Presidential Address

Achievement American Style

The Rewards and Costs of Individualism
Janet T. Spence

ABSTRACT: The United States is a success-oriented

society whose attitudes toward achievement can be
traced to our Protestant heritage with its emphasis on
individualism and the work ethic. Although they are
implied to have universal significance, contemporary
theories of achievement and achievement motivation
are rooted in individualism and may have validity primarily
for American and other similar cultures. Contemporary
concerns about the erosion of the work ethic
and the destructive aspects of individualism are discussed.
In this address, I will be considering psychological
conceptions of achievement and achievement motivation
from a historical and cultural perspective. To
provide a context for this presentation, several abstract
observations should be made about the relationship
between scientific psychology and culture.

Scientific Psychology, Culture, and the

Role of Values
Scientific, empirically oriented psychology has historically
allied itself methodologically with the natural
rather than the social sciences. Perhaps as a consequence,
many psychologists not only have as implicit
goals the discovery of empirical relationships and the
formulation of integrative theories that are universal
in significance but they also appear to assume that
their research findings have this universality. Thus the
particular historical period or sociocultural context
in which data have been collected is presumably of
little or no importance. This interpretation is probably
valid in the case of many relatively basic phenomena.
However, an ahistorical, acultural approach also
characterizes many investigations of complex social
phenomena. The argument of radical critics (e.g.,
Gergen, 1973) that social psychology and related fields
are essentially a branch of history seems vastly overstated.
But it seems indisputable that many of our
empirical findings and theoretical concepts must inevitably
be bound to particular cultures and times,
except perhaps on some highly abstract level that few
psychological theories have been able to reach.
Scientific psychology, like its sister scientific disciplines,
has also traditionally conceived of itself as
being objective and value free. This image has increasingly
come under attack in recent years by both
epistemologists and working scientists (e.g., Kuhn,
1962; Scarr, 1985; Toulmin, 1973). Science itself is
driven by internal sets of value systems, about which
there are varying degrees of consensus, that shape its
aims and judgments as to what constitutes "good science."
Of greater concern to many critics, however, is
the role in the scientific enterprise of what might
loosely be called extrascientific values.
Contemporary analysts recognize that, whatever
their intentions, scientists are the products of their
society and time, and their construction of social reality
is shaped by the world view and values of the culture
in which they were reared. These belief systems
can influence all phases of the research in which scientists
engage, from choice of problem to interpretation
of results. Especially when most of the investigators
studying particular phenomena approach
them from a common cultural perspective or ideological
position, the effects may be to retard or to corrupt
the search for scientific knowledge by collectively
blinding them to alternative conceptions that may not
be congruent with their a priori assumptions.
In my view, an extreme constructivist position
can go too far in claiming that the validity of all
knowledge, as a product of the human mind, is suspect,
even raw observations of natural objects and
events (e.g., Kuhn, 1962). Such a position would seem
to deny that scientific progress and the accumulation
of scientific knowledge are iaossible. To avoid being
captured by a paralyzing nihilism, the active researcher
should be allowed the liberty of adopting as
a working proposition a position of naive realism and
of assuming that whereas reality can never be perfectly
or directly apprehended, the hope that useful approximations
may be developed is a reasonable one. Instead
of turning away from them as empty pretense,
investigators should adopt objectivity and freedom
from value judgments, particularly those of an extrascientific
nature, as worthy goals toward which they
should strive, while simultaneously recognizing that
these goals can never be fully realized.
For psychologists and other behavioral scientists
concerned with socially relevant phenomena, efforts
to understand the world views, value orientations, and
belief systems of their own society may help them to
rise above their preconceptions and to open their research
and theories to other possibilities. Further, culturally
determined beliefs about what is or what ought
to be are not necessarily congruent with actuality, and
it is part of psychologists' task to describe and determine
the accuracy of the stereotypes and implicit
psychological theories held by their fellows. This is
not simple to do if one remains unaware of one's own
culturally determined biases or implicitly accepts
them as received truths. Nonetheless, striving to distance
oneself from one's own culture may ultimately
help one to understand it.
Conversely, in the name of objectivity and scientific
rigor, psychologists have been overly prone to
bury themselves in the data from laboratory and other
contrived, constricted situations and to lose track of
the broader questions that initially sent them there.
The result may be bodies of data and theories spun
around them that are relevant only to arcane laboratory
paradigms and are ultimately sterile or trivial.
Greater attention to the cultural milieu in which the
real life behaviors of purported interest occur may
lead both to more useful controlled investigations and
to richer, more significant theories.
Thus far, I have essentially argued that although
psychologists' pursuit of scientific knowledge about
many phenomena can be furthered by an awareness
of the contribution of cultural factors to the behaviors
they study, they should also attempt to rise above their
own culture and adopt an objective, value-free stance.
This contention is not intended to imply, however,
that societal values should be ignored in the choice
of problem area.
The pursuit of scientific knowledge can be defended
as a worthy endeavor in its own right. Nonetheless,
as others such as George Miller (1969) and
William Bevan (1982) in their presidential addresses
to this Association have so eloquently argued, psychologists,
as well as members of other scientific disciplines,
have a collective obligation to develop
knowledge that at least in the long run will contribute
to the solutions of the critical problems of the society
that literally and figuratively supports their research
and themselves. This is a matter both of quid pro quo
and of ethical responsibility. The public and private
agencies that support scientific research do so with
the expectation that something will at least ultimately
be received in return that will contribute to the betterment
of the human condition, and this is the
promise made collectively by scientists in asking for
and accepting support. Beyond that, scientists are
members of human society and like all human beings
have an obligation to contribute to human welfare.
Often the decision to become involved in research of
fairly direct social significance necessitates accepting
many of society's philosophical conceptions and goals.
Investigators must therefore strive to keep a delicate
balance, on the one hand embracing the value system
of the society of which they are members (or at least
those benign aspects to which they can in good conscience
subscribe) in choosing the subject area of their
investigations and in initially formulating the problem,
and, on the other, staying aloof from that value
system so that it does not bias their empirical inquiries
and obscure their theoretical vision.
It is in this spirit that I have chosen to discuss
the subject of achievement and the motives that inspire
it, not within the narrow confines of psychological
theories and research but from a broader cultural perspective.
The task that I set for myself was to try to
explicate some of the forces that have shaped the attitudes,
myths, and values of the dominant mainstream
culture of the United States ~ that constitute
the framework for the theories developed by North
American psychologists. Our very conceptions of
achievement are culture bound, and the constructs
we have devised and the inquiries we have conducted
may be applicable primarily to societies with similar
value systems and world views. Even within our own
society, such conceptions may be relevant primarily
to those who are part of the dominant culture.
The Place of Achievement
The United States is an achievement-oriented society
that has historically encouraged and honored individual
accomplishment and the attainment of material
prosperity. In the past, Americans have spoken
proudly of the American dream, which embodies the
belief that this is a land not only of material abundance
but also of political and economic opportunity. With
hard work and perserverance, it was believed, anyone
This article is based on the Presidential Address delivered at the
meeting of the American Psychological Association, Los Angeles,
CA, August 24, 1985. Thanks are due to several colleagues, especially
Lucia Gilbert and Robert Helmreich, for their suggestions and
comments.
Requests for reprints should be sent to Janet T. Spence, Department
of Psychology, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX
78712.
Although I will focus on the United States and its history, I
do not wish to imply that its culture is unique in all its aspects.
The characteristics and world views of its cultural mainstream has
much in common with Canada and many European countries with
whom the United States has a shared heritage.

