by the high
levels of inter-item consistency found when examining the importance ratings of
goals falling within each cluster. This indicates that goals which are perceived as
conceptually similar by people are also strongly related to one another in the extent
to which they are likely to act as motivating forces.
Hierarchical cluster analyses, such as the current ones, help identify which
features distinguish different categories, as well as which features are most impor-
tant in a particular sample of respondents. Higher level distinctions in a hierarchical
cluster solution are typically more important or salient. An important implication
of this point is that if different features are more or less salient to different groups
of participants then these groups may provide somewhat different hierarchical
structures.
Some evidence for this can be found in this study. Although the same basic
structure is found in all the solutions, there are some interesting differences that
can be understood in terms of people of different ages facing different life tasks.
For example, an interesting distinction made solely by the older adults led Physical
goals to fall under a separate higher order cluster strictly containing goals related
to one’s health (both physical and mental) and appearance. This might point to
the salience that health has for older adults. Undergraduate students, on the other
hand, seemed to perceive physical goals as related to one’s social existence. These
data suggest that physical fitness, health, and looks might be perceived by college
students as instrumental to the pursuit of social goals.6
The difference mentioned earlier in the way in which family-related goals
were categorized by younger vs. older adults is also worthy of comment. Younger
6 However, even though Physical goals fell under the Social umbrella for both the total sample and the
undergraduate subsample, in both cases they did not join other social goals until the 3-cluster level.
This, thus, points to the fact that physical goals were perceived as distinct and only generally related
to social goals.
P1: GYQ
adults’ perception of marital- and immediate-family goals as similar to one an-

other and different from parental-family goals was not shared by older adults who
perceived marital goals as conceptually distinct. Younger (single) adults, probably
because of the stage in their lives in which they find themselves, seem to expe-
rience goals related to having a spouse and children (most likely future goals)
as highly interrelated and different from goals involving their parents, siblings,
and grandparents (with whom they probably share their present lives away from
school). For older adults and the total sample, on the other hand, the relationship
with a spouse is distinct and different from all other family relationships.
Validity of Hierarchical Structure
One question that might arise is whether a hierarchy is the best or most
valid way to represent our taxonomy. Clearly, the clustering technique we used
assumes hierarchical structure. Obvious alternatives would be the kind of dimen-
sional structure that results from multidimensional scaling or factor analysis or the
kind of single-level structure that results from the kind of smallest space analysis
performed by Schwartz (1992). Another possibility would be something like the
overlapping clusters that can result from Shepard and Arabie’s (1979) ADCLUS
procedure, which allows the same item to be in multiple, overlapping clusters
(e.g., “good marriage” could be in both “romance” and “family” clusters). Al-
though this technique could be quite informative, unfortunately ADCLUS is not
widely available.
There are several reasons why we think a hierarchy is an extremely useful
way to represent our taxonomy. One is that the current work is on the semantic
structure or meaning of goals. In work on semantic structure, hierarchical analyses
of meaning in terms of greater or lesser abstractness or generality are typical and
seem to capture the meaning of the constructs. Work on semantic taxonomies
and category structure, which are typically based on similarity, typically results
in hierarchical structures, where items lower in the structure are more specific
and are based on a greater number of distinctions. Conversely, items higher in the
hierarchy are more abstract and make fewer distinctions.
Further, clusters in the taxonomy are consistent with one test for hierarchical
semantic structure, which is that it makes sense to say that a lower level cluster is
a type of higher order cluster, but not vice versa. For example, Intellect is a type
of Intrapersonal goal, but an Intrapersonal goal is not a type of Intellect goal. Or
Friendship is a type of Interpersonal goal, but an Interpersonal goal is not a type
of Friendship goal.
But ultimately, the strongest argument for a hierarchical structure is whether
it makes sense and whether the distinctions made or features identified are rea-
sonable. This is precisely the basis on which semantic taxonomies are made and
the basis on which biological taxonomies are formed. In the current analysis, one
can ask several questions: As we move down the hierarchy, does the splitting of
P1: GYQ
large clusters into smaller clusters reveal features or distinctions that are meaning-
ful? When we get to the terminal nodes in the structure do the 30 clusters make
sense? Do the items in them hang together and do the relations among adjacent
clusters make sense? Can one find the same or similar structures among different
groups of individuals? Finally, does the overall branching structure make sense
and reveal interesting and useful relations among clusters of items? We believe
the answer to all of these questions is clearly yes, suggesting that a hierarchical
taxonomy is a valid and extremely useful way to represent the relations among
human motives.
Problems With Feature-Based Models?
Several researchers (e.g., Barsalou, 1985; Murphy & Medin, 1985) have raised
important questions about the adequacy of feature-based or similarity-based mod-
els of categorization. Although it might seem that these critiques create problems
for the current approach, we do not believe they do. These critiques do not argue
that people do not use features or similarity. Rather, they are aimed at the lack
of a theoretical explanation of which features people use and at the insufficiency
of features alone as a way of representing the meaning of categories. As several
theorists have noted (e.g., Murphy & Medin, 1985), there are a potentially infinite
number of features we could use to characterize any particular category. But we
only use certain ones. Feature-based models do not explain this. Further, these cri-
tiques make it clear that features by themselves are not sufficient for representing
category meaning; the relations among features are also critical. Not only must
birds have wings, but these wings must be attached in certain places and they
typically are used to fly.
Although this critique is quite important, neither of these points undercuts our
current purpose, which is descriptive. Our focus here is on better understanding
how the goal domain is organized and what some of the features are that people
use to characterize goals. That is, we are trying to determine empirically which
features people use, rather than trying to explain why they use them. Ultimately,
we also need a theory of why people use these features and not others. But our
current focus is on improving our description of the domain.
Comparison With Previous Categorizations of Human Motivators
Comparison with previous semantically based categorizations of the motiva-

