LEVEL OF ASPIRATION

1. PURPOSE OF THE GROUP TESTING

Like other psychological phenomenon, motivational

factors are important in directing individual behaviour
consciously and make him strive to perform certain activities in
order to achieve a definite goal. Everyone aspires or in other
words desires to reach a definite goal or an extent of excellence
and in doing so, he sets an eye for distinction which has an inner
structure called “Level of Aspiration” (LOA).
Level of Aspiration (LOA) is an individual’s future
expectation or ambition. It refers to the estimate of one’s future
in a given task. In today’s world of competitiveness there is a
strong sense of ambition in the current generation, and it is only
seen going higher and higher, generation by generation. In spite
of all the ambition and the expectations we carry on or shoulders
we also carry the will to make those ambitions our only aim,
within our heads and hearts. May it be today or tomorrow, some
things, us humans, will never fail to carry forward to the
upcoming generations. And aspiration is just the example. As
humans, we strive to succeed in whatever things we choose to
do, and sometimes in the process we over estimate our
capabilities. Tests like LOA are meant to measure our
expectations and our desires against reality.
How high or low an individual expects his score in a
numerical manner in the task given to him plays an important
role in determining his level of aspiration when he is told to
perform the same task numerous times and every single time
that he performs the certain task, he has to set an expected
score. It is an interesting comparison between his expected
score and the actual score he gets, upon completion of the given
task, in given time.
Between the teenagers, the young adults and the adults,
when tested, a great deal of individual variation is found in
regard to goal setting behaviour. One may set it very high when
the other may set it very low. Still, others may set it near their
performance level. Thus, in choosing life goals and performing
daily activities, people differ largely in their expectations and
aspirations.
The level of aspiration is usually measured in terms of goal
discrepancy score, when GDS very low or very high, it may be
claimed that one is merely imaginative, fantastic, unrealistic,
below or above his self-esteem, on the contrary when, actual
performance and the expectance of the individual are about the
same, it may be said that the person is practical and realistic in
life. Thus, setting of level of aspiration may itself motivate the
individual the perform the best he can. Though sometimes,
acknowledge how well one has performed previously may be
equally effective. The performance in the last trial makes one
able of estimating how well he will do in the next trial, whether
he will succeed or fall short of his expectations. It is generally
seen that majority of the individuals set their estimate according
to their performance on the previous trial and managed to
adjust the level on successive trials.
One of the main purposes of this test might be to
understand and observe how individuals strive to set a higher or
a lower estimate according to their performance on the previous
trial, or, if they continue to set their estimates too high or too
low despite of their actual scores on the previous trials.

THE HISTORY OF THE CONCEPT AND THE CONTRIBUTING

RESEARCHERS :

The concept of ‘Level of Aspiration’ was first of all

introduced in 1931 by Dembo. One of Lewin’s students, in the
course of an experimental investigation of anger. The first
experiment directed towards the analysis of the level of
aspiration. A translation from the German term, “ Anspruch und
Niveau’ was performed by Hoppe in 1930. It is now a familiar
concept to the psychologists, educationists, sociologists and
others and having been the topic of extensive discussion and
experimentation in this last quarter of the 20th century.
Experimental situations have been used to measure
motivation, particularly what is known as the level of aspiration.
A subject performs a task where the performance can be
expressed numerically. After each trial he is told his score and
asked what he aims to get the next time. The difference between
the score estimated and the last score obtained is found to be
relatively constant for each person in a given task, and this
difference is known as the discrepancy score (D score).
LOA has been defined as ‘a person’s expectations, goals or
claims on his own future achievement in a given task. (Hoppe
(1930). Hoppe found that a given performance is accompanied
by a feeling of failure if it falls below the LOA and a given
performance is accompanied by a feeling of success if it goes
above the LOA.
Frank (1935) altered Hoppe’s concept of level of aspiration
(LOA) behaviour in the light of his quantitative technique, where
the goodness of performance was measured in terms of the time
taken to complete the set task. The subject was acquainted with
the task, given a number of trials and after each trial told how
long he had taken. He was subsequently asked to state how long
he thought he would take to complete the next trial. Frank
defined LOA as “level of future performance in a familiar task
which an individual, knowing his level of past performance in
that task, explicitly undertakes to reach.”
In the words of Hurlock (1967) aspiration means “a
longing for what is above one’s achieved level with advancement
on it as its end.”
In short, many researchers have pointed out that the
level of aspiration is the expected level of achievement of the
individual where the difference is obtained between person’s
performance in a task and his estimate of future performance in
that task. This concept of LOA is taken in the present measure
which is based on Humphrey and Argyle (1962).

2. DESCRIPTION OF THE TEST

Name of the Test – Level of Aspiration

The first page of the LOA booklet contains the general

information of the testee, instructions to the respondent and the
scoring table while remaining eleven pages contains the
performance sheet of this measure which are arranged in order
of trial numbers.
 The performance sheet has 50 circles (each of 1 cm. in
diameter) which are arranged in five rows – ten in each row.
Above and below of these rows, there are two boxes on the right
side – the upper-box is for writing the number of expected score
(except in PRACTICE TRIAL) whereas lower box is for putting the
number of actual score or completed performance. Thus ten
trials are needed for each subject except practice trial. Stop
watch or stop clock is also required for the test.

 Purpose: to measure the level of aspiration.