with the proper moral fiber could succeed. Furthermore,

there was a bouyant self-confidence in our ability
as a people to overcome all obstacles.
It should be immediately acknowledged, however,
that despite our professed commitment to democracy
and equality of opportunity, participation in
the American dream has not been open to all. Women
and blacks, members of ethnic and religious minorities,
and often the poor have historically been excluded
from the elect as purportedly being innately
inferior or morally unworthy. These groups have had
to fight (and many continue to fight) for legal and
political equality and access into the social and economic
mainstream.
Furthermore, even within the dominant culture,
many of our cherished beliefs about achievement have
come under attack from various quarters in recent
decades. Most recently, alarms have been sounded
about the decreasing productivity of American workers
and its grave economic consequences. Although it
is conceded that impersonal economic forces, governmental
policies, and external political events have had
major roles in bringing about this state of affairs, many
have also blamed the individual worker. The work
ethic, one often reads, has deteriorated; people no
longer work as hard and no longer take the same pride
in the quality of their work as they once did (e.g.,
Maccoby & Terzi, 1981). Others are more ready to
criticize organizational and managerial practices that
have inhibited or suppressed the expression of workrelated
motivation (e.g., Yankelovich & Immerwahr,
1983).
In a related manner, national concern has been
growing about lack of excellence in the schools, particularly
the poor performance of our children and
youth in science and mathematics in comparison to
those in several other industrialized countries. As these
examples illustrate, our country as a whole is currently
uncertain about its values and attitudes toward
achievement and at least for the moment is experiencing
a crisis in confidence that has led to a rash of
critical self-examination. "In search of excellence,"
an excellence we fear we have lost and will have to
fight to restore, may well be a motto of our time.
One consequence of the current national mood
is a preoccupation with the Japanese. The economic
miracle that has taken place in postwar Japan and
the fear that Japan may soon displace the United
States' dominance in international trade (e.g., Vogel,
1979) make comparisons between the two countries
inevitable. The strong Japanese emphasis on achievement
has led them to outperform their American
counterparts in many important respects. For example,
the rigor of Japanese schools and the high
standards set for their students have led, among other
consequences, to an excellence in science and mathematics
that far exceeds our own. Similarly, Japanese
workers put in more hours and are expected to meet
higher standards of performance than those in the
United States, one of the factors that has resulted in
a more productive work force. Recognition of these
attainments has spawned a plethora of studies of Japanese
industrial and educational practices, often in
the hope of learning secrets that we may borrow (e.g.,
Allen, 1982; Morishima, 1982; Rohlen, 1983; Sethi,
Namiki, & Swanson, 1984). Attempts have also been
made to introduce into American companies Japanese
management teams or managerial techniques, many
of which, ironically, were originally imported into Japan
from the United States (e.g., Cole, 1980; Ouchi,
1981; Pascale & Athos, 1978).
These attempts may be somewhat naive, however,
because the Japanese character differs profoundly
from the American one. In fact, the nature of the
Japanese character provides a contrast to our own
that allows us better to understand ourselves and the
nature of our motives to achieve.

