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MotivationCulture.pdf

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MOTIVATION AND CULTURE

For decades, psychologists and researchers have studied the motivational underpinnings of achievement-that is, performance evaluated against a standard of excellence. Interest in the role of culture in understanding motivation-the internal state that energizes, directs, and sustains behavior-has reemerged. Researchers are becoming mindful that culture, often defined as membership in a racial, ethnic, or religious group, is not merely one of many predictors of motivation. Rather, individuals' motivations and behaviors synchronize with the cultural practices, norms, a·nd values in which they are embedded.

This entry briefly describes culture, reviews the history of culture in the study of achievement motivation, and surveys major theories in motiva- tion research and the efforts to understand their culturally situated meanings. It concludes by high- lighting the need for a greater emphasis on socio- cultural approaches to motivation.

Culture, Achievement Motivation, and Cultural Psychology

Culture is the framework for human life. It is invis- ible, unnoticed, and ubiquitous. It is a complex, multifaceted aspect of the constructed environ- ment that is both structural (societal institutions and organizations) and symbolic (heritage, tradi- tion, values, and behavioral expectations). Culture is enacted in the ways groups perceive, represent, interpret, and assign values and meaning to their experiences.

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A situated perspective of persons in context- that is, thinking about persons in the context of their culture-has been evident in motivational research since at least the 1930s when Kurt Lewin emphasized that a person's behavior is a function of the person and the environment. The study of achievement motivation-the desire to perform well in achievement situations-focused primarily on the need to compete and excel as the root cause of achievement.

David McClelland, for example, argued that the key to an economically successful society is creat- ing individuals motivated to achieve high levels of personal success. In The Achieving Society, he demonstrated how stressing the motive to achieve personal success in elementary school textbooks was related to the economic growth of a country 25 or more years later. He has since been criticized by motivational psychologists and anthropologists as being culturally insensitive for judging the world's population as motivated or unmotivated based on a male- and Eurocentric standard of indi- vidual achievement-a criticism that is still valid and reflected in the methods used by many motiva- tional researchers.

Most motivational researchers study motivation as an individual phenomenon. They emphasize individual needs, goals, task values, and self-regu- latory mechanisms while acknowledging that social and cultural factors also influence motiva- tion. Cultural psychology, however, considers the varied ways members of a group interpret a cul- ture's norms and values. It examines the dynamic and reciprocal relationship between cultural and psychological processes.

Researchers working from the cultural psychol- ogy perspective assert that culture and psyche are mutually constituted. From this perspective, it stands to reason that motivation is culturally grounded. For example, in an important study of self-construal, Hazel Markus and Shinobu Kitayama explored culture's role in shaping cogni- tion, emotion, and motivation. They demonstrated that individualistic Western culture (including the United States and Europe) fosters an independent self-construal characterized as egocentric, autono- mous, and unique.

By contrast, collectivist Eastern culture (includ- ing China, Japan, and India) promotes an interde- pendent self-construal characterized as sociocentric

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and connected. Thus, in individualistic cultures, success is defined in individual terms and arises from a need to discover and express one's unique attributes. In collectivist cultures, motivation to succeed stems from a desire to fulfill expectations of significant others and to achieve group goals. In achievement situations, attribution biases for the independent self are likely to be self-serving and self-enhancing based on social comparisons, but for the interdependent self, they are likely to be self-effacing.

As cultural psychology advances in understand- ing the self, achievement motivation theories, or more specifically, sociocognitive theories of moti- vation-namely, self-efficacy, self-determination, expectancy value, attribution, and achievement goal theories-have broadened their focus to examine how cultural forces shape and inform individuals' beliefs about autonomy and choice, expectations of success, causes of success and fail- ure, goals they pursue, and paths they take to achieve these goals.

Self-Efficacy, Autonomy, and Choice

A fundamental assumption of all sociocognitive theories of motivation is that individuals have an inherent need for independence, personal agency, responsibility, and control. Albert Bandura, the original proponent of self-efficacy theory, stresses the key role of beliefs in one's own capabilities- efficacy beliefs-in accomplishing a task. Simply put, when people can decide their own destiny by shaping the environment to meet their specific needs and goals, they develop self-efficacy and competence.

The assertion is that perceived personal efficacy contributes to the productive functioning for mem- bers of both individualistic and collectivistic cul- tures. Though self-efficacy does not necessarily exalt the self or produce an individualistic lifestyle, it can be argued that the underlying criteria for self-efficacy-personal choice and autonomy in shaping and molding one's environment-are indi- vidualistic perspectives. Thus, people in less indi- vidualistic cultures, where choices are often made on their behalf, may be perceived as having lower levels of efficacy.

Western scholars have tended to associate choice and autonomy with motivated behavior. Learning

that stems from an internal need to achieve per- sonal goals serves as the basis for another set of motivational theories-namely, self-determination and intrinsic/extrinsic motivation theories. The underlying premise is that people value and engage in activities they find personally satisfying. They experience a sense of autonomy and intrinsic moti- vation when they choose to engage in a course of action, not when they are externally controlled.

Self-determination theory is often criticized for adopting a Eurocentric perspective on autonomy, as it seems to suggest that the Eastern emphasis on doing one's duty and placing a higher value on oth- ers' expectations and needs is tantamount to losing autonomy and agency. Because Western thought conflates the different dimensions of agency and relatedness, an interdependent orientation is often thought to exclude autonomy because it empha- sizes relatedness. However, based on cross-cultural research that included individualistic and collectiv- istic nations, self-determination theorists argue that autonomy, like relatedness, is a basic and universal motivational need. Individuals across individualistic and collectivistic cultures experi- ence autonomy to the extent to which they voli- tionally endorse cultural values and practices.

