Social motives are mostly learned or acquired through interaction with the social environment. Family, neighbourhood, friends, and relatives contribute significantly to acquiring these motives. These motives influence adolescent behaviour in the following ways:

Need for Achievement (n-Ach) refers to the desire to meet standards of excellence. It energises and directs behaviour as well as influences perception of situations. During formative years, adolescents acquire achievement motivation from parents, role models, and socio-cultural influences. For example, students work hard and compete for good marks to create opportunities for higher studies and better job prospects. Those high in achievement motivation prefer moderately difficult and challenging tasks and seek feedback on their performance.

Need for Affiliation is the desire to maintain friendly relationships with other people. Adolescents with high affiliation needs seek social acceptance and belonging. They tend to form friendships, join peer groups, and maintain harmonious relationships with classmates and friends to satisfy this need.

Need for Power is the ability to produce intended effects on the behaviour and emotions of others. The goals include influencing, controlling, persuading, leading, and charming others to enhance one's reputation. McClelland described four ways of expressing power: gaining power from external sources (like reading about sports stars), from internal sources (building the body, mastering urges), having individual impact on others (arguing, competing), and having organisational impact (like being a leader). For example, an adolescent may become the class representative to influence classmates or argue with peers to have an impact on them.