Individualism and the American Character

At least since the time of Alexis de Tocqueville, observors
have recognized that individualism is central
to the American character. As celebrated by transcendentalist
writers such as Emerson and Thoreau,
independence and self-reliance have historically been
held up as virtues to be sought after and cultivated.
Recently, however, social critics have come to
decry this aspect of the American character (e.g., Bellah,
Madsen, Sullivan, Swidler, & Tipton, 1985; Callahan,
1984; Shoumatoff, 1985; Slater, 1971). In some
contemporary critiques, individualism has been
treated as if it were little more than selfishness. By
focusing on its excesses, however, these critics have
lost sight of the contribution of individualism to our
concepts of self and of its influence on many of the
social and political institutions that even the critics
continue to cherish. The reason, perhaps, is that individualism
is so central to the American character
and its positive aspects so taken for granted that it is
difficult to conceive of any alternative kind of selfconception.
Thus, in the minds of many, the meaning
of individualism may have been distorted, its darker
aspects becoming confused with the whole. These
contentions can best be amplified and their implications
for conceptions of achievement explored by
placing them in a broader historical context that includes
the origins of what has come to be called the
Protestant work ethic (Weber, 1958).

Protestantism and Individualism

The essence of Protestantism, which the founders of
this country brought to these shores, is the direct relationship
between persons and their Maker. People
both are able to know God without the necessity of
intermediaries and are directly responsible to their creator. These religious
beliefs combined with the
philosophy of the Enlightenment to produce the Declaration
of Independence and the Constitution, remarkable
documents rooted in the assumption that
the individual is paramount and that government exists
to serve the governed and not the governed to
serve the government. In the words of the Declaration
of Independence, "We hold these truths to be self evident,
that all men are created equal, that they are
endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable
rights."
Although realization of these goals has in practice
been flawed, our national commitments to democracy
and equality of opportunity remain. Although they
need not have done so, these ideals initially flowed
from and continue to be sustained by the concept of
individualism--the belief that each of us is an entity
separate from every other and from the group and as
such is endowed with natural rights. These beliefs in
individuals and individual rights are part of our heritage
and are incorporated into our basic sense of self.
For example, early on, children are expected to learn
to be self-reliant and independent. At the same time,
they are conceded to have rights and unique needs
and capacities that should be respected (Tallman,
Marotz-Baden, & Pindas, 1983).
These values find full expression within contemporary
American psychology. It is taken for granted
by child psychologists, for example, that independence
training is one of the major tasks demanded of parents.
Another particularly revealing illustration is found in
contemporary theories of ego and moral development
that postulate that the highest stage is one in which
the individual rises above acceptance of and conformity
to society's standards to an autonomous level
(e.g., Kohlberg, 1969; Loevinger, 1976).
This autonomous sense of self stands in stark
contrast to the Japanese, among other Asiatic groups
(e.g., DeVos, 1968; Doi, 1973; Hsu, 1983; Lebra,
1984). Social organization in Japan centers on the
genealogical family and kinship group but also includes
the neighborhood and often by extension other
groups such as the company by which one is employed
and the nation itself. Socialization involves the development
of a strong identification by each individual
with the group and a continuing sense of mutual obligation
among its members in which the desires of
the individual are subordinated to the needs and expectations
of the larger community.
Western individualism leads to a sense of self
with a sharp boundary that stops at one's skin and
clearly demarks self from nonself. In dealings with
outsiders or alien groups, the Japanese undoubtedly
have an equally well-defined boundary between
themselves and others. But within the context of
groups with which the individual is identified, the
Japanese sense of self is more permeable and more
diffuse at its boundaries. The me becomes merged
with the we, and the reactions of others to one's behaviors
gain priority over one's own evaluations
(DeVos, 1968; Doi, 1973; Lebra, 1984). These contrasting
senses of self in the two societies are produced
by and lead to differing emphases on rights versus
obligations, on autonomy versus interdependence, on
the pursuit of happiness versus personal sacrifice, and
on the priority of the individual versus that of the
groupqdifferences that have broad ramifications for
the structure of political, economic, and social institutions.
It is essential to interject one additional contrast.
Although Japanese technological industries are
preeminent and their schools produce students who
outshine our own in their knowledge of science and
mathematics, the Japanese are better known for their
ability to capitalize on Western inventions and discoveries
than for scientific and technological originality
(Yukata et al., 1985). Pressures toward conformity
that exist in all levels of Japanese society, including
the schools, may create a climate that is less
conducive to scientific creativity than exists in the individualistic
West.
Reduction of individualism to mere selfishness
is thus to focus on its excesses to the exclusion of its
strengths and to misunderstand its central place in
the American scheme of things. Individualism is
woven into the social fabric of the country and cannot
be separated from it.

