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Sociological Analysis 1991, 52:1 89-97
Reexamining Mills on Motive:
A Character Vocabulary Approach*
Colin Campbell
University of York
Motive is a much neglected concept in sociology. While playing a key role in Weber's
original formulation of erklarendes Verstehen, it no longer occupies a prominent position
in sociological discourse. Although this has been a matter of concern for some (see
Bruce and Wallis, 1983), and at least one theorist has recently attempted to remedy
the situation (Turner, 1987), albeit with more of an eye on motivation than motive,
other sociologists appear to see no need to rescue the concept from its present neglect
(Sharrock and Watson, 1984). On the contrary, their view is that one should maintain an agnostic position with respect to such a doubtful "mentalistic" or "psvchologistic"
concept and that discussion is best limited to that which is directly observable. In
practice, few sociologists, including ethnomethodologists, actually appear to follow this
rigorous injunction, freely importing assumptions concerning motives and motivation
into their work. This is understandable, for it is undeniable that a theory of motives
is an indispensable ingredient not only of action theory or the interpretive tradition
generally, but also of most genuinely sociological forms of explanation. Thus the lack
of an adequate concept of motive and an associated workable theory of the place of
motives in action must be regarded as a major weakness in current sociological theory.
In order to understand why the study of motive has languished (or, more accurately,
*An earlier version of this paper was presented at the annual meeting of the Association for the Sociology
of Religion, San Francisco, August 1989.
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The present neglect of the concept of motive within sociology is traced to the substitution
of a concern with motive talk for the original Weberian emphasis uponsubjective systems of
meaning. C. Wright Mills's work on the vocabulary of motives is identified as that which
links bothapproaches, being commonly presented as the prime justification for the present interactive and linguistic program. But Mills's position, although containing contrasting strands,
primarily involved focusing on vocabularies, rather than talk, and setout a program of research
that has yet to be implemented. Unfortunately, Mills's commitment to symbolic interactionism
meant that he associated vocabularies of motive too closely with social positions, failing to
recognize theiradditional functional connection with the person via the concept of character.
Consequently, it is suggested that Mills's original program of research should be resuscitated
but with the term "vocabularies of motives" recognized as encompassing concepts that relate
to both roles and persons.
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SOCIOLOGICAL ANALYSIS
become displaced by the study of motive talk), it is crucial to examine the contribution of C. Wright Mills, for it is his work more than that of any other sociologist
that constitutes the watershed between the classic tradition (especially as represented
by Weber) and the attitudes of most contemporary sociologists.
MILLS ON MafIVES
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In his article "Situated Actions and Vocabularies of Motive," Mills proposes a
program of research. Starting from the premise that motives are, in effect, no more
than words used by actors in situations where they need to account for their conduct
when questioned by others, he proposes that we should: (1) identify situations in which
motive imputation and avowal occur, (2) identify the "typal vocabularies" of motives
that are articulated in given types of situations, (3) account for why these motives
are verbalized rather than others, and (4) explore the functions that these typical
vocabularies can be seen to fulfill in relation to systems of action and interaction. In
particular, he feels it important to test the hypothesis that "typal vocabularies of motives
for different situations are significant determinants of conduct" (1940:908).
It does not seem that this program of research has ever really been carried out,
or at least, items 1, 2, and 3 have been neglected in preference to item 4. Clearly
what Mills envisaged included a wide-ranging comparative and historical investigation that would relate different vocabularies of motive to different historical epochs,
societal structures, and institutional positions (1940:913). Indeed, he suggests what some
of these findings might be. Thus he named half a dozen vocabularies in use in contemporary society, such as the "pragmatic," "individualistic," "sexual," "hedonistic,"
and "pecuniary" (1940:906), while he also suggested that such a range of "competing
vocabularies" might be what distinguished modern society from earlier preindustrial
communities. In addition, he noted that vocabularies of motives do themselves have
histories and undergo change, a point he illustrates by citing the way that capitalists
in the twentieth century are more likely to cite a "public service" justification for their
activities, whereas their nineteenth-century predecessors were more inclined to invoke
"the profit motive" (Gerth and Mills, 1954:118). Finally, he notes how, in modern
industrial societies, the language of good and evil has increasingly been replaced by
that of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy.
