I first encountered the constructs of constructive
and defensive motivation in graduate school in
the remarkable Aptitudes and Instructional Methods:
A Handbook for Research on Interactions by Lee J. Cronbach
and Richard Snow, New York: Irvington, 1977 [paperback 1981].
For their explanation of the constructs
see pp.441ff. of the 1981 edition, and elsewhere
as detailed in the Subject Index.
They liken the terms to independent (Constructive)
and conforming (Defensive) styles of approaching
educational, and other, tasks.
The terms should not be viewed as value judgments,
with one being considered 'good' and the other 'bad'.
They are styles of coping with the world, methods
of getting things done.
Both can be effective, and both can lead to
failure, depending on situations and individuals.
I gratefully acknowledge the genius of
these two authors, and I'm
continually seduced into applying this explanatory
dichotomy to just about everything I see and hear.
I'd also like to acknowledge and thank Dr Richard Clark,
my professor in that Motivation course in the early 1980s,
who enthusiastically introduced us to Cronbach and Snow.