A Thematic Analysis of Children's Stories in Urdu in Terms of Achievement, Affiliation and Power Motives in Pakistan

250 Urdu short stories written by popular Pakistani authors and published in children's magazines and readers between 1947-82 were categorized into three time period's, viz: 1947-58, 1959-70, and 1971-82. The stories were thematically analyzed according to the scoring technique developed by McClelland (1975). It was found that need for Power is the most dominant motive reflected in Pakistani children's stories, followed by Affiliation. Achievement motive came to be placed lowest. Over the entire period there has been a decline in all the three motives. In terms of amount of decline, the least was in n Power and the highest in n Affiliation.