tional domains reveals some overlap, at various levels of abstraction: One of the
major differentiations made by subjects—that between Interpersonal and Intrap-
ersonal goals—was also made by Braithwaite and Law’s interviewees, during the
process of creating their Goal and Mode Values Inventories (Braithwaite & Law,
P1: GYQ
1985). This distinction is also found in Ford and Nichols’s categorization (Ford &
Nichols, 1987). Moreover, this distinction is also central in the work on cultural
differences in values, specifically the difference between Individualist and Collec-
tivist values (e.g., Markus & Kitiyama, 1991; Triandis, 1995), and also seems to
parallel the major distinction in personal orientation identified as Agency versus
Communion (Bakan, 1966; Spence, Helmreich, & Holohan, 1979). Thus, both
laypeople and theoreticians seem to perceive taking care of oneself and interacting
with others as very different from one another.
This distinction between Interpersonal and Intrapersonal goals, overlaps, but
only partially, with an important distinction made by Rosenberg and Sedlak (1972)
between social and intellectual traits. Although their social distinction overlaps
quite strongly with our Interpersonal goals, intellectual traits are only a subset of
the broader category of Intrapersonal characteristics identified in our analyses.
Ford and Nichols
It is interesting, however, that Ford and Nichols, on the basis of their knowl-
edge of theories of motivation and a psychological analysis of the structure of the
mind, placed both social goals (goals that pertain to the individual in his or her in-
teraction with other people) and “Task goals” (goals related to achievement, being
productive and improving one’s performance, and keeping one’s safety) within the
higher order “Person–environment goals” cluster. Participants in the present study,
in contrast, split task-related from “Interpersonal or social” goals, placing task-
related goals (e.g., “mechanical ability,” “things in order”) within “Intrapersonal”
goals.
Numerous other dissimilarities exist, many of them having to do with Ford
and Nichols putting Interpersonal and Intrapersonal goals in the same cluster.
Thus, clusters formed on a bottom-up, commonsense basis differed from clus-
ters generated on the basis of Ford and Nichols’ top-down, theoretically based
conceptualization. Although it makes conceptual sense to cluster under a common
umbrella goals that involve anything external to the individual (i.e., other
people and the environment), naive subjects appear not to experience their
everyday lives that way. These differences between researchers’ and subjects’
perceptions show that Ford and Nichols’ work fails to capture important aspects
of laypeople’s conceptions of the structure of human motivation.
Braithwaite and Law
The hierarchical organization of the clusters provides us with fine distinc-

tions and links at various levels that are lacking in other attempts at organizing
the motivational domain. Braithwaite and Law’s instruments, for instance, con-
tain broad goal categories that hide the distinctions between identifiably different
P1: GYQ
concepts (Braithwaite & Law, 1985). Thus, their category “Secure and Satisfy-
ing Interpersonal Relationships,” a clearly social scale, included “Mature love,”
“True friendship,” “Personal support,” “Security for loved ones,” and “Acceptance
by others.” Each of these items corresponds to a separate cluster in the current
taxonomy.
Schwartz
Schwartz (1992; Schwartz & Bilsky, 1987) has examined the structure of
human values across 20 countries and consistently finds 10 major categories.
However, as noted previously, he does not provide a hierarchical taxonomy of
human values but focuses largely on these 10 major categories. As a result, al-
though many of these categories correspond roughly to some of ours, he does not
make many of the lower and higher level distinctions that can be found in our
taxonomy. For instance, at the highest level in our taxonomy there is a major dis-
tinction between Interpersonal goals and individual or Intrapersonal goals. And
at somewhat lower levels, our taxonomy has major categories for things such as
Sex and Romance, Marriage, Family, Physical appearance, and Physical health.
Also, items that fall in the same categories in Schwartz’s results are frequently in
somewhat separate clusters in our results.
Maslow
Examination of Maslow’s theoretical classifications of human motivators