The Protestant Work Ethic

The more specific origins of contemporary American
attitudes toward work and material success are also
found in our Puritan heritage. Protestantism sought
to destroy not only any form of intervention between
the individual and God but also distracting loyalties
to human social institutions. Individuals exist for the
glorification of God, and all of their activities should
be directed to this end. It thus becomes a prime religious
duty to remain in the world and to engage in
productive labor. Work, in its humble, everyday sense,
is a calling, and successful achievement is to the glory
of God.
The practice of worldly asceticism, as Weber
(1958) has called it--that is, the exercise of such virtues
as thrift, sobriety, and devotion to hard work--
can be expected to result in material gain. Indeed,
gain is the purpose of mundane work and a sign of
its success. According to the Calvinist doctrine of predestination,
personal salvation cannot be earned by
good works, but attainment of worldly success could
be interpreted as a sign of God's grace. But this creates
a paradox: Work should not be undertaken in order
to obtain its material rewards, but it is expected that
these rewards will be attained. It is acceptable to
maintain oneself and one's family in modestly corn-
1288 December 1985 • American Psychologist
fortable circumstances, but luxury and enjoyment of
the fruits of one's labor are forbidden•
The dilemma created by the Protestant ethic was
well stated by the founder of Methodism, John Wesley:
I do not see how it is possible, in the nature of things, for
any revival of true religion to continue long. For religion
must necessarily produce both industry and frugality, and
these cannot but produce riches• But as riches increase, so
will pride, anger, and love of the world in all its branches•
• . . So, although the form of religion remains, the spirit is
swiftly vanishing away. Is there no way to prevent this--this
continual decay of pure religion? We ought not to prevent
people from being diligent and frugal; we must exhort all
Christians to gain all they can, and to save all they can; that
is, in effect, to grow rich. (quoted in Weber, 1958, p. 175)
It seems unlikely that many, even in the early
history of this nation, fully embraced the pure form
of this stern Protestant ethic, as opposed to the more
secular version expressed in the utilitarian philosophy
of Benjamin Franklin. What did survive, however, was
a moral imperative to work hard, to make something
of oneself, and to become materially prosperous.
Conversely, the failure to thrive was often interpreted
as a moral failure, as a sign of some deficiency in
character• The prohibition against taking pleasure in
material comforts and possession was also only partially
accepted, but as Weber (1958) so brilliantly argued,
the twin injunctions to earn and to save established
the ethical basis for capitalism•

Contemporary Views
With the coming of industrialization and the integration
of successive waves of immigrants from different
countries and religions, these Puritan beliefs became
further diluted and by now have become fully secularized.
The work ethic has been transmuted into a
belief in the intrinsic value of work. According to this
ethic, people ought to be willing to work hard and to
take pride in their jobs. Furthermore, work should be
engaged in primarily because it is inherently satisfying,
not because it is a means to obtain money, prestige,
and other rewarding consequences of successful performance.
This view not only assigns greater value to
intrinsic as compared to extrinsic work motivation
but also suggests that even when one has accumulated
or has inherited sufficient wealth to satisfy one's aspirations,
work continues to be valuable. The idle rich
have never quite been respected in this country.
Although working hard and well is praiseworthy
in our contemporary value system, becoming a "success"
or a "winner" is honored even more. However,
not everyone can succeed in a worldly sense. Desired
resources are finite, and our capitalistic economic
system, along with other institutions, is structured
in such a way that these resources are not allocated
equally. As such, our institutions are inherently competitive,
and the success of one individual or group is
often achieved at the expense of another.
Many believe that in order for the individual to
be successful, it is necessary not only to learn how to
compete but also to develop the desire to "win" and
to gain positive enjoyment in competing against others.
This belief is reflected in the practice of many
parents, particularly the fathers of boys, to encourage
their children to seek out competitive situations, often
on the playground, and to try to win and be the best
(Block, 1973). Among those who accept this perspective,
this kind of interpersonal competitiveness is an
integral feature of the work ethic and achievement
motivation.

