Implicit Theories Of Motivation: A Scale Development Project

Dickson (1994) developed a scale to measure managerial implicit theories of motivation. By creating a rank ordering of preference amongst six well known motivational theories, he was able to determine that managers within an organization were likely to share a preference for a specific motivational theory. The present study sought to revise the scale created by Dickson (1994) in order to expand upon this area of research. A 6-step scale development procedure modeled after Hinkin (1998) was used to develop a scale which measures preference for seven different implicit theories of motivation based on a Likert-type response format. The new scale is believed to have an increased applicability for organizational research