N.V. Leifrid

Omsk State University named after F.M. Dostoyevsky, Omsk, Russia

Personal resources of success

In contemporary Russia being successful in different spheres of life – such as professional, family, interpersonal – becomes one of the main values. This can be understood not only from the increased number of media publications dedicated to this topic, but also from the number of scientific research works in social psychology and personality psychology.

Our experiments have cogently proved the existence of personal determinants of success and social representations of this phenomenon. Responsibility, achievement motivation, meaningfulness of life, emotional intellect can be viewed as such determinants. In previously published articles we produced the results of the experiments that proved the contents and the characteristics of social representations of success to be determined by responsibility as a multilevel integral personality construct that provides constructive and achieving behaviour [2].

In this work we explore the influence of achievement motivation as a personal resource upon social representations of a successful person in the early adulthood period. This is due to understanding an achievement motive as a stably manifested need of an individual to achieve success in different activities [4].

According to Serge Moscovici, author of the social representations theory, exploring representations makes it possible to combine people’s beliefs and the reality. Thus, through studying social representations we are able to understand the contents of everyday consciousness and priorities, values of a contemporary human being and also how social reality is cognized.

Social representations are any form of beliefs, ideological views, knowledge including science. In a particular way common sense and everyday knowledge function as social representations which comprise human’s ability to perceive, conclude, understand, memorize, remember, make sense of things and provide explanations for personal situations [3].

Thus, the aim of our research work was to study the influence of achievement motivation upon representations of a successful person.

The sample consisted of respondents aged 25-40, 100 people in total.

M.S. Magomed-Eminov’s modification of A. Mehrabian’s questionnaire was used to study achievement motivation (diagnostics of two generalized stable personal motives: the motive of achieving success and the motive of avoiding failures). H. Azuma and K. Kashiwagi’s method as adapted by N.L. Smirnova was implemented to study representations of a real successful person [1].

At the first stage all the respondents were divided into three groups according to the degree of manifestation of the motive of achieving success or the motive of avoiding failures: respondents with the prevailing motive of achieving success (27%), respondents with the prevailing motive of avoiding failures (27%) and a group of respondents whose achievement motivation was not identified (46%).

Study of the contents and main characteristics of representations of a successful person was carried out through identifying the characteristics of a real successful person according to the prevailing motive.

Study of the successful person’s representations of the respondents with the motive of achieving success resulted into singling out 19 descriptors.

According to the respondents with the prevailing motive of achieving success, an indicator of success is, first of all, such a personal quality as determination, the ability to achieve goals. This shows the high level of understanding the importance of person’s activity in achieving success. This does not correspond with the traditional Russian stereotype of looking for the reason of success in good luck.

The group of medium-frequency characteristics of a successful person includes inner, personal indicators – being goal-oriented – and outer, status ones – having a family, children, higher education, and material security. An explanation to this can be that outer indicators are objectively more accessible to an individual that substantially shortens the process of social cognition, reality interpretation and classifying a particular person into a particular group, which represent the main functions of representations.

In our opinion, such a criterion of person’s success as taking part in children’s upbringing is noteworthy. Due to contemporary person’s busyness, little time is left for upbringing children, so such an opportunity is considered an indicator of a successful person.

According to H. Heckhausen, distinct striving for success can follow quite as strong fear of failure, especially if the latter is connected with bad consequences for the person. However, we can say that either longing for success or avoiding failures prevails when a person possesses both qualities [4]. In our case 27% of respondents who scored the least points are characterized with a high level of manifestation of the motive of avoiding failures, in H. Heckhausen’s terms.

Study of the successful person’s representations of the respondents with the motive of avoiding failures resulted into singling out 14 descriptors. It should be immediately mentioned that the number of person’s success indicators within this group decreased in comparison with the previous one. This fact may demonstrate the lack of their desire to deeply analyze and interpret the objective reality.

In most cases a successful person is one who is lucky: he occupies a high professional position, has got friends and essential connections, public recognition and colleagues’ respect. He or she helps his or her family, is financially secure, reflective and tolerant towards other people.

As for the respondents with the prevailing motive of avoiding failures, outer, status criteria – high professional position, friends, necessary connections, social recognition – play an important and determining role as indicators of person’s success. As H. Heckhausen’s study has shown, people who are motivated to achieve success consider success more significant than prestige whereas those who are motivated to avoid failures prefer it visa versa [4]. Our study has confirmed the consistency of this pattern for describing a successful person. Reflexivity and tolerance represent personal resources which are not directly connected with achieving success.

In our opinion, the following fact is of scientific interest: material security is the criterion of person’s success for the respondents with the motive of achieving success whereas for those with the motive of avoiding failures the same role belongs to financial stability. An important indicator for them is not only career opportunities (which itself presupposes some effort from the person), but also high professional position and social recognition as an objective indicator of success.

An important and determining indicator of person’s success, according to the respondents with the prevailing motive of avoiding failures, is good luck. It should be mentioned that in works of Russian scholars success is often understood as luck in achieving something, which points out the specificity of Russian mentality. In particular, Russian dictionary defines success as good luck, a desirable or sought-for outcome. Thus, in achieving success a Russian person is more oriented towards favorable circumstances rather than personal activity, hard work, etc.

In general, the respondents with the prevailing motive of avoiding failures judge person’s success by outer, social and status indicators. Dispersive analysis (ANOVA) shows that prevalence of some personal motive influences the contents of representations determining not only their contents, but also their main characteristics: clarity, realization, meaningfulness (F= 5,34, if p£0,01).

Thus, the contents of social representations of a successful person are significantly determined by personal peculiarities of a contemporary personality. Achievement motivation can be viewed as a personal resource of achieving success in different spheres of life.

Sources:

1. Volovikova M.I. Russian representations of the spiritual ideal. - М.: «Institute of psychology of Russian academy of Sciences» publishing house, 2004. – 312 p.

2. Dementiy L.I. Responsibility as a personal resource: monograph. - М.: Inform-Znaniye, 2005. – 188 p.

3. Moscovici S. Social representation: a historical overview // Journal of psychology. 1995. V.16. №1. P. 3-18; 1995. V. 16. №2. P. 3-14.

4. Heckhausen H. Motivation and activities. – М., SPb.: Smysl – Piter, 2003. – 407p.