Materialism
Materialism is another characteristic that Americans
attribute to themselves, almost always pejoratively.
The sources of this unfavorable self-characterization
and the reasons for it are diverse, but they seem to
have in common a continuing ambivalence about affluence
and the association between achievement and
its material consequences. On the one hand, successful
attainment is accepted as deserving of tangible rewards,
and those who perform successfully are both
encouraged to expect these rewards as their due and
are permitted to enjoy them, once earned. For the
nation to be prosperous, the economy must grow and
markets must be created for goods and services.
Therefore, it has become almost a patriotic duty for
individuals to spend and consume, rather than to save
and conserve. On the other hand, some critics, echoing
traditional religious concerns, fear that preoccupation
with things and material well-being leads to indifference
to spiritual values and insensitivity to the needs
of others who are less fortunate• In a similar vein, in
recent decades environmentalists have focused on
dwindling natural resources and the shortsighted, destructive
consequences of self-indulgent overconsumption.
During the free speech and Vietnam eras of the
late 1960s and early 1970s, attacks on materialism
and what they perceived as the unthinking pursuit of
success were launched by many young people, members
of a postwar generation who had grown up in a
period of national prosperity and stability and who
thus had escaped the economic insecurities of their
elders. These attitudes were often manifested by studied
indifference to possessions and renunciation of
career paths that conventionally bring prestige or affluence.
Although some were led to careers that were
expressions of idealism, others turned their backs on
the work ethic or substituted as a goal for material
success self-actualization and "doing your own thing."
They and others who became swept up in this selfexpressionist
movement have in turn been denounced
by social commentators (e.g., Conger, 1981) as the
December 1985 • American Psychologist 1289
"me generation," representing what Christopher
Lasch (I 979) has called the culture of narcissism. Although
the pursuit of self-actualization was stimulated
by a rejection of materialistic goals, it represents another
facet of unbridled individualism.
With the general societal swing back to conservative
views and the development of a less certain
economic climate, members of the current generation
have become less concerned about being overly materialistic
and have returned to more conventional careers.
Hippies have been replaced by yuppies! However,
at least among members of the relatively welleducated
and increasingly large middle class, concern
with self-expression has survived and has further
transformed the traditional work ethic. Although work
should be engaged in primarily for intrinsic reasons,
the work itself should be intrinsically "meaningful,"
offering the opportunity for self-development and
expression of one's interests and talents (Daniel Yankelovich,
Inc., 1972; Yankelovich, 1981).
Psychological Theories of Achievement
Motivation
Individualism as a concept is at the heart of psychological
theories of achievement and the motives that
stimulate it. Thus, with rare exception, the achievement-
related behaviors of the individual performer
are the object of study. The properties of the person
that are examined are the person's self- or task-related
attitudes, skills, and motives. When the influence of
extrinsic incentives on performance is investigated,
such incentives typically are chosen to be of direct
benefit to the recipient.
Probably the best known and most highly influential
concept of intrinsic achievement motivation
was put forward by Henry Murray (1938) and, via
his Thematic Apperception Test (TAT), was incorporated
into the work of David McClelland, John Atkinson,
and their colleagues (e.g., McClelland, Atkinson,
Clark, & Lowell, 1953). Although the intellectual
sources that stimulated Murray's thinking were diverse,
his conception of the achievement motive comes
close to capturing the spirit of the traditional work
ethic (McClelland, 1961), as illustrated by the following
definition: "to do things as rapidly and/or as well
as p o s s i b l e . . . To master, manipulate and organize
physical objects, human beings or ideas . . . . To
overcome obstacles and attain a high s t a n d a r d . . .
to excel one's self. To rival and surpass others" (Murray,
1938, p. 164).
This and other similar conceptualizations of
achievement motivation (e.g., Spence & Helmreich,
1983) are implicitly based on the premise that the satisfaction
of certain personal wants and desires as they
are related to task characteristics are the major intrinsic
motives that drive achievement-related behaviors. Arising
as they do, however, from an individual difference
