In my own experiences as a first-year student, I came in conflict with an RA because of his or her strong institutional power orientation. As a freshman at Boston College I was marked as in violation for a relatively minor infraction by my RA. I doubt that I would have been reprimanded -- however, when the RA questioned me, I was relatively casual. I did not act worried and abjectly sorry about his power to affect my future, and in retrospect, I realized that the student's sense of authority had been threatened by what he perceived as my insolence. I saw him as a fellow student, the RA saw me as a threat to his power because I treated him as an equal, not a superior.

Individuals with a strong power orientation will be angry if they are not obeyed, while individuals with a strong achievement orientation will worry about their status. Individuals with a high affiliation orientation may tend to blur friendship with work. It is difficult to envision the perfect character orientation for an RA, given McClelland's assumptions regarding human behavior.
Works Cited

"McClelland: Theory of needs." Net MBA. November 24, 2009.

http://www.netmba.com/mgmt/ob/motivation/mcclelland/