(Maslow, 1943, 1970) reveals a number of interesting parallels with our taxon-
omy. For example, Maslow’s Physiological (or Biological) needs are similar to
this study’s Physical and Sexual goals; his Security and Safety needs are captured
by this taxonomy’s needs for Stability, Safety, Security, and the Avoidance of neg-
ative situations, his Affiliation (or Attachment) needs tap into Interpersonal goals
such as Friendship, Belonging/Social recognition/Approval, and Receiving from
others, and his cognitive needs resemble our taxonomy’s Intellectual, Educational,
and Creativity-related goals. Finally, Maslow’s Self-actualization need tends to
relate to Intrapersonal goals referring to Self-determination and Personal growth,
and his Transcendence needs tend to relate to this taxonomy’s “finding higher
meaning,” “mature understanding,” and “life’s limitations.”
Murray
Some parallels can also be drawn between the results obtained in this study
and Murray’s conceptualizations. For instance, n Affiliation looks similar to the
Friendship cluster in the present study. Murray’s n Dominance is similar to this
study’s Leadership cluster, which includes, “control of environment,” “persuading
P1: GYQ
others,” “decisions for others,” “control over others,” “leader,” and “setting ex-
amples.” “Physical Ability, n Ach (Phys)” is similar to this taxonomy’s Phys-
ical health cluster. “Economic Ability, n Ach (Econ)” is similar to Finances.
“Erotic Ability, n Ach (Sex)”—the ability to please, attract and excite the opposite
sex; to love and be loved—is parallel to this taxonomy’s Sex & Romance. This
taxonomy’s Intellect cluster seems to be tapped into by three of Murray’s Abilities
or Achievements: “Intellectual Ability, n Ach (Intell)”; “Scientific Ability, n Ach
(Sc)”; and “Theory-Creative Ability, n Ach (Th-Cr)”—the ability to construct ex-
planatory concepts in science, to devise good hypotheses. Murray’s “Aesthetic
Ability, n Ach (Aesth)” is similar to this taxonomy’s Aesthetics.
However, another example illustrates that components of Murray’s needs
were not always perceived as conceptually similar by this study’s participants.
Murray’s n Autonomy is described as the desire to get free, shake off restraint;
defy conventions, refuse to be tied down by family obligations; love adventure and
change, or seclusion (“where one is free to do and think as he likes”; Murray, 1938,
p. 157). These needs fall into clusters in the current taxonomy such as Freedom,
Flexibility/Openness/Excitement, Entertainment, Family, and only lightly “touch
on” Self-sufficiency-related goals. As this example illustrates, Murray perceived
as conceptually similar entities (desires, effects, actions) that fell under different
lower-level clusters and crossed the highest order distinctions made by this study’s
participants (i.e., Interpersonal vs. Intrapersonal).
Finally, Murray’s “Social Ability, n Ach (Soc)”—the ability to make friends
easily, be liked and trusted, express oneself in the presence of others, amuse and
entertain, be popular—appears to cover more than just one specific social cluster:
It contains elements of various Social clusters including Friendship, Giving to
others, and Belonging/Social recognition/Approval.
The analysis presented above illustrates that in some cases laypeople’s moti-
vational experiences were closely paralleled by Murray’s conceptual distinctions,
whereas in other cases finer grained distinctions were made by either party.
Comparison of the Structure of Traits and Goals
As we noted earlier, a number of researchers have argued that there are im-
portant conceptual relations between traits and goals (e.g., Allport, 1937; Alston,
1970, 1975; Borkenau, 1990; Miller & Read, 1987; Pervin, 1983; Read & Miller,
1989). However, the specifics of this relationship have been little studied. Thus,
we examine here the extent to which important distinctions in our goal taxon-
omy have parallels in analyses of the structure of traits, specifically the Big Five.
We focus our comparison on the Big Five because, although not without con-
troversy, it has attracted the largest amount of attention and work, and because
it provides a fairly comprehensive (although not complete) coverage of the trait
domain.
P1: GYQ
Perhaps not surprisingly, the highest level distinction we find in our taxonomy,
that between the Interpersonal and the Intrapersonal domain, is also a fundamental
distinction among traits. For instance, several of the major factors of the Big Five are
entirely composed of social or Interpersonal traits (e.g., Extraversion and Agree-
ableness), whereas the others are Intrapersonal (Conscientiousness, Neuroticism,
Openness). Note, however, that this distinction is not explicitly identified in the
factor analyses in this domain. Further, developers of the interpersonal circumplex
(e.g., Wiggins, 1973, 1979) explicitly chose to focus on interpersonal traits, traits
that deal with how people interact with others.
But the structure of traits and goals is not similar only at the highest level.
There is also considerable overlap between the substructure of the Big Five factors
and our goal clusters. Several researchers have identified detailed subcomponents
or facets for each of the Big Five factors (e.g., Costa & McCrae, 1992; Goldberg,
1990; John, 1990). In the following, for reasons of space we rely on one analysis,
Goldberg’s recent analysis of 100 synonym clusters that identify the Big Five
(Goldberg, 1990). Goldberg provides one of the most detailed analyses of the
components of each factor, with a number of adjective clusters identifying a lower
level in a conceptual hierarchy for each factor.
When we examine the subcomponents of each of the five major factors iden-
tified by these adjective clusters we find that a reasonable correspondence can be
identified between almost all of our goal clusters and many of the trait clusters. In
this comparison we use trait forms (rather than the noun forms he used) of most
of the major trait clusters identified by Goldberg (1990).
Components of Factor 1, Extraversion, are spirited, gregarious, playful, com-
municative, spontaneous, unrestrained, energetic, talkative, assertive and domi-
nant, animated, courageous, confident, direct, humorous, ambitious, and optimis-
tic. These seem to share a common domain with our Belonging, Social recognition
and Approval cluster as well as with our Entertainment, Leadership, and Friend-
ship clusters. There is also some overlap with our Achievement cluster.
Major facets of Factor 2, Agreeableness, are cooperative and helpful, ami-
able, courteous, generous and charitable, modest, moral and warm. These identify
domains that have considerable overlap with a number of our clusters, such as our
Friendship cluster, the Teaching and Helping others cluster, our Positive social
qualities cluster, our Social awareness, and our Ethics and Idealism clusters.
The domain of Factor 3, Conscientiousness also overlaps considerably with
our various goal clusters. Among the major trait clusters are Organized, efficient
and self-disciplined, dependable, precise, cautious, punctual, decisive, dignified,
predictable, thrifty, conventional, and logical and analytic. Thus, an individual
possessing the goals in our Self-sufficiency and self-determination cluster and
our Order cluster would sound very much like a highly Conscientious individual.
Moreover, a concern with Finances corresponds with the thrifty adjective cluster.
And some aspects of our Physical appearance and Physical Health clusters would
also seem to overlap with some of these trait clusters.
P1: GYQ
Factor 4, Emotional Stability vs. Neuroticism, seems to have less correspon-

