Achievement motivation
From Encyclopædia
Achievement MOTIVATION is the tendency to strive to excel when one knows that performance will be evaluated in relation to a standard. That standard may be an ideal, the performance of others, or one's own past performance. Those who are encouraged to be independent, responsible, and competent in childhood are likely to become more motivated to achieve than others.When too strong, achievement motivation can produce overexcitement that interferes with efficient performance. This often happens in the opening plays of a football game or when students take an important test. The same strong motivation will produce greater investment of time in achievement-related activities, such as schoolwork or a career.The
interest in achievement expressed in the
literature of different societies throughout history serves as a gauge of the economic development (and decline) of those societies. The strength of achievement motivation (as distinct from leadership) in men reaches a peak in their thirties and then declines. Research begun in 1968 has indicated that among women expression of achievement motivation in a career may be complicated by a conflicting
fear of success--an anticipation of the potentially painful consequences of excelling in competition with men.J. W. AtkinsonBibliography: Atkinson, John W., and Birch, David, An Introduction to Motivation, rev. ed. (1978); McClelland, David C., The Achieving Society (1967; repr. 1976); McClelland, David C., et al., The Achievement Motive (1976); Mednick, Martha, et al., Women and Achievement (1975); Spence, J. T., ed., Achievement and Achievement Motives (1983).
