IS AFFILIATION ACHIEVEMENT, TOO?: HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS' DEFINITIONS OF AND ATTRIBUTIONS FOR PERSONALLY-VALUED SUCCESS AND FAILURE
Abstract
The purpose of the research was to identify male and female adolescents' personally-valued successes and failures and the factors to which the adolescents attribute valued successes and failures. Of particular interest was whether affiliative, as well as mastery, concerns would be represented substantially among the successes and failures valued by the adolescents. High school students were asked to describe three successes and three failures which each considered to be "most important" (Open-ended Format tasks) and to rate the personal importance of 20 successes and 15 failures (Structured Lists tasks). The students were also asked to give causal attributions for the events described in the Open-ended Format tasks and for twelve of the Structured Lists items. The students' definitions of "most important" successes and failures in the Open-ended Format tasks indicated consistency with the traditional model of achievement as mastery. However, when presented with both mastery and affiliative items in the Structured Lists tasks, both male and female students identified affiliative items as "most important". Although the female students reported more affiliative "most important" successes and failures than the males in the Open-ended Format tasks, both the males and the females described predominantly mastery "most important" successes and failures. However, the males and females did not differ significantly in their selections of mastery versus affiliative items as "most important" in the Structured Lists tasks, and both gave higher importance ratings to the affiliative items than to the mastery items. The students' attributions for mastery events were consistent with the "self-serving" attributional pattern only to the extent that successes were attributed to internal locus of control factors more than to external factors. However, the mastery failures were also attributed more to internal factors than to external factors. Internal factors were assigned greater importance than external factors for affiliative successes and failures, also.
Subject Area
Psychotherapy
Recommended Citation
DICHARRY, KAY MARIE, "IS AFFILIATION ACHIEVEMENT, TOO?: HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS' DEFINITIONS OF AND ATTRIBUTIONS FOR PERSONALLY-VALUED SUCCESS AND FAILURE" (1987). ETD Collection for Fordham University. AAI8709227.
https://research.library.fordham.edu/dissertations/AAI8709227