dence with our goals than do the other factors. However, even here we find some
intriguing overlaps. This domain is characterized by such clusters as independent,
placid and unemotional, insecure and self-critical, anxious, unstable and tempera-
mental, emotional, gullible, and nosey. The goals in our Psychological well-being
and Stability and Safety clusters (e.g., avoiding stress, avoiding failure, feeling
safe, stability) would seem to be characteristic of an individual who is trying
to avoid the arousal, tension, and anxiety that are important components of this
factor.
Finally, an individual who scored high on Factor 5, Openness to experience
or Intellect, would seem to be characterized by a number of our goal clusters,
specifically the Aesthetics cluster, the Creativity cluster, the Flexibility, Openness,
and Excitement cluster, the Higher Meaning and Personal Growth clusters, and the
Intellect and Education cluster. This parallel can be clearly seen in the trait clus-
ters characterizing Factor 5: intellectual and introspective, insightful, intelligent,
creative and artistic, curious, and sophisticated, cultured and worldly.
Interestingly, we also find several important goal clusters that do not have any
ready parallel in the Big Five. Our Sex and Romance, Marriage, and Family clusters
do not seem to have any direct correspondence in the Big Five, although they clearly
are an important part of the Interpersonal domain. Further, our Physical appearance
and Physical health clusters do not have any clear correspondences although there
may be some overlap with both Conscientiousness and with Extraversion.
Our Religion goal cluster also does not have any correspondences with the
Big Five. However, although items related to religion do not typically appear in
most analyses of the Big Five, Goldberg (1990) did report that in several of his
analyses he found a factor corresponding to religiosity and religiousness. However,
he then deleted these items from further analyses, arguing that they did not form
replicable factors beyond the Big Five.
The fate of the religion items in Goldberg’s analysis may provide a clue as
to why there seem to be no trait items in the Big Five corresponding to other
goal clusters as well, such as our Physical appearance, Physical Health, and Sex
and Romance, Marriage, and Family clusters. It is not that such trait terms do not
exist (e.g., vain, slovenly, athletic, hypochondriac, romantic, maternal, paternal,
family-oriented). Rather, they may simply not be so extensively represented in
the language as to form replicable factors in something like the typical “Big Five
analysis.” Workers in the Big Five tradition try to identify broad, comprehensive
trait distinctions.
This may also speak of the relative advantages and disadvantages of Factor
analysis versus Cluster analysis as a discovery strategy. Factor analysis tends to
focus on identifying broad factors or dimensions, all of which operate, more or
less, at the same level of abstraction. It is good at that, but as numerous researchers
have noted it is much less satisfactory for identifying more specific distinctions that
may only be relevant within a small subset of items. In contrast, cluster analysis
P1: GYQ
is better suited for identifying a wider range of distinctions, some of which are
relevant only within a small subgroup of items.
CONCLUSION
The current taxonomy has a number of advantages over previous attempts

