Society and Academic Achievement Motivation

Recent development of research on motivation in education has tried to understand the role that sociocultural contexts play on students' academic motivation.

Liem and his colleagues (2012) conducted a study aimed at testing the mediating role of individual-orientated and social-orientated achievement motives in linking value orientations (e.g. achievement, security, conformity)  to achievement goals (mastery-approach, performance-avoidance etc.).    

They state that:

values and achievement motivation orientations are socioculturally-rooted antecedents of achievement goals because individuals develop these basic personality factors through socialization. As societies and cultures are associated with different sets of affordances and constraints that facilitate and inhibit the internalization and expression of values (Schwartz, 2005) and motives (McClelland, 1985;Yu & Yang, 1994), a particular set of values and achievement motivation orientations is more strongly endorsed in one culture than those in others. 

For example, Australian adolescents were higher than their Singaporean, Filipino, and Indonesian counterparts on values serving individual interests (e.g. self-direction, hedonism), whereas the reverse was true for serving collective interests (e.g. conformity, security). Similarly, Lieber and Yu (2003) demonstrated that US students were higher than their Taiwanese counterparts in individual-orientated achievement motive whereas the reverse was true for social-orientated achievement motive.  

 "Achievement goals are not only posited to lead to achievement but are also catalyzed by different sources" (Liem 2012). Competence-based variables (achievement motive, fear of failure) and relationally-based values (e.g. affiliation motivation, fear of rejection) are among intrapsycholgical antecedents of achievement goal endorsement (Elliot, 2006).

Earlier, I have mentioned that achievement motivation positively predicted mastery-approached and performance-approach goals, whereas fear of failure positively predicted mastery-avoidance and performance-avoidance goals. In addition, Spence (1985) argues that competence-related constructs that have been studied as predictors of achievement were characteristically 'individual orientated' or mirror individualist values. However, 'other-orientated' competence-related predictors were less frequently studied.  

Liem's study sought to distinguish individual-orientated and social-orientated achievement motives and relate them by assessing their differential effects on the four types of achievement goals. For example, Yu and Yang (1994) argued that individual-orientated achievement motivation might not fully explicate achievement-related processes and outcomes in Eastern and collectivist culture, in which individual prioritizes the primacy of their family's goals and accomplishments than those of their own. "Further, in collectivist cultures, conformity values and social norms play a key role in individual's behaviors more so than individual personality dispositions" (Markus & Kitayama, 1991).

Putting this in perspective, we can now conceptualize achievement motivation differently when taking social values into account.

 For example, early definitions of achievement motivation tried to define it as an internal drive to meet or fulfill a particular standard. Similarity, Yu and Yang (1994) conceptualized achievement motivation orientation as a cognitively-based general inclination that energized behavior and orients individuals to pursue a certain achievement standard. Specifically, socially-orientated achievement motivation was defined as an inclination to achieve a standard of excellence set by significant others (e.g. teachers, parents), whereas individual-orientated achievement motivation is an inclination to achieve a self-determined standard of excellence.

Furthermore, Liem used Schwartz's (2005) cultural value theory in which 10 values (security, conformity, tradition benevolence, universalism, self-direction, stimulation, hedonism, achievement, and power) to try to explain individual and social orientated achievement motivation and motivational goal perusal.

Finally, Liem found that security and conformity values positively predicted social-orientated achievement motivation, self-direction values positively predicted individual achievement motivation and hedonism values negatively predicted both achievement motivation orientations.Also, some values were found to be direct predictors of academic achievement.  

Overall, we can see that society can have a significant effect on academic achievement motivation particularly when there is is a strong infleunce to conform and compare one's performance with others. Also, we learned that values and achievement motivation orientations can be sociocultural antecedents that give rise to achievement goals and achievement.