“effectance motive,” which he defined as the need or drive to develop competence through interacting with and controlling one’s environment. Effectance is almost as basic a need as food and water, yet it is not a deficit need, like hunger, that is satisfied and then disappears for a few hours. Rather, White said, effectance is a constant presence in our lives: Dealing with the environment means carrying on a continuing transaction which gradually changes one’s relation to the environment. Because there is no consummatory climax, satisfaction has to be seen as lying in a considerable series of
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