Achievement motive imagery in German schoolbooks: A pilot study testing McClelland’s hypothesis

McClelland [McClelland, D.C. (1961). The achieving society. Princeton, NJ: Van Nostrand] observed that the amount of achievement imagery in children’s books predicted the economic development of societies. He argued that achievement imagery is an indicator of a motivational climate, and when children grow up in a society that emphasizes the striving for achievement, they will be more economically productive later on. We tested McClelland’s hypothesis by coding school textbooks for achievement imagery from two German federal states (Baden-Württemberg and Bremen) with pronounced differences in economic and educational conditions. As expected, the schoolbooks from the state with the more advantageous conditions contained more achievement imagery.