Valuing Achievement and the Expectation of Success

John Atkinson advanced an expectancy and value theory of achievement motivation according to which, in achievement situations, the value of succeeding in the task is an inverse function of the difficulty of the task or the probability of success or failure in performing it. Thus, people are motivated to select a task that is perceived as neither too easy nor too difficult but rather of intermediate difficulty, because it provides them the most information about their effort and capabilities. However, Atkinson and his colleagues paid little attention to the situated nature of these two orientations-that is, that choices and options for action in the real world are significantly framed by social norms, group expectations, and the feelings, actions, and thoughts of significant persons and groups.

In the contemporary expectancy value theory- the Eccles-Wigfield model-expectations of suc- cess and subjective task value are the two most

important predictors of achievement behavior. Subjective task value answers the question, "Why should I do this task?" and the answers might be interest in, the importance of, or the usefulness of the task. Individuals are likely to have a greater expectation of succeeding in a task they find rele- vant, meaningful, and important.

Thus, in this model, expectations of success and subjective task value are positively, rather than inversely, related. Of particular relevance to under- standing achievement motivation according to the model is the culturally embedded nature of subjec- tive task value. Culture plays a critical role in shap- ing individuals' values and expectations-and consequently, the choices they make and the options they eliminate. Thus, culture and context frame the opportunities for and constraints on individuals' beliefs, motivations, and behavior.

Attributions for Success and Failure

Individuals make attributions-that is, perceived reasons or causes-for both their successes and their failures. People across cultures have proffered vari- ous explanations of or attributions for their suc- cesses and failures. An attribution in terms of ability or effort to account for success or failure has a pro- found effect on individuals' feelings about their capabilities and competences, consequent affective reactions, and future behaviors.

Studies indicate that in the West, effort and abil- ity share a reciprocal relationship. Someone who exerts considerable effort is viewed as possessing lower ability, but success achieved with little effort indicates high ability. Research provides some evi- dence that Asian students are more likely to attri- bute their academic setbacks or successes to effort than to ability. However, research also suggests that ability attributions may play a greater role in the achievement cognitions of Asian and Asian American children than previously thought, and in studies where effort attributions are signifi- cantly associated with achievement, these associa- tions are relatively small in magnitude.

Achievement Goals

Achievement goal theory seeks to understand why people pursue certain tasks and the ways by which they judge and evaluate the tasks in which they

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engage. The theory postulates that individuals pur- sue mastery goals or performance goals (or both). Mastery goals emphasize learning, self-improve- ment, and task mastery; performance goals are focused on demonstrating ability or avoiding dem- onstrating low ability, including interpersonal comparisons. Considerable evidence has docu- mented relationships between students' mastery goal orientations and their use of cognitive, meta- cognitive, and resource management strategies (e.g., help seeking), and positive affect while engaged in a learning task.

Performance goals, which can be distinguished as either approach or avoidant, are focused on gaining favorable judgments of ability (perfor- mance-approach) or not doing worse than others (performance-avoid). Performance goals have been consistently linked to maladaptive achievement- related outcomes, such as lower self-efficacy, increased worry, and helpless behavior. Conceptions of mastery, performance-approach, and perfor- mance-avoid goals are closely tied to Western individualistic notions of achievement behavior, reflecting an emphasis on self-be it self- improvement, self-enhancement, self-esteem, or self-protection. Current research is examining social goals in conjunction with achievement goals to identify goals that are culture-specific versus goals that are universal.

Cultural Minority Status and Motivation

An understanding of culture and motivation is incomplete without a discussion of lost and blocked opportunities for cultural minority youth and the consequences for their motivation and achievement. Cultural minority adolescents are often at risk for maladaptive motivations and behavioral choices. Such motivations and choices are the consequence of exclusion experiences in the school context, perceptions that education cannot help them access blocked economic opportunities, fear of fulfilling low-ability stereo- types, or fear of not fulfilling high academic expectations associated with model minority stereotypes. Though racial discrimination has been associated with stronger achievement moti- vation for some African American youth, it also has the potential to lower achievement motivation.

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On the basis of a series of studies on stereotype threat, Claude Steele suggests that such awareness of negative perceptions about one's sociocultural group is sufficient to undermine achievement. Negative stereotypes ("blacks are lazy" or "girls are bad at math") convey attributional informa- tion that often results in long-term negative moti- vational and psychological consequences for group members. The attributions associated with the stereotype impose obstacles to success for stigma- tized youth because attributions regarding the stigmatized group's intellectual capacity are seen by group members and others as being relatively stable, internal, and uncontrollable qualities. Such attributions impair cognitive functioning as stig- matized group members dis-identify with academic achievement and focus their energy and efforts on protecting self-worth.

Implications

Much of the achievement motivation research is based on middle-class White samples and is, there- fore, culturally bound. When included, culture is treated as a categorical variable for cross-cultural comparisons, with motivation still treated as an individual and internal attribute. An expansion of sociocognitive motivational theories that accounts for the social and cultural aspects of motivation is essential. There is growing recognition that achievement motivation research needs to move beyond cross-cultural comparisons to a sociocul- tural and situated perspective wherein cultural context and individual characteristics are mutu- ally instantiating.

Revathy Kumar

See also Achievement Motivation; Cultural Psychology; Motivation and Cognition; Self-Determination