Notions of success and its causes among men and women with different expressions of the motive for striving for success

Abstract

One of the features of the modern world is the idealization of a person’s individual success. Therewith, a society’s understanding of success does not always correlate with its individual representation. We conducted a study aimed at establishing interpretations of success and its causes in various fields of life among men and women with different expressions of the motive for striving for success. Methods: survey; content analysis; testing (methodology of A. Megrabian); cross section method; statistical data processing methods. Results: It was found that the interpretation of success in the professional, family and hobby fields is identical for men and women, regardless of the level of expression of their motive for striving for success; in other fields, the interpretation of success varies with different expressions of said motive. Conclusion: studying notions of success is important for understanding the life aspirations of young people and ideas about their life guidelines. As has been shown, with high achievement motivation, success is primarily explained by one’s personal characteristics, and not by their experience and knowledge, which raises the question of the need to pay attention to personality development.