at goal taxonomies. It is based on a wider sample of goals and a broader sample
of subjects than previous attempts and it provides a consistent, replicable struc-
ture over a range of subjects. Moreover, it is empirically based, rather than being
based on the theoretical preconceptions of researchers. The taxonomy provides re-
searchers and practitioners interested in human motivation with a broad framework
for the study and assessment of human goals. This should foster the development
of the field in several ways. First, it helps provide a common language for the field
that should improve communication among researchers. Second, by providing a
conceptual structure that identifies how various goals and motives are interrelated,
it should help to systematize and integrate the burgeoning body of research on
human motivation. Third, attempting to explain this structure should further en-
courage theory and the development of causal models of that structure. Finally,
the utility of this taxonomy extends beyond the domain of understanding human
goals, by providing a means to begin examining the relations among two major
personality constructs: goals and traits.
This taxonomy also has several practical advantages for the researcher. It
offers the flexibility of choosing among domains of interest, and among levels of
abstraction, as well as the potential of tailoring an instrument to a particular age
group. This offers a common framework from which to sample human motivators,
and allows the reliable measurement of the role that individuals’ goals play in a
wide range of everyday activities. Thus, someone interested in the way in which
goals related to family, career, health, and finances affect an individual’s job sat-
isfaction might measure the extent to which each of the goals included in these
four clusters is valued; ratings across items belonging to a cluster could then be
checked for consistency.7 This thoroughness is not found in many previous goal
lists (e.g., Cattell’s (1957) 16 Ergs; Rokeach’s (1967, 1973) 36 values). And other
lists (e.g., Murray’s (1938) complex list of “variables of personality,” each includ-
ing distinctly different subvariables) have aimed at covering all areas of human
functioning but do not facilitate the analysis of the relationships among the various
goals, as they provide no information about the hierarchical structure of the goals.
In psychological research, we attempt to understand the factors likely to
predict subjects’ future behaviors. If it is individuals’ motivational structures that
are of interest to us, one critical aspect that needs consideration is how people
7 Researchers particularly interested in multiple measures of a goal cluster might choose to add con-
ceptually similar goals to the cluster(s) of interest, following the conceptual patterns found in the
taxonomy.
P1: GYQ
think about them, and how they guide their lives. For the way in which individuals
organize the motivational domains in their own minds should have a significant
impact on how they approach various situations they encounter in their everyday
lives. It would, thus, be beneficial to use the taxonomy presented here, obtained
from a diverse sample of people, as a basis for studying laypeople’s goal structures,
the importance they ascribe to the various goals, and the extent to which these guide
their everyday lives, and affect their decisions, attitudes, and behaviors.
Clearly the current taxonomy is not the final word. Undoubtedly other goals
need to be added to this taxonomy and the structure that we outline may well
vary as a function of the different situations and life tasks faced by different
individuals at different times in their lives (as some preliminary findings here
suggest). Nevertheless it provides a detailed starting point for addressing these
questions.
REFERENCES
Aldenderfer, M. S., & Blashfield, R. K. (1984). Cluster analysis. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
Allport, G. W. (1937). Personality: A psychological interpretation. New York: Holt.
Allport, G. W., Vernon, P. E., & Lindzey, G. (1960). Study of values. Manual and test booklets
(3rd ed.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Alston, W. P. (1970). Toward a logical geography of personality: Traits and deeper lying personality
characteristics. In H. D. Krefer & M. K. Munitz (Eds.), Mind, science, and history (pp. 59–92).
Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
Alston, W. P. (1975). Traits, consistency and conceptual alternatives for personality theory. Journal for
the Theory of Social Behaviour, 5, 17–48.
Austin, J. T., & Vancouver, J. B. (1996). Goal constructs in psychology: Structure, process, and content.
Psychological Bulletin, 120, 338–375.
Bakan, D. (1966). The duality of human existence. Chicago: Rand McNally.
Barsalou, L. (1985). Ideals, central tendency, and frequency of instantiation as determinants of graded
structure categories. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 11,
629–654.
Beach, L. R., & Mitchell, T. R. (1987). Image theory: Principles, goals, and plans in decision making.
Acta Psychologica, 66, 201–220.
Borkenau, P. (1990). Traits as ideal-based and goal-derived social categories. Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology, 58, 381–396.
Braithwaite, V. A., & Law, H. G. (1985). Structure of human values: Testing the adequacy of the
Rokeach Value Survey. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 49, 250–263.
Braithwaite, V. A., & Scott, W. A. (1991). Values. In J. P. Robinson, P. R. Shaver, & L. S. Wrightsman
(Eds.), Measures of personality and social psychological attitudes, San Diego, CA: Academic
Press.
Briggs, S. R. (1989). The optimal level of measurement of personality constructs. In D. M. Buss &
N. Cantor (Eds.), Personality psychology: Recent trends and emerging directions (pp. 246–260).
New York: Springer.
Costa, P. T., Jr., & McCrae, R. R. (1992). Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO PI-R) and NEO
Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI): Professional manual. Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment
Resources.
Cantor, N., & Kihlstrom, J. F. (1987). Personality and social intelligence. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
Prentice-Hall.
Cattell, R. B. (1957). Personality and motivation structure and measurement. New York: World Press.
Collins, L. M., & Dent, C. W. (1988). Omega: A general formulation of the rand index of cluster
recovery suitable for non-disjoint solutions. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 23, 231–242.
P1: GYQ
Emmons, R. A. (1986). Personal strivings: An approach to personality and subjective well-being.