Although it might be possible to relate some research that has been carried out
over the past forty years to this program of Mills, the fact remains that there has not
really been any significant effort to follow it through. That is to say, no large-scale
project to plot vocabularies of motive comparatively, historically and institutionally
has yet been undertaken. The principal reason for this is that subsequent investigators
have picked out a different thread from Mills's work. They have tended to accept
his equation of motives with words but abandoned "vocabularies" for the wider and
less substantively significant concept of "talk," at the same time taking remarks about
the "social location" of motives to refer not to societies, historical periods, or even
institutions, but merely to face-to-face interaction (see for only a few examples among
many, Scott and Lyman, 1968; Wootton, 1975;Semin, 1983). Thus, in place of a com-
REEXAMINING MILLS ON MOTIVE
91
parative and historical program of research into motive vocabularies, there has been
a series of studies of conversational word use in situations where an actor's conduct
had been queried or questioned.! One consequence of this is that much of the research
that is currently grouped under the general (and misleading) heading of "vocabulary
of motives" is actually concerned with the functions performed by the talk of criminals
and deviants (see Taylor, 1979).
'Semin and Manstead illustrate the shift very clearly, as well as the failure to recognize the change
that it represents, in their remark that "what Mills (1940) has called 'vocabularies of motive' ... subsequent theorists call 'motive talk' " (1983:71).
2Recognition that talk is itself a form of action and that anticipating the need to justify conduct may
affect the decision to act does not fundamentally alter this judgment.
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A research program such as that originally envisaged by Mills would still seem
to be worth undertaking. It would certainly appear that research into motive talk is
no substitute for such a program, for the key point about this kind of work is that
it focuses on the functions that talk fulfills in systems of interaction and as such has
little or nothing to say about the role that talk (or, more pertinently, words) might
play in the initiation and implementation of action itself.2 Thus, although a concern
with the underlying structure of conversation and an associated preoccupation with
"accounts" and "justifications" may well yield some valuable insights into the formal
structure of interaction, it is not an adequate substitute for Mills's missing program
of research.
There are, however, considerable ambiguities and unresolved tensions in Mills's
position, and it is important to recognize that the presence of these may partly account
for the subsequent failure to pursue his vocabulary approach. It is not possible to discuss
all these in detail here, but there is at least one important point that should be noted.
Mills, although citing Weber approvingly, significantly changes Weber's formulation
of the concept of motive. For Weber its essence was a subjective complex of meaning
(Sinnzusammenhang), and the rational understanding of motivation meant "placing the
act in an intelligible and more inclusive context of meaning" (1964:95). By contrast,
Mills defines motives as "imputed or avowed answers to questions concerning conduct"
(1940:905), a perspective that clears the way for Scott and Lyman's position in which
the term motive is subsumed under that of "account," the latter taken to mean "a
linguistic device employed whenever an action is subjected to valuative inquiry"
(1968:112). Consequently, Weber's concern with meaning has been replaced with a
focus on words and talk.
In addition, Weber's emphasis upon "adequacy," which seems primarily to have
referred to rationality or at least comprehensibility, becomes in Mills's treatment (and
even more obviously in that of Scott and Lyman) more a question of "justification,"
the assumption apparently being that the "adequacy" of conduct comes into question
only when the legitimacy of conduct is challenged by others. This is an important
shift of emphasis, since for Weber the rational understanding of motivated action was
not restricted merely to conduct that was publicly questioned. What these changes
achieve is the relegation of action to the background as the focus of analysis shifts
to the role of language in interaction, the significant consequence of which is to make
it unclear precisely how words serve to motivate conduct. As Foote observes, Mills's
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analysis "leaves the reader with an uncomfortable feeling of an unanalyzed hiatus
between words and acts, of mystery as to just how language does in fact motivate"
(1951:114) - a judgment which, although basically correct, is perhaps a little harsh
on Mills, who does provide some suggestions concerning the relationship between
the two.
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Mills states repeatedly that motive vocabularies are "socially situated," with the
clear implication that they are to be viewed as a constituent element of social roles.
He refers to them, rather clumsily, as "specific verbal appendages of variant institutionalized actions" (1940:911). Such an interpretation is clearly consistent with the
examples that he gives, such as the entrepreneur and his use of the profit motive
vocabulary or the medieval monk and his talk of Christian charity and the salvation
of the souL But it is not immediately obvious how this institutional view of motive
vocabularies fits with some of his other examples or, indeed, with his remarks about
language in an interactive context. For example, if it were the case that people learned
their motive vocabularies, together with other aspectsof their statusesand roles, through
socialization, then one would have thought that they would normally be employed
in a routine, habitual fashion as an accompaniment to conduct, an impression confirmed
by the examples given above. Yet Mills also argues that people usually need to employ
motive vocabularies only when their conduct is questioned, statements of motive performing a crucial function only when there are crises that direct attention outside
immediate experience and make individuals reflect on what they are doing or have
done (1940: 115). Typically, as he admits, this is most likely to occur in "shifting and
interstitial situations" where varying or competing vocabularies create uncertainty and
questioning, and he gives as an example, the old dilemma as to whether one should
marry "for love or money"; a situation which, as he admits, arises because different
vocabulary patterns have "overlapped in a marginal individual" (Gerth and Mills,
1954:912).
