Striving for Significance: Development and Validation of the Desire for Significance Scale

Abstract

The need for personal significance (i.e., the desire for mattering, meriting respect and ‘being someone’) is a psychogenic need that guides a variety of human behaviours studied across multiple domains of social psychology. Despite its relevance, a validated measure of stable individual differences in the motivation to satisfy the need for significance is still missing. Across seven studies comprising 14 samples ( N  = 7740), we developed and validated the Desire for Significance Scale (DSS), capturing that motivation. The six‐item scale showed a good unifactorial structure confirmed in eight cultural contexts (i.e., the Unites States, Poland, Italy, Argentina, the Netherlands, Germany, Mexico, Honduras and the Philippines), high inter‐item reliability and good stability over time (Studies 1–4). Studies 5 and 6 assessed the convergent, discriminant and predictive validity of the DSS. Finally, one experimental study (Study 7) assessed the scale's sensitivity to situational activation of the need for significance.