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51(5), 1058–1068.
Feather, N. T. (1990). Bridging the gap between values and actions: Recent applications of the
expectancy-value model. In E. T. Higgins & R. M. Sorrentino (Eds.), Handbook of mo-
tivation and cognition: Foundations of Social behavior (Vol. 2, pp. 151–192). New York:
Guilford Press.
Fiske, S. T., & Neuberg, S. L. (1990). A continuum of impression formation, from category-based to
individuating processes: Influences of information and motivation on attention and interpretation.
In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 23, pp. 1–74). New York:
Academic Press.
Fleeson, W., Zirkel, S., & Smith, E. E. (1995). Mental representations of trait categories and their
influences on person perception. Social Cognition, 13, 365–397.
Ford, D. H. (1987). Humans as self-constructing living systems: A developmental perspective on
behavior and personality. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Ford, M. E., & Nichols, C. W. (1987). A taxonomy of human goals and some possible applications. In
M. E. Ford & D. H. Ford (Eds.), Humans as self-constructing systems: Putting the framework to
work. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Gelman, R. (1990). First principles organize attention to and learning about relevant data: Number and
the animate–inanimate distinction as examples. Cognitive Science, 14, 79–106.
Goldberg, L. R. (1990). An alternative “description of personality”: The big-five factor structure.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59, 1216–1229.
Gorlow, L., & Noll, G. A. (1967). A study of empirically derived values. Journal of Social Psychology,
73, 261–269.
Heider, F. (1958). The psychology of interpersonal relations. New York: Wiley.
Higgins, E. T., & Sorrentino, R. M. (1990). Handbook of motivation and cognition: Foundations of
social behavior (Vol. 2). New York: Guilford Press.
Hilton, J. L., & Darley, J. M. (1991). The effects of interaction goals on person perception. In M. P.
Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 24, pp. 235–267). New York:
Academic Press.
Hubert, L., & Arabie, P. (1985). Comparing partitions. Journal of Classification, 2, 193–218.
Hull, J. G., & Renn, R. J. (1994). Rethinking the structure of personality and the self as revealed by
trait ratings: Five factor and other solutions. Unpublished manuscript, Dartmouth College.
John, O. P. (1990). The “big five” factor taxonomy: Dimensions of personality in the natural language
and in questionnaires. In L. A. Pervin (Ed.), Handbook of personality theory and research (pp. 66–
100). New York: Guilford Press.
John, O. P., Angleitner, A., & Ostendorf, F. (1988). The lexical approach to personality: A historical
review of trait taxonomic research. European Journal of Personality, 2, 171–203.
Jones, E. E. (1990). Interpersonal perception. New York: Freeman.
Jones, E. E., & Davis, K. E. (1965). From acts to dispositions: The attribution process in person
perception. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 2). New
York: Academic Press.
Klinger, E. (1987). The interview questionnaire technique: Reliability and validity of a mixed
idiographic–nomothetic measure of motivation. In J. N. Butcher & C. D. Spielberger (Eds.),
Advances in personality assessment (Vol. 6, pp. 31–48). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Kruglanski, A. W. (1989). Lay epistemics and human knowledge: Cognitive and motivational bases.
New York: Plenum Press.
Little, B. (1983). Personal projects—A rationale and methods for investigation. Environmental Behav-
ior, 15, 273–309.
Maslow, A. H. (1943). A theory of human motivation. Psychological Review, 50, 370–396.
Maslow, A. H. (1970). Motivation and personality (2nd ed.). New York: Harper & Row.
Mershon, B., & Gorsuch, R. L. (1988). Number of factors in the personality sphere: Does increase in
factors increase predictability of real-life criteria? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,
55, 675–680.
McDougall, W. (1933). The energies of men. New York: Scribner’s.
Markus, H. R., & Kitiyama, S. (1991). Culture and the self: Implications for cognition, emotion, and
motivation. Psychological Review, 98, 224–253.
P1: GYQ
Miller, L. C., Cody, M. J., & McLaughlin, M. L. (1994). Situations and goals as fundamental con-
structs in interpersonal communication research. In M. Knapp (Ed.), Handbook of Interpersonal
Communication (pp. 162–198). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Miller, G. A., Galanter, E., & Pribram, K. (1960). Plans and the structure of behavior. New York: Holt.
Miller, L. C., & Read, S. J. (1987). Why am I telling you this? Self-disclosure in a goal-based model
