Culture, self, and goals: An investigation into the motivational processes of bicultural Asian -American and Anglo -American college students.
Zusho, Akane
2003
Abstract
Recent work on biculturalism has made theoretical and methodological inroads into our understanding of the relation of cultural processes to psychological functioning. Through the use of cultural priming methodologies, investigators have demonstrated that biculturals, or individuals who have experienced and identify with more than one culture, can switch between various cultural frames of reference in response to corresponding social cues. Drawing on this work on the cognitive implications of biculturalism, three studies were conducted to examine how the experimental manipulation of two divergent views of self influenced bicultural Asian American (<italic>N</italic> = 157) and Anglo American (<italic>N</italic> = 206) college students' tendencies toward self-enhancement, preferences for personal goals, and their levels of motivation, achievement, and persistence. The first study examined the assumption that independent and interdependent self-construals are associated with the cognitive processes of self-enhancement and self-criticism respectively. The second study investigated how manipulations in self-representations shaped Asian American and Anglo American students' preferences for personal learning goals. Subsequently, the third study examined how these self-representations influenced Asian American and Anglo American students' goal endorsement on an actual learning task and how these goals, in turn, influenced specific motivational and achievement outcomes. Across these three studies, more similarities than differences were found between these two groups of students. For example, Asian American students were found to commit self-enhancing biases at comparable levels to Anglo American students. No ethnic differences were observed in terms of the types of personal goals students pursued; nor were there any mean level differences in students' goal orientations. There were also no significant differences in students' preferences for approach vs. avoidance goals. Finally, no ethnic differences were found in students' levels of motivation and achievement; however, a number of prime effects were found. In particular, students who received an independent self-prime were found to display more self-enhancing biases than those who received an interdependent self-prime. What is more, those students in the independent-self condition were found to report higher levels of interest, self-efficacy, and achievement than those in the interdependent-self condition. Implications for the work on self-representations, achievement goal theory, and acculturation are discussed.Subjects
Anglo-american Asian-american Bicultural College Students Culture Goals Investigation Motivational Processes Self
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