tradition that focuses on assessing and understanding
variations among individuals in their psychological
characteristics, these approaches are silent about the intensity
of intrinsic achievement motives that characterize
most individuals within a population. Nor do they specify
the origins of these motives.
There is, however, a class of theories proposing
that human beings have an inborn need to be competent
and self-determining and to exert mastery over
their environment (e.g., Deci, 1975; de Charms, 1968;
Dweck & Elliot, 1983; White, 1959). These innate
intrinsic motives are assumed to constitute the general
matrix out of which intrinsic achievement motivation
arises. Implicit in these formulations is that the failure
of intrinsic achievement motivation to develop and
flourish represents the intrusion of inhibitory experiences.
Belonging to the same family is a group of theories
of work motivation that have become popular
among organizational psychologists in recent decades
(e.g., Argyris, 1964; Herzberg, 1966; Kanungo, 1979;
Maslow, 1954). These theories hold that human beings
innately seek self-actualization and that work permitting
them to be autonomous and to realize their
potentials is inherently self-fulfilling. Work that presents
no opportunity for self-direction and selfexpression
suppresses or destroys intrinsic motivation.
At some level, the basic premise of these theories
is unarguable. In order to survive physically and to
function effectively, every human being must have the
capacity and the will to develop a host of skills that
permit mastery of the environment. Nonetheless,
these theories may have an ethnocentric bias, going
too far in emphasizing the autonomous, self-determining
self and its presumed innateness.
In this regard, the basic assumptions of these
theories should be contrasted with those of David
Bakan (1966). In his book, The Duality of Human
Existence, Bakan proposed that every living organism
possesses two fundamental but antagonistic senses: a
sense of self (or agency), manifested in self-assertiveness
and self-protectiveness, and a sense of selflessness
(or communion), the desire to become one with others.
Both agency and communion, Bakan contended, are
necessary for survival: The challenge to every individual
and every society is to reconcile and to balance
these two contradictory senses. The solution to this
human dilemma reached by many Eastern societies
such as Japan may be described, in Bakan's terms, as
one in which the communal takes precedence over
the agentic, whereas in Western societies such as the
United States, the balance is shifted toward the agentic
or individualistic.
These speculations suggest, as others have also
argued (e.g., Johnson, 1973; Maehr, 1974; Rotenberg,
1977), that achievement and achievement motives
must be understood in terms of the sociocultural con-
1290 December 1985 • American Psychologist
text in which they occur and even more particularly
that our supposedly universal theories of intrinsic
motivation and the achievement motives that flow
from them may be more appropriate for agentic cultures
marked by individualism. Illustrative evidence
in support of this contention can be found in a study
by Ramirez and Price-Williams (1976). These investigators
administered projective measures of achievement
motivation to samples of Mexican American,
black, and mainstream white children matched on
socioeconomic background. Their analyses of mainstream
white versus Mexican American and black
cultures led them to predict that on conventional indices
of the need to achieve, white children would be
highest because of the focus on individual accomplishments
and goals. On the other hand, they expected
that black and Mexican American groups
would score higher on themes related to family oriented
achievement, that is, attainments that would
benefit or gain recognition from family members.
Both predictions were confirmed. These and other
similar findings, such as those reported by Gallimore,
Boggs, and Jordan (1974) with young Hawaiians suggest
that the motivation to achieve can be expressed
in different ways and can take various forms in different
cultures or subcultures.
The failure of many groups to score as high as
those in the American mainstream on traditional
measures of the need to achieve does not necessarily
indicate that these groups are lower in intrinsic
achievement motives. Rather the concepts of intrinsic
achievement motives that appear in our psychological
theories and our measures of these concepts may be
tailored to, and therefore primarily valid for, individualisticaUy
oriented cultures. Similarly, psychological
theories that tend to focus exclusively on the tangible
rewards given to the individual achiever for successful
performance may be unduly restricted in considering
the kinds of external incentives whose anticipation
may drive achievement-related behaviors.

