January, February & July 2006 Vol 32 TAT Responses in Relation to Induced Motivational Set and Reasoning Ability August 2, 2006 August 6, 2024 Page No 235-240 N. AnnalakshmiBharathiar University, Coimbatore The present study examines the effect of motivational set induced through instructionand reasoning ability on the extent of expression of needs in the stories producedby the subjects to the TAT. Five TAT Cards having special relevance to tapping theneeds achievement, affiliation, aggression, autonomy and abasement wereadministered under three motivation conditions, viz. responding under instruction tobe neutral, fake-good and fake-bad to the subjects. The TAT was group administeredand the protocols were scored for expression of particular need using a ten pointrating scale. The level of intellectual ability of the subjects was rated on a three pointrating scale applied to each protocol under neutral condition. Criterion groups ofrepresenting low, moderate and high levels of reasoning ability were formed on thebasis of rating scores on intellectual ability. The findings reveal that the motivationalset induced by instructions consistently produces significant effect on the expressionof all the five needs studied, in the protocols as expected. The reasoning ability alsohas significant effect on expression of three out of the five needs. No interactioneffect between motivational set and level of reasoning ability has been observed onthe test performance.