Radcliffe College Given Behavioral Study Grants

Radcliffe College received a grant of nearly $200,000 last month to fund three new research fellowships for the study of human motivation and behavior at the Murray Research Center.

The grant money, furnished by the Seaver Institute, a foundation sponsoring research in health and the arts, will fund a program for post-doctoral researchers at the Murray Center beginning next September.

Researchers under the new fellowships will study the general areas of how motivation changes during the life cycle, the relation of motivation to certain hormones and the relation of motivation to gender.

Radcliffe officials said they did not know what research proposals would benefit from the new funds, since applications for the three new fellowships are not due until March.

The new grant is the second gift of a six-year program funded by the Seaver Institute. "We were interested in making a contribution to the research in the field of human motivation," said Dr. Richard Call, Seaver Institute president.

Officials at the Murray Center supported the fellowship program. "We are interested in supporting research in human development," said Anne Colby, director of the Murray Research Center. The program "is an effective use of our data resources. It will enlighten us about the development of human motivation," she said.

The Murray Research Center is a "data archive at Radcliffe," according to Colby. It focuses on research of the lives of women, acquires data sets, and provides them to researchers for re-analysis.

Current post-doctoral fellows in the Seaver Institute research program are working on several projects under the supervision of David McClelland, professor emeritus of psychology, a leading researcher in the field of human motivation.

One research project involves the study of how motivation relates to "life outcomes," including career, satisfaction, and social life, said Joel Weinberger, one of the fellows. He said that the project is a longitudinal follow-up, a continuing study of the same group of people as they get older.

Other studies currently being researched by Seaver Institute fellows include the examination of the relationship between motivation and physical health, subliminal perception, and the difference between conscious and unconscious motivations.