Current Status of the Work Ethic

Also important to examine is evidence on the contemporary
status of the work ethic. Is it withering
away? Surveys indicate that a large majority of the
general public believes that in recent years, people's
willingness to work hard and their pride in their work
have deteriorated. Similarly, government and business
leaders nominate this weakening of the work ethic as
a key factor in the falling productivity of the American
worker (Louis Harris Associates & Etzioni, 1981;
Yankelovich & Immerwahr, 1983). But is there evidence
to support these beliefs?
Before an attempt is made to answer this question,
it is necessary to lay to rest certain romantic
notions. Following the industrialization of the United
States in the latter part of the 19th century, the work
ethic continued to flourish among members of the
managerial and professional classes and among independent
craftsmen and others who were in charge
of their own work lives. The industrial factory system
neither credited industrial blue-collar workers with
devotion to the work ethic nor encouraged them to
develop it (Rogers, 1974). Management techniques
were devised that simplified jobs as much as possible
and removed from the individual workers, many of
whom were immigrants, any opportunity for judgment
or initiative. As reflected in the scientific management
theory of Frederick Taylor, these practices
were rationalized by the belief that industrial workers
were interested only in the material rewards their labor
would earn and would only loaf given any discretion.
The result, as the historian Paul Bernstein (1980) has
observed, was a work force plagued by absenteeism,
alcoholism, and other signs of rebellion against jobs
that were monotonous and often unpleasant and dangerous
as well.
In recent decades, there have been dramatic shifts
in the composition of the work force. At midcentury,
the majority of workers were in blue-collar jobs; currently
the majority are in white-collar positions. Most
workers were employed in goods-producing industries,
whereas now service jobs predominate. Even within
the latter, technological innovations have changed the
simple, routinized nature of many jobs. All of these
changes have brought about what Yankelovich and
Immerwahr (1983) described as a "high discretion
workplace," one in which most workers are in positions
that allow them considerable latitude in carrying
out their jobs and structuring their time. Over the
course of this century, workers have also become increasingly
well educated and most are American born.
Even blue-collar employees have become less willing
to accept many of the working conditions that their
parents and grandparents were forced to tolerate.
Conceptions about the psychological nature of
the worker have obligingly followed suit. It has now
become fashionable to attribute an innate need for
autonomy and self-fulfillment that can be satisfied via
work not merely to the annointed but to all human
beings, whatever their station in life. It should come
as no surprise that many managerial practices are
currently being shaped to accommodate this now
popular psychological model.
It seems reasonable to expect that individuals in
positions permitting a high degree of discretion would
be more committed to their work than those in positions
allowing little discretion, especially if it is realized
that high-discretion jobs tend to be more interesting,
prestigious, and better paying, and to be held
by the better educated. Survey data reported by Yankelovich
and Immerwahr (1983) suggest that this is
indeed the case. However, these investigators found
that even among those in low-discretion jobs, 48%
December 1985 • American Psychologist 1291
endorsed the statement "I have an inner need to do
the best job possible, regardless of pay," and an additional
21% endorsed the statement "I find my work
interesting but I wouldn't let it interfere with the rest
of my life." Only 31% chose statements indicating
that work was merely an unpleasant necessity or
purely a business transaction. Particularly revealing
was a comparison of the responses of the U.S. sample
with those from several other industrialized European
countries, namely Sweden, Germany~ and the United
Kingdom. Self-described commitment to the work
ethic was highest in the United States.
Although these results suggest that belief in the
work ethic is strong in the American workforce, data
from the same survey indicate that there is a gap between
this professed commitment and actual work
behaviors. Less than a quarter of those questioned
said that they were performing up to their capacity
and as effectively as they were able, and almost half
said that they put in no more effort than was required
of them. Objective studies of work behaviors support
these self-descriptions. For example, in an observational
study, Cherrington (1980) reported that little
more than half of workers' time was spent in actual
job-related activity. In an especially instructive investigation,
Stafford and Duncan (1979; cited in Yankelovich
& Immerwahr, 1983) found that the discrepancy
between ostensible and actual working hours
increased between 1965 and 1975. Thus, the popular
belief that people are not working as hard and as well
as they once did appears to have some validity.
Extrinsic benefits such as good pay and chance
for advancement ranked high among the factors that
respondents to Yankelovich and Immerwahr's survey
said would make them work harder. But, suggesting
the transformation that has taken place in people's
expectations about the nature of work, other highly
ranked factors refer to characteristics of the job itself:
more challenge, more responsibility, more freedom
to think for oneself, more opportunity to develop one's
abilities. Commitment to the work ethic has apparently
become a conditional one: willingness to work
hard and do one's best but only if the job warrants
this kind of devotion.
In discussing the significance of these survey
data, Yankelovich and Immerwahr (1983) blamed
managers for employee disenchantment and in doing
so took an optimistic view. Thus, they wrote, "The
conventional wisdom of a deteriorating work ethic is
badly off target; the American work ethic is strong
and healthy and may be getting healthier" (p. 4). They
'continued, "The real cause of the commitment gap
lies not with the new cultural values or with an erosion
of the work ethic but with a striking failure of managers
to support and reinforce the work ethic. This
means that practical solutions are possible" (p. 5),
solutions that they then proceeded to outline.
Others are less sanguine, seeing the ills of the
workplace as part of a more general malaise, as a
symptom of individualism that has gone awry. And
so it is to this theme that I return.

