Chapter 7: Achievement

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Chapter 7 Achievement
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1. Achievement motivation

• A willingness to strive to succeed at challenging
  tasks
• Mastery motivation
• to explore, understand, and control ones
  environment

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2. From mastery to self-evaluation

• Stipek at al. (1992) found 3 phases in childrens
  learning to evaluate their performances
• Worked with 1- to 5- year-olds

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Stipeks Three Phases of Self-Evaluation

• Joy in mastery
• Before age 2
• Not bothered by failures
• Dont call attention to triumphs/seek recognition
• Approval-seeking
• Near age 2
• Say things like, I did it with pleasure
• Hope to avoid criticism
• Use of standards
• Around age 3
• Adopt objective standards for appraising
  performance
• Seem to feel true pride and shame

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3. Theories of achievement motivation and
behavior

• Need achievement theories
• McClelland
• Based on Murrays 28 human needs
• n Ach
• A learned motive
• Achievement motivation probably precedes economic
  growth
• Criticism predicts entrepreneurial success
• But maybe not success in science or actual
  professions
• A more nuanced view People differ in their
  emotional reactions
• High achievers welcome new challenges. Low
  achievers dread new challenges.

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3. Theories of achievement motivation and
behavior

• Need achievement theories, contd.
• Atkinson
• Achieve success Ms
• Avoid failure Ma f
• Ms gt Maf willingly accepts new challenges
• Maf gt Ms low achiever
• Also depends on value of the goal

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3. Theories of achievement motivation and
behavior

• Need achievement theories, contd.
• Atkinson
• Value of the goal?
• Is this relevant to my future?

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Is this relevant to my future?Mean GPA in intro
psych as a function of achievement motivation and
relevance of course to ones future
Relevance of Course to Ones Future
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3. Theories of achievement motivation and
behavior

• Weiners attribution theory
• causal attributions
• Conclusions drawn about underlying causes of own
  or others behavior
• locus of control
• Are you personally responsible for your life
  outcomes? Or, do they depend on circumstances
  beyond your control?

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3. Theories of achievement motivation and
behavior

• Weiners attribution theory
• Internal locus of control
• Personally responsible for what happens to them
• An A grade on a paper is interpreted to mean
  they have good writing ability
• External locus of control
• Outcomes depend on fate, luck, or actions of
  others
• An A grade is interpreted to mean luck, easy
  grading, or other external cause

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Weiners classification and explanations of a bad
test grade
Locus of causality
Internal cause
External cause
Stable cause
Unstable cause
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3. Theories of achievement motivation and
behavior

• Dwecks learned helplessness theory
• Mastery orientation
• tendency to persist at challenging tasks because
  one believes one will succeed
• Learned helplessness orientation
• tendency to give up or stop trying after failure
  because of attribution to lack of ability that
  one cant change

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4. Cultural and subcultural influences

• Individualism/collectivism
• Individualism stresses personal objectives
• Collectivism stresses goals that maximize social
  welfare.

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4. Cultural and subcultural influences

• Ethnic variations
• Early studies credited IQ
• Later studies credit SES
• NOT from lack of parental concern
• Probably from
• Subtle cultural differences in parenting
  practices
• Peer endorsement of academics
• Negative influence of social stereotypes on
  academic performance

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Stereotype threat

• Steele (1997)
• A fear that one will be judged to have traits
  associated with negative social stereotypes about
  his or her ethnic groups

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Steele Aronson (1995)
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4. Cultural and subcultural influences

• Social class differences
• Lower SES-homes
• experience greater psychological distress
• distress makes parents less sensitive,
  supportive, comforting, etc.
• may be less intellectually-stimulating to
  children
• Teachers may also respond differently to kids in
  lower SES.

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5. Home and family influences

• Attachment
• Home environment
• HOME inventory
• Measures home of infant, toddlers, or
  preschoolers
• Which measures are most important?
• Age-appropriate toys
• Independence training
• Achievement training

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6. Gender differences

• In our culture, some traits or jobs have gained
  gendered labels.
• So, some girls think they are worse at math than
  boys.
• Interestingly, girls underestimate their
  abilities and boys overestimate theirs.
• Differences in achievement in US have to do with
  areas and not abilities per se.