The Achieving Society by Prof. David C. McClelland

Author:Prof. David C. McClelland
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
Published: 2016-11-10T05:00:00+00:00

Occupational Preferences as a Joint Function of Prestige, n Achievement, and Class Status

How then are we to make sense of our findings if the two most obvious hypotheses do not account for them? Why is it that the boys with high n Achievement are more attracted to business occupations in the U.S. and possibly the Japanese samples, but not elsewhere? It is evident that we need a more analytical approach to the problem now that we cannot explain the results in terms of the image of the business occupation or its popularity. Once again Atkinson’s model (Table 6.2) is helpful. Both he (in personal communications) and Litwin (1958, 1959), have pointed out that the value placed on an occupation should be analogous to the value placed on getting a ringer in a ring-toss game for tasks of greater difficulty (i.e., standing further away). See Fig. 6.3. Valuation for the occupation should be the product of motive strength times difficulty of achieving success in the occupation (1—P8). Occupations which are perceived as more difficult to achieve, such as the professions, should therefore be valued more highly than those which are not difficult to achieve, such as clerical or semiskilled jobs, and as in the ring-toss game, the gradient of valuation between the “easy” and “difficult” occupations should be steeper for the subjects with high n Achievement because of the multiplicative nature of the relationship. Since more “difficult” occupations are ordinarily more prestigeful, Atkinson and Litwin have used prestige rankings as rough measures of difficulty, and checked to see if subjects with high n Achievement have a steeper gradient of preference or liking for occupations varying in prestige, as predicted. First results indicate that they do. For example, Atkinson has pointed to the differential slopes of satisfaction with occupations of varying prestige shown by Italian and Jewish boys, as reported by Strodtbeck, McDonald, and Rosen (1957). The boys were asked to indicate whether they would be pleased or disappointed should they eventually end up in certain occupations. The percentage of “pleased” responses for middle-class boys was as follows for occupations ranked from high to low prestige or status:

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