Achievement Orientations and Socioeconomic Career Attainments

In longitudinal data (1957-1967) for white metropolitan males in the United States, the impact of achievement orientations on career attainments and on the processes of social mobility from family of origin statuses to destination statuses is examined. Several path analytic models are constructed, in which achievement-related motivations are included as intervening variables, potentially capable of explaining how socioeconomic origins and/or early career achievements influence later socioeconomic attainments. Scant support is found for the assertion of some social psychologists that achievement orientations are highly relevant to status attainment processes in industrialized societies.