What is interesting about this example and Mills's comment is that it suggests
that, while motive vocabularies may well be attached to roles, they are most likely
to be relevant to individuals in their capacity as persons. That is to say, it is because
individuals occupy several roles and statuses in their single overall status-set (Merton,
1957), and therefore are familiar with differentmotive vocabularies, that they encounter
situations when two or more conflicting vocabularies could be applied to the matter
at hand. This conflict is, however, not something experienced by the role occupant
but by the occupant of the complete status-set; in other words, by the person. We
can expand Mills's example and consider those middle-class young ladies in late
eighteenth-century England who were beset by the problem of whether to marry the
suitable wealthy middle-aged man chosen for them by their parents or the impoverished
but younger one they happened to love. In this example it is clear that the status
of daughter carried with it a motive vocabulary that would include such words as
common sense, respect, and obedience, while that of romantic lover was likely to include
terms such as passion, impulsiveness, and idealism (Campbell, 1989:chs. 7, 9). Hence
the conflict experienced by middle-class young ladies of the period can indeed be
described as a conflictin motive vocabularies. But it is a conflict that cannot be resolved
by appealing to institutionalized expectations, only by reference to some criterion that
REEXAMINING MILLS ON MOTIVE
93
The truth is that the actions of individuals are seen (by themselves as well as by
others) to exemplify both the social roles they occupy and the persons they are, there
being a separate vocabulary of motives to deal with each possibility. Hence a theory
of action, and especially a theory of motives, must cover the complex interdependence
between person and role-occupant; although there is the basis of such a theory in
Mills, it is confused and incomplete. What, in particular, is unclear in Mills's account
of the relationship between words and conduct with respect to motives is how, indeed,
individuals decide between competing vocabularies.
The most convincing answer to this problem would seem to be that, in making
choices between the motive vocabularies associated with different statuses or roles,
individuals resolve the problem in terms of who they are (or consider themselves to
be). That is to say, they evaluate and rank the various identities that make up their
status-set by reference to a more fundamental and overarching concept. In the example
given above, the younger ladies in question had to decide whether, in their conception of themselves, daughter or lover was to be given the higher priority; in answering this question they were, in effect, both confirming and creating their own character.
A VOCABULARY OF CHARACTER
Character is most aptly used as the name for the entity that individuals consciously
strive to create out of the raw material of their personhood. It is thus not equatable
with personality, as that term usually covers the sum total of an individual's psychic
and behavioral characteristics." At the same time, it is not something that can simply
be understood as the unproblematic outcome of dominant cultural patterns or processes
3It is interesting to compare Mills's view of the role of motives in action with that of Parsons. Although
motive is not a term that Parsons used very much, he does stress that motives are "learned in the course
of ... the secondary socialization process" (1940:243). However, unlike Mills, he also acknowledges
that, once learned in this way, they may become independent forces acting within individuals to counter
situational pressures (see Parsons et aI., 1955).
4This usage means that Gerth and Mills's formulation of the term "character," which includes "the
organism's psychic structure" (1954:22), is also rejected.
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transcends them. What this strongly suggests is that although motive vocabularies
are indeed tied to roles and statuses, their use relates to the problems that people
encounter as a consequence of multiple role occupancy, in other words, as individuals.
This impression is strengthened by reading the passage in which Mills discusses
the way that the socialization of the child encompasses the internalization of moral
vocabularies.l He describes this process as one in which the conduct of the child is
controlled through a process of name-calling, which also effectively involves the imputation of motives. Thus while some prescribed and endorsed actions result in the
child being called "good," "well-behaved," or "obedient," others call forth words like
"naughty," "greedy," or "wicked" (1940:908). What is significant about this vocabulary
of motives is that it is patently not attached to anyone role or status. On the contrary,
it is specifically directed at the child in implicit contradistinction to others (perhaps
often explicitly in contrast to named others such as siblings). It is thus a vocabulary
that can more properly be said to relate to character.
