Anger is a common emotion for motives of power. Feeling rejected or hurt is typical for revenge motivations. When children are seeking attention, parents will remind or coax the child to stop their annoying actions. Children respond to this by stopping momentarily and then staring up again, with the same behaviors or some new, equally irritating behavior. Power seeking children defy the parent's attempts to correct the child's behavior.
Revenge seeking children counterattack parent's attempts at correction.
And so they seek further revenge by intensifying the behaviors or choosing some new weapon. Finally, when children feel totally defeated, they will become discouraged. They act disabled or inadequate to perform any task, such as their chores or school work. Parent's attempts at correction usually end up with passive responses on the child's part or they receive no reaction at all. This diagnostic question recognizes that children are not aware of their motivations for misbehavior.