as the welfare of customers —ahead of her personal accomplishments. We see
examples of this in women who sometimes make sacrifices for their family
rather than pursue career goals. Rather than ask why women don ’t always act
like men in achievement settings, a better question might be why men and
women sometimes make different choices in these settings.
Other investigators find that men and women differ in the way they define
success (Gaeddert, 1985). Men in our society are more likely to see success in
terms of external standards, such as gaining prestige or recognition for accom-plishments. In contrast, women are more likely to rely on internal definitions of
success, such as whether they accomplish what they set out to do. When com-
paring men and women in achievement settings, psychologists must be carefulthat they don ’t automatically apply standards of success based only on tradi-
tional male achievement definitions.
Similar caution should be exercised when applying research findings to
non-Western cultures. Researchers find that the meaning of achievement
sometimes varies as a function of culture (Hui, 1988; Salili, 1994). In individ-
ualistic countries like the United States (Chapter 1), achievement is typicallydefined in terms of personal accomplishments. In these cultures individual
effort is rewarded and people are singled out for their successes. However, in
collectivist cultures success is more likely to be defined in terms of coopera-
tion and group accomplishments. Workers in a collectivist culture might
have a strong sense of accomplishment when they do their part and the entire
company reaches its goal (Niles, 1998). Individual recognition is not sought
and is not needed. Americans tend to see themselves in competition with cow-
orkers and find this competition motivating. In contrast, one team of re-
searchers found that corporate professionals in India were concerned about
the emotional and financial well-being of their coworkers and were motivated
to help them succeed (Tripathi & Cervone, 2008). In short, concepts like
achievement motivation that focus on the individual may not be useful whenstudying behavior in a collectivist culture. Rather, new definitions for achieve-
ment and success may be needed to fully understand achievement behavior in
different societies.
Attributions
Imagine for a moment that you have just received an F on a midterm exam
(remember, this is only hypothetical). How would you react? Because passingthe class is important to you, you will no doubt spend part of the next few
days trying to figure out why you did so poorly. You might conclude there
was something peculiar about the test —the professor selected bizarre points
to test on or wrote ambiguous questions. Another possibility is that personal
problems kept you from studying as much as you would have liked. Then
again, you might decide that you really don ’t have what it takes to be a col-
lege student, no matter how hard you study. How you respond to the poor
midterm grade and how well you do on the next test depend in part on which
of these explanations you adopt. If the problem is not enough studying, youcan set aside extra time for the next exam. But if the problem is a lack of
ability, there may be little reason to try next time.188 CHAPTER 8 The Trait Approach