Many of the contributions to this volume focus on the identification of thematic lines in people's lives through the analysis of imaginative productions, a venerable tradition begun by Christiana Morgan and Henry Murray (1935) over 50 years ago. The scope and breadth of the knowledge that has accrued in this area are unquestionably impressive. At the same time, there is no reason to restrict our sources of knowledge about an individual's motivational tendencies to fantasy material collected under experimental conditions. McClelland (1985b) defined a motive as a “recurrent concern for a particular goal state, based on a natural incentive, that energizes, orients, and selects behavior” (p. 590). This definition captures the pervasive impact of motives on human experience. Moreover, it suggests that one may find clues to an individual's motive tendencies in a vast array of aspects of experience, none of which can be seen as untouched by the individual's motivational constitution. A second implication of McClelland's definition of motive is that an important source of the idiosyncratic unity, coherence or internal lawfulness in personality is provided by motivation (McClelland, 1981). Motivation has long been viewed as a force underlying pattern and meaning in human life (e.g., Murray, 1938). Interest in motivation implies an interest in recurrent pattern.