of personality. In V. J. Derlega & J. Berg (Eds.), Self-disclosure: Theory, research and therapy
(pp. 35–58). New York: Plenum Press.
Miller, L. C., & Read, S. J. (1991). Inter-personalism: Understanding persons in relationships. In
W. Jones & D. Perlman (Eds.), Perspectives in interpersonal behavior and relationships (Vol. 2).
Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.
Murphy, G. L., & Medin, D. L. (1985). The role of theories in conceptual coherence. Psychological
Review, 92, 289–316.
Murray, H. A. (1938). Explorations in personality. New York: Oxford University Press.
Pervin, L. A. (1983). The stasis and flow of behavior: Toward a theory of goals. In M. M. Page
(Ed.), Nebraska Symposium on Motivation, 1982: Personality—Current theory and research
(pp. 1–53). Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Pervin, L. A. (1989). Goal concepts in personality and social psychology. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Pervin, L. A., & Furnham, A. (1987). Goal-based and situation-based expectations of behavior. Euro-
pean Journal of Personality, 1, 37–44.
Read, S. J. (1987). Constructing causal scenarios: A knowledge structure approach to causal reasoning.
Read, S. J., Jones, D. K., & Miller, L. C. (1990). Traits as goal-based categories: The role of goals
in the coherence of dispositional categories. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 58,
1048–1061.
Read, S. J., & Lalwani, N. (2000). Testing a narrative model of trait inferences: The role of goals.
Unpublished manuscript, University of Southern California.
Read, S. J., & Miller, L. C. (1989). Inter-personalism: Toward a goal-based theory of persons in
relationships. In L. Pervin (Ed.), Goal concepts in personality and social psychology. Hillsdale,
NJ: Erlbaum.
Rokeach, M. (1967). Value survey. Sunnyvale, CA: Halgren Tests.
Rokeach, M. (1973). The nature of human values. New York: Free Press.
Rokeach, M. (1979). Some unresolved issues in theories of beliefs, attitudes, and values. In M. M.
Page (Ed.), Nebraska Symposium on Motivation (Vol. 27, pp. 261–304). Lincoln: University of
Nebraska Press.
Rosenberg, S., & Sedlak, A. (1972). Structural representations of implicit personality theory. In
L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 6, pp. 235–297). New
York: Academic Press.
Schank, R. C., & Abelson, R. P. (1977). Scripts, plans, goals, and understanding. Hillsdale, NJ:
Erlbaum.
Schwartz, S. H., & Bilsky, W. (1987). Toward a universal psychological structure of human values.
Schwartz, S. H. (1992). Universals in the content and structure of values: Theoretical advances and
empirical tests in 20 countries. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology
(Vol. 25, pp. 1–65). New York: Academic Press.
Shepard, R. N., & Arabie, P. (1979). Additive clustering: Representation of similarities as combinations
of discrete overlapping properties. Psychological Review, 86, 87–123.
Sorrentino, R. M., & Higgins, E. T. (1986). Handbook of motivation and cognition: Foundations of
social behavior (Vol. 1). New York: Guilford Press.
Sorrentino, R. M., & Short, J. C. (1986). Uncertainty, motivation, and cognition. In R. M. Sorrentino
& E. T. Higgins (Eds.), Handbook of motivation and cognition: Foundations of social behavior
(Vol. 1, pp. 379–403). New York: Guilford Press.
Spence, J. T., Helmreich, R. L., & Holohan, C. K. (1979). Negative and positive components of
psychological masculinity and femininity and their relationship to self-reports of neurotic and
acting out behaviors. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37, 1673–1682.
SPSS Inc. (1988). SPSS-X user’s guide (3rd ed.). Chicago, IL: SPSS Inc.
Triandis, H. C. (1995). Individualism and collectivism. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
P1: GYQ
Ward, J. H., Jr. (1963). Hierarchical grouping to optimize an objective function. American Statistical
Association Journal, 58, 236–244.
Wicker, F. W., Lambert, F. B., Richardson, F. C., & Kahler, J. (1984). Categorical goal hierarchies and
classification of human motives. Journal of Personality, 52(3), 285–305.
Wierzbicka, A. (1991). Cross-cultural pragmatics: The semantics of human interaction. Berlin: Mouton
de Gruyter.
Wierzbicka, A. (1992). Semantics, culture, and cognition: Universal human concepts in culture-specific
configurations. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
Wiggins, J. S. (1973). Personality and prediction: Principles of personality assessment. Reading, MA:
Addison-Wesley.
Wiggins, J. S. (1979). A psychological taxonomy of trait-descriptive terms: The interpersonal domain.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37, 395–412.
Wilensky, R. (1983). Planning and understanding: A computational approach to human reasoning.
London: Addison-Wesley.