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of socialization. On the contrary, character covers only that portion of the conduct
of individuals for which they can be expected to take responsibility, and is the entity
imputed to underlie and explain this willed aspect of behavior. As such it has an
essentially ethical quality not possessed by the concept qf personality. Although in
some cultures there is a stress on the givenness of certain qualities of character (Weber,
1965:155), there is usually, in addition, clear recognition of the fact that individuals
are responsible for making their own character and hence should be rewarded or blamed
accordingly. Given that individuals themselves usually share this view, it becomes possible to regard their behavior as governed by character considerations and especially
a concern to bring their own conduct into line with an ideal. Thus, in the example
mentioned above, the young ladies are likely to make their decision by relating the
terms present in the alternative status-vocabularies to those that are accorded priority
in their own character-vocabulary. In other words, is that ideal person whom they
see themselves as resembling (or would like to become) someone who prominently
displays "respect," "obedience," and "a calculating common sense," or "passion,"
"impulsiveness," and "idealism"? By answering this question they are able not only
to make a decision but also to produce an appropriate verbal justification in terms
of an ideal of character. Indeed, the decision may well be important to them as a
way of convincing themselves that they do possess such admirable qualities. This point
can be illustrated by turning to a fictionalized instance of the general example
mentioned above.
In Polly Honeycombe (a farce by George Colman first produced in 1760)the heroine,
an avid novel reader, contemplates the choice between obeying her parents' wishes
and marrying Mr. Ledger, the successful businessman, or eloping with the penniless
poet, Mr. Scribble. In the course of the stage soliloquy in which she ponders this
problem, she recalls all the novels she has read in which the heroines do in fact elope,
prior to declaring that as she "has as much love and as much spirit as the best of
them," she too will elope (Bevis, 1970:143). What is especially interesting about Polly's
remark is not just the way that she draws upon material from novels to resolve her
dilemma but the fact that in doing so she endows the act of elopement with the capacity
to confirm her possession of given qualities of character. That is to say, by eloping
Polly will succeed in proving to herself that she does indeed possess ample love and
spirit. In that sense she is attributing a meaning to her decision and the ensuing action
that transforms it into a test of character. What, therefore, this example illustrates
is not merely that motive vocabularies are as much linked to ideas of character as
to roles or statuses or, indeed, that reference to character is frequently required in
order to resolve what Mills refersto as "interstitial conflicts," but that, since most actions
are capable of being redefined as "tests of character," in this way ideas (and ideals)
of character can have an enormous influence on the determination of conduct.
Character ideals specify, in broad terms, what constitutes perfection in a man
or a woman. They do not accomplish this, however, by prescribing the detailed nature
of conduct required in specific circumstances (as in the case with role and status) so
much as by naming personal qualities possessedby such an individual. These qualities,
it is then assumed, will in turn serve to guarantee that impeccable conduct is forthcoming under all circumstances. When combined into a meaningful and integrated
REEXAMINING MILLS ON MOTIVE
95
5For a discussion of ideals of characrer and rheir implication in conduct, see Campbell (1987), Part 2.
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picture, such qualities represent models for others to emulate.I Their significance in
this context is that they provide a higher court of appeal to which individuals can
refer when confronted with a choice of status-based vocabularies of motive.
It is not suggested, however, that these ideals primarily exert an influence in a
direct didactic fashion, even though some people may no doubt alter their behavior
as a consequence of being told that they should do so. The primary assumption is
that individuals desire to exemplify or express these ideals in themselves, or to put
it more accurately, they wish to believe that they do. The assumption is that people
want to believe they embody the ideal in question and hence do not normally feel
the need to undergo any vigorous program of character development. But while they
may not feel they have to do much in order to become "refined," "sensible,"or "possesed
of genius," taking it for granted that they already possess these qualities, they will
feel the need to convince themselves of this fact. In other words, ideals of character
are important because they prescribe admirable qualities that individuals of worth
should possess, and while most people will feel inclined to believe that they possess
them, they will need reassurance from time to time that this is indeed the case. This
reassurance must take the form of conduct, action that unambiguously indicates the
quality or qualities concerned, for although individuals may fervently believe that they
possess courage, intelligence, or taste, their own inner doubts on this score can be
silenced only by acts that effectively reveal them. It is therefore lessthe desire to mould
oneself as a person in conformity with whatever ideal of character to which one
subscribes that is the prime motive, but rather the desire to confirm through conduct
the fact that one does conform to the ideal.
It should be obvious that this is not an endorsement of a Goffmanesque (1971)
view of conduct as action directed primarily at impressing others or "presenting the
self" to best possible advantage on all occasions. There may, of course, be such a concern
with impression management and the good opinion of others present in much conduct,
but that is not the assumption made here. Indeed, the widespread view, implicit in
such analyses as Goffman's, that the conduct of individuals can be understood as
primarily a self-interested attempt to manipulate or impress others is firmly rejected.
On the contrary, it is claimed that it is more realistic to see conduct as directed at
reassuring oneself of one's moral worth, and although this is sometimes achieved by
first impressing others, a crucially different motivational structure is involved.
