Culture and Motivation: A Cross-Cultural Study

文化与动机：跨文化研究

• 批准号: 9421218
• 负责人: Joan Miller
• 金额: $ 26.57万
• 依托单位: Yale University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 1995
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1995-03-01 至 1998-02-28
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9421218&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Culture; Motivation; Cross; Cultural; Study

The goal of the investigation is to examine cultural influences on the development of motivation to be responsive to the needs of others. Three experimental studies will be undertaken among samples of American and Hindu Indian adults and elementary- school aged children. The first study examines the development of individuals' perceived reasons for being responsive to the needs of their peers, with a focus on the structure of these reasons and on their relationship to individuals' socio-emotional functioning. The second study assesses whether the presence of role-related interpersonal responsibilities reduces endogenous motivation for helping behavior and degrades its quality. The third study evaluates the impact of normative expectations to render aid on intrinsic motivation and on the quality of individual behavioral performance. The research is expected to demonstrate that, reflecting their contrasting culturally based views of self, Americans maintain a less self-determined motivational orientation toward interpersonal responsibilities than do Indians. Thus, it is hypothesized that whereas among Americans, normative expectations to help others will lead to the diminishing of endogenous forms of motivation and will be associated with less adaptive behavioral functioning, they will not have such effects among Indians. The research is also expected to document respects in which the dominant psychological theories of internalization are culturally- bound. These theories link acting out of a perceived sense of obligation to feelings of pressure or coercion. However, such a linkage is hypothesized not to occur among Indians whom it is anticipated do not perceive an antithetical relationship between self-determined forms of motivation and social duty. Finally, the project is anticipated to reveal that the direction of developmental change in interpersonal motivation is culturally variable, with Americans developing a relatively exogenous view of interpersonal responsibilities and Hindu Indians retaining a relatively endogenous view. The investigation will contribute to an understanding of ways in which social development is affected by the beliefs and values of the larger cultural context. A series of experimental studies will be undertaken contrasting the motivation to help others among adults and elementary school aged children sampled from the United States and India. Substantively, the research is expected to identify respects in which the individualistic emphasis of American culture leads Americans to develop less self-determined perspectives toward helping others than arise in cultures emphasizing more collectivist conceptions. It also will provide much needed data on ways that the contrasting culturally grounded motivational orientations that develop in the two cultural contexts affect adaptation in school and friendship relationships. Regarding developmental implications, the research focus on the social perceptions and behavior of children from markedly different cultural backgrounds will make it possible to identify both common and culture-specific aspects of child development. Finally, on a theoretical level, the investigation will contribute to the refinement of existing psychological models of motivation by identifying respects in which these models may reflect culturally-specific assumptions and may need to be modified to account for interpersonal motivation in more collectivist cultures.

调查的目的是研究文化对动机发展的影响，以回应他人的需要。三个实验研究将在美国和印度的印度成年人和小学年龄的儿童中进行。第一项研究考察了个人对同伴需求做出反应的感知原因的发展，重点关注这些原因的结构及其与个人社会情感功能的关系。第二项研究评估角色相关人际责任的存在是否会降低助人行为的内生性动机并降低其质量。第三项研究评估了规范性期望对内在动机和个体行为表现质量的影响。这项研究有望证明，美国人对人际责任的自我决定动机倾向比印度人少，这反映了他们基于不同文化的自我观。因此，我们假设，在美国人中，帮助他人的规范性期望会导致内源性动机形式的减少，并与较低的适应性行为功能相关，而在印度人中则不会产生这种影响。这项研究也被期望能证明内化的主流心理学理论是受文化约束的。这些理论将出于义务感的行为与压力或胁迫感联系起来。然而，这种联系被假设不会发生在印度人身上，因为人们预计印度人不会认为自我决定的动机形式与社会责任之间存在对立关系。最后，该项目预计将揭示人际动机的发展变化方向是文化变量，美国人发展出相对外生的人际责任观，而印度人则保持相对内生的人际责任观。这项调查将有助于了解社会发展如何受到更大文化背景下的信仰和价值观的影响。将进行一系列实验研究，对比从美国和印度抽取的成年人和小学学龄儿童帮助他人的动机。从本质上讲，这项研究预计将识别出美国文化中强调个人主义的方面，这些方面导致美国人在帮助他人方面发展出较少的自主观点，而不是在强调更多集体主义观念的文化中出现的观点。它还将提供非常需要的数据，说明在两种文化背景下形成的不同文化基础的动机取向如何影响学校和友谊关系中的适应。关于发展影响，研究的重点是来自明显不同文化背景的儿童的社会观念和行为，这将有可能确定儿童发展的共同方面和特定文化方面。最后，在理论层面上，调查将有助于改进现有的动机心理模型，通过确定这些模型可能反映文化特定假设的方面，并且可能需要修改以解释更多集体主义文化中的人际动机。