Achievement and Commitment

In their recent book, Habits of the Heart, a title taken
from Tocqueville, Bellah et al. (1985) have written:
It seems to us that it is individualism.., that has marched
inexorably through our history. We are concerned that this
individualism may have grown cancerous--that it may be
destroying those social integuments that Tocqueville saw as
moderating its more destructive potential. (p. viii)
The self, they argued, has been torn loose from a wider
set of values that bind the person to the family and
the community.
The individualism represented by the Protestant
vision, it is critical to note, was not an invitation to
seek self-gratification. On the contrary, the individual's
prime obligation was to serve God. Although as a
counterweight against the authoritarian demands of
church and state, Enlightenment philosophy stressed
the natural rights of individuals, these rights were assumed
to go hand in hand with responsibilities. Individuals
have obligations to others and to society as
a whole and are accountable for their own actions and
their consequences.
In the same vein, the original Protestant work
ethic assigned a transcendent significance to work:
One was expected to work hard and to achieve in
order to serve and to glorify God. In its modern-day
form, the work ethic has been watered down to the
belief that work is inherently good in and of itself,
especially if it is self-satisfying. Any sense of larger
purpose has largely been lost.
The contemporary work ethic has virtues that,
I take for granted, need no defense. People should be
encouraged to find satisfaction in work and to strive
for performance excellence for intrinsic reasons rather
than to regard successful accomplishment primarily
as an instrumental means to external, egotistical goals.
Further, people cannot be faulted for desiring work
that respects their dignity, grants them responsibility,
and calls upon their talents. However, a work ethic
that has no further justification than work itself and
is divorced from other values is susceptible to being
driven by narrow self-interest, and it risks that conceptions
of achievement will be distorted into forms
that are indifferent if not antithetical to the public
good.
Contemporary instances of malignant forms of
"achievement" are all too easy to find. On the corporate
level, for example, a large and supposedly
trustworthy brokerage firm has admitted that its employees
engaged in fraudulent practices in dealing with
American Psychologist
banks. It has been reported that 9 out of the 10 largest
defense contractors are under criminal investigation.
The upper-level executives in a number of companies
experiencing economic difficulties have awarded
themselves handsome salary increases while at the
same time attempting to force their employees to
forego raises or to accept cuts in pay.
Scientists are not exempt from these losses of
integrity. Concern about the increasing incidence of
scientific fraud led to a symposium on the topic at
the spring (1985) meeting of the American Association
for the Advancement of Science. One panelist, Robert
Petersdorf, Dean of the Medical School at the University
of California at San Diego, stated that the emphasis
on prolific publication as a measure of
achievement in deciding on promotion and the award
of research grants is a major inducement to scientific
dishonesty. He further argued that "science in 1985
is too competitive, too big, too entrepreneurial, and
bent too much on winning" (quoted in Smith, 1985,
p. 1292). Fraud aside, this statement alone is a biting
indictment of "big science."
A competitive climate and the unethical behaviors
it spawns appear to be less intense in scientific
psychology than in academic medicine and many of
the natural sciences. This does not necessarily mean
that psychologists are superior to other scientists in
their values and personal integrity; rather, psychological
research has rarely produced the dramatic kinds
of findings and breakthroughs that would stimulate
investigators to engage in races of discovery and publication.
But as the academic job market has tightened,
publication pressures have mounted, particularly for
those seeking tenure and promotion at national research
universities. Realistically, after a certain point,
high levels of productivity can be sustained only at
the expense of quality. We may inadvertently be
training young scholars to produce the superficial, the
flashy, and the quick and dirty and causing them to
become disillusioned and cynical about the purpose
of research. Equally serious, meeting these demands,
even on the part of those who do so willingly, requires
singlemindedness and massive investments of time
that can be sustained only at the expense of other
activities, such as family obligations.
Selfless commitment to one's work, even noble
work, that is accomplished at the expense of others
can in a larger sense become selfish. Working hard
and striving to perform well and to succeed often have
socially deleterious effects if they are not embedded
in commitments to the larger community--family,
country, and humankind as a whole. Ironically,
achievement strivings can even be self-defeating and
destructive to the individual. For example, interpersonally
competitive individuals are less likely to
achieve than their less competitive peers (Spence &
Helmreich, 1983). Furthermore, there is some evidence
that self-oriented extrinsic motives such as desire
for pay, recognition, and prestige may inhibit performance.
And, as is well known, hard-driving Type-
A individuals often succeed in the short term at the
long-term expense of their physical health (Jenkins,
Rosenman, & Zyzanski, 1974). Whether in our own
lives as human beings or as psychologists who study
achievement and the motives that stimulate it, it behooves
us to examine carefully the individualistic
conception of achievement that characterizes this society
rather than to accept it automatically as "good"
in all the varied meanings of that word.
The questions I have raised about the meaning
and purposes of achievement are related to larger issues
that go by many labels and appear in many forms.
In his presidential address, for example, John Conger
(1981) spoke of freedom and commitment. I will again
use the language of Bakan (1966): the sense of self or
agency and the sense of selflessness or communion.
Every individual, every society, and every one of the
groups that constitute a society must reconcile these
contradictory impulses in order to survive. But there
is no single ideal solution. Segments of a given society
may reach complementary accommodations in response
to the tasks they have been assigned. In many
cultures, for example, agentic values tend to be stronger
in men than in women, whereas communal ones
tend to be stronger in women than in men (Gilligan,
1982; Spence & Helmreich, 1978). Nations differ in
the overall balance they have developed as a result of
both historical and present circumstances.
Each solution has benefits as well as costs and
potential dangers. The American tilt toward agency
or individualism has allowed us to create a politically
stable, materially prosperous, and democratic nation
that for many continues to be the land of freedom
and opportunity. Freedom and autonomy, however,
leave people vulnerable to feelings of alienation and
narcissistic self-absorption and tempt them to pursue
narrow self-interests.
The accusations of social critics that American
individualism has become destructive represents the
fear that our sense of communion has weakened,
leaving us susceptible as individuals and as a nation
to unleavened agency. Reasons and indications can
be found in abundance. As our society has grown
larger and its members more mobile, the sense of belonging
to a time and place has dwindled. Political
events of the last 20 years, such as Vietnam and Watergate,
have eroded older patriotic values. Economic
prosperity and new social arrangements have given
rise to a psychology of entitlement (Bell, 1976). Modem
parents, for example, feel less compelled than earlier
generations to sacrifice for their children; and their
children, in turn, feel less obligated to sacrifice for
their parents as they age.

If only because of enlightened self-interest, we are obligated as citizens and

human beings to renew
a national sense of commitment to larger causes that
go beyond narrow self-interest and the search for selfsatisfaction.
It would be presumptuous of me to suggest
what forms these commitments should take. But
I do not hesitate to hope--indeed to plead--that psychology
and psychologists contribute not to the problem
but to its solution.