A Hierarchical Taxonomy of Human Goals 2001

Caricato da

Informazioni sul documento

Descrizione originale:

Copyright

Formati disponibili

Condividi questo documento

Condividi o incorpora il documento

Opzioni di condivisione

Hai trovato utile questo documento?

Questo contenuto è inappropriato?

Copyright:

Formati disponibili

A Hierarchical Taxonomy of Human Goals 2001

Caricato da

Copyright:

Formati disponibili

P1: GYQ

Motivation and Emotion, Vol. 25, No. 3, September 2001 (°

A Hierarchical Taxonomy of Human Goals1

This paper presents a hierarchical taxonomy of human goals, based on similar-

192 Chulef, Read, and Walsh

GOALS AND BEHAVIOR

Goals are stable, higher-order entities that function as abstract, organizing

A Hierarchical Taxonomy of Human Goals 193

as central aspects of individual differences in personality. In fact, they have argued

194 Chulef, Read, and Walsh

been a third, related, area of interest aimed at attaining a better understanding of

A Hierarchical Taxonomy of Human Goals 195

196 Chulef, Read, and Walsh

A Hierarchical Taxonomy of Human Goals 197

multidimensional scaling). Moreover, Schwartz also relied on importance ratings

198 Chulef, Read, and Walsh

Development of the Goal List

A Hierarchical Taxonomy of Human Goals 199

Achieving salvation Achieving salvation

200 Chulef, Read, and Walsh

Close spouse Being close to my spouse

A Hierarchical Taxonomy of Human Goals 201

Mentor Having a mentor, someone to guide me

202 Chulef, Read, and Walsh

A Hierarchical Taxonomy of Human Goals 203

physiologically healthy, maintaining a healthy weight, eating nutritious foods” and

The Sorting Task

204 Chulef, Read, and Walsh

The Goal Importance Measure (GIM)

Participants in the middle-aged and the undergraduate samples were run

A Hierarchical Taxonomy of Human Goals 205

206 Chulef, Read, and Walsh

Solution for Total Sample

The solution based on the total sample is presented first, as it constitutes

208 Chulef, Read, and Walsh

A Hierarchical Taxonomy of Human Goals 209

Comparison of Overall Solution With the Three Subsamples

To provide a framework for understanding how particular age groups are

Family, Marriage, Sex, and Romance Clusters

Fig. 2. Cluster solution for younger group.

Fig. 3. Cluster solution for middle group.

Fig. 4. Cluster solution for older group.

A Hierarchical Taxonomy of Human Goals 213

214 Chulef, Read, and Walsh

A Hierarchical Taxonomy of Human Goals 215

Table II. Adjusted Rand Indices for Pairwise Comparisons

Quantitative Comparisons Among the Samples

Inter-Item Consistency of Importance Ratings Within Each Cluster

We were also interested in whether goals that were judged as conceptually

216 Chulef, Read, and Walsh

1 1 Sex and Romance 100 7 7

A Hierarchical Taxonomy of Human Goals 217

24 27 Personal growth 100 8 8

218 Chulef, Read, and Walsh

6 7 Social life 100 8 8

A Hierarchical Taxonomy of Human Goals 219

Table VI. Inter-Item Consistency (Cronbach’s Alpha) of Importance Ratings for

relationships, which were perceived by subjects as conceptually similar to—but

220 Chulef, Read, and Walsh

A Hierarchical Taxonomy of Human Goals 221

adults’ perception of marital- and immediate-family goals as similar to one an-

Validity of Hierarchical Structure

222 Chulef, Read, and Walsh