Of more importance is the fact that the dramaturgical metaphor favored by
Goffman and his followers results in conduct being viewed piecemeal in its discrete
scenic units or acts and hence does not provide a general integrated perspective from
which to understand the behavior of the individual as a whole. Each item of conduct
is examined separately in relation to its particular audience and the presentation needs
that are involved. Consequently, the person fails to become the principal unit of analysis
being displaced by the "actor," an entity whose only motive seems to be a relentless
desire to impress. Equally, a Goffmanesque perspective does not help to explain how
people conduct themselves when not subject to scrutiny by others. Once, however,
one recognizes that action governed by character considerations is primarily self-directed,
it becomes possible to include private and covert conduct into the explanatory scheme.
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SOCIOLOGICAL ANALYSIS
CONCLUSION
REFERENCES
Bevis, Richard W. 1970. Eighteenth Century Drama: Afterpieces. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bruce, S. and R. Wallis. 1983. "Rescuing motives." British Journal of Sociology 34:61-72.
Campbell, Colin. 1987. The Romantic Ethic and the Spirit of Modern Consumerism. Oxford: Blackwell.
_ _ . 1990. "Understanding traditional and modern patterns of consumption in eighteenth-century
England: a character-action approach," forthcoming in John Brewerand Roy Porter (eds.), Consumption
and the World of Goods. London: Routledge.
Foote, Nelson N. 1951. "Identification as the basis for a theory of motives." American Sociological Review
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Gerth, Hans and C. Wright Mills. 1954. Character andSocial Structure. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Goffman, Erving. 1971. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.
Merton, Robert K. 1957. Social Theory and Social Structure. Glencoe, IL: Free Press.
Mills, C. Wright. 1940. "Situated actions and vocabularies of motive." American Sociological Relliew 5:904-13.
Parsons, Talcott. 1940. "The motivation of economic activities," pp. 50-68 in Talcott Parsons, Essays
in Sociological Theory. Glencoe, IL: Free Press.
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Character conduct can be regarded as a universal feature of human behavior in
so far as people in all cultures and at all times seem to have manifested a concern
for the ethical dimension of their action. This may not always have revealed itself
in a manifest preoccupation with the concept of character per se such as occurred
during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in Western Europe and North
America, when it could be said that a "cult of character" prevailed under the direction
of such high priests as Benjamin Franklin and Samuel Smiles. However, other terms
may serve equally well to refer either to an individual's overall ethical standing or
to the manifestation of desired traits and qualities. Thus, although in the twentieth
century there has been a marked decline in the use of the word "character," individuals
still scrutinize their conduct for what it might reveal about their "true self" and judge
what they see as "good" or "bad." At the same time, individuals often act in such
a way as to convince themselves that a particularly desirablequality is indeed a hallmark
of their "innermost nature."
What is being proposed is that Mills's original research program be resurrected
with vocabularies of motives rather than motive talk taken as the focus of research.
That is to say, there should be an effort to plot such vocabularies by institutions,
societies, and historical periods as a necessary preliminary to a more sophisticated
understanding of the variety of substantive motive forms that have in practice guided
action. But, in addition, it is suggested that the associated vocabularies of character
should also be examined, and although these are not as easily related to institutions,
they do also vary from society to society as well as over time. Such an exercise would
actually bring the study of motives closer to the position adopted by Weber himself,
who in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism was centrally concerned with
historically located idealsof character and their differential effect on socialand economic
conduct. This mapping of vocabularieswould still remain, nonetheless, only a necessary
first step in the move to formulate an adequate and comprehensive theory of motives.
REEXAMINING MILLS ON MOTIVE
97
___ , Robert F. Bales, James Olds, Morris Zelditch, and Philip E. Slater. 1955. Family, Socialization
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Semin, G. R. and A. S. R. Manstead. 1983. The Accountability of Conduct: A Social Psychological Analysis.
London: Academic Press.
Sharrock, W. W. and R. R. Watson. 1984. "What's the point of 'rescuing motives'?" The British Journal
of Sociology 35:435-51.
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___ . 1965. The Sociology of Religion. London: Methuen.
Wootton, Anthony. 1975. Dilemmas of Discourse. London: Allen & Unwin.
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Taylor, Laurie. 1979. "Vocabularies, rhetorics and grammar: problems in the sociology of motivation,"
pp. 145-61 in David Downes and Paul Rock (eds.), Deviant Interpretations. Oxford: Martin Robertson.
Turner, Jonathan H. 1987. "Toward a sociological theory of motivation." American Sociological Review