 Time: 30 sec / trial i.e. 5 minutes for 10 trials + 30 sec for
practice trial

 Authors: Dr Mahesh Bhargava & Late Prof. M. A. Shah

 Reliability: The reliability of this measure is calculated by
test-retest method and the split half method (correlating
the first half with the second half trials).

 Validity: It may be stated that no device or measure of

level of aspiration has made any mention of validity
coefficient. Perhaps the question of validity is not relevant
to the study of level of aspiration. In this context,
Muthayya (1959) writes, ‘level of aspiration behaviour
remains constant regardless of the means used to measure
it’ his argument is understandable because question of
 validity arises when a behaviour is inferred from another
behaviour indirectly. In this situation, the respondent is
involved in actual task proposed by him and situation is by
and large realistic for him.

 Scoring: The procedure of scoring is simple. It provides

three types of scores: (1) Goal Discrepancy Score (GDS), (2)
Attainment Discrepancy Score (ADS); and (3) The Number
of Times the Goal Reach Score (NTRS).

GDS: The extent and direction of the difference between

the actual score on the previous trial and goal set up of the
next trial is known as GDS. GDS is obtained by subtracting
the actual score on a trial from the aspiration score (Goal
Set Up Score) for the next trial.
A positive GDS suggests that one’s goal is higher, in
relation to one’s previous performance and a negative
GDS indicates that one’s goal is lower than one’s previous
performance.

ADS: Related to the concept of GDS is the attainment

discrepancy (Lewin et al., 1944). It is the difference
between aspiration (expected score) and the achievement
(actual score) on the same trial. In order to obtain ADS
expected performance is subtracted from the actual
performance. ADS is positive when actual performance is
more than expected performance and negative when
expected performance is higher than the actual
performance (here actual performance is treated as
criterion level). The size of the discrepancy shows the
extent to which one surpasses or fails to reach his goal.

NTRS: This may be obtained by the number of times

where his actual score is equal or more than the expected
score. Though subjective probability of success is
measured indirectly from goal discrepancy score and ADS,
but it can also be measured directly from NTR score
which provides an index of subject’s actual probability of
reaching his stand goal.
The subjects with minimum NTR scores showed a
very high fear of failure while those with maximum NTR
scores are ready to take risk of failure. When NTRS is
correlated with GDS AND ADS, NTRS is negatively related
with GDS (r= -.68, N=40) and positively related with ADS
(= -.72, N=40).
  Norm: This measure was administered on 600 higher
secondary and college going male students and the norms
have been provided in the form of percentile equivalents
of the raw scores.

Percentile GDS ADS Category

95 7.9 -6.7 High
90 6.5 -5.4 High
80 5.3 -3.8 High
75 (O3) 4.7 -3.2 High
70 4.3 -2.7 Average
60 3.7 -1.9 Average
50 (Md.) 2.8 -1.1 Average
40 1.9 -0.5 Average
30 1.1 -0.2 Average
25 (O1) 0.7 -0.4 Low
20 0.1 0.7 Low
10 -2.1 2.2 Low
5 -2.7 3.3 Low
Mean 2.62 -1.42
Median 2.78 -1.11
S.D. 3.08 2.52
3. TABULAR PRESENTATION OF THE SCORES AND
RESULTS:

Sr. No Name of the subject GDS ADS NRTS Category

1 SR -0.4 -0.4 6 Low
2 SG 1.3 -0.5 3 Average
3 SM 1.4 2.1 9 Average
4 PP 0.2 0.6 6 Low
5 AB 1.4 -0.3 4 Average
6 PB 4.2 3.7 1 Average
7 SG 3.1 -0.7 6 Average
8 AJ 0.9 -0.2 7 Average
9 RM 1.4 -0.8 6 Average
10 VJ 0.9 0.4 7 Low
11 SC 1.1 0.1 5 Average
12 SL -0.4 0.4 8 Low
13 RD 3.8 -2.9 2 Average
14 KG -0.8 1.6 8 Low
15 VK 7.7 -6.8 1 High
16 TB 2.4 -2.1 2 Average
17 SB -0.2 1.5 7 Low
18 AV 1.6 -0.4 3 Average
19 AP -1.3 1.6 7 Low
20 ML 1.4 -0.3 4 Average
21 MC 0.9 0.4 6 Low
22 KB 3 -2.1 2 Average
23 MJ 3.5 -2.8 2 Average
24 AB 1.3 1.7 10 Average
25 SP -0.6 1 7 Low
26 VR 0.2 0.2 6 Low
27 AC 3 1.1 1 Average
28 YP 2 1.9 3 Average
29 ST 1.1 -0.8 7 Average
30 MC 2.1 -1.1 5 Average
4. GRAPHICAL REPRESENTATION OF THE RESULT:

10

19

High Average Low

 5. INTERPRETATION AT GROUP LEVEL
Aspiration is an important aspect when it comes to
the overall development of a person. In this age of
technology and competition, motivation and
achievements have become vital parts of a person’s
professional as well as personal surroundings. Studying
aspiration is not just an interest but a necessity as well.
Aspiration levels in different age groups can play a
notable part in one’s professional as well as personal
life.

6. ANY OTHER RELEVANT FINDINGS

A considerable number of variables in the level of
aspiration

7. CONCLUSION :
 The sample tested here has an overall result of mostly
averagely aspirant, with some of the individuals being
seen as low aspirant. Hence the overall interpretation of
the result here may as well be denoted as average.

8. REFERENCES