What does success mean? Success perceptions in Hungary

The first deeper examination of the topic of success was implemented by Ichhieser (1943).

His complex approach reflects the attribution of success and distinguished between skills and external factors. In his model, self-awareness, self-esteem, social factors and the dominant success-ideologies are very important.

In various studies operationalization of success appears as anachievable goal that is determined by motivation just like as stereotypes about successful people that can be inspiration for the different generations. Success can be the indicator of the actual performance. The social representations of success in a community may define what we think about it and in this way what can become a possible goal.

Results from an assessment of a Hungarian adolescent (16-17 years old) sample showed that the representation of success is highly determined by money and fame. Self-realization was not so important. These young respondents perceived the successful individual as active, enduring, confident and decisive. Professions associated to success required an academic degree (Szabó 2012). The research of Gallup Institute in 1998 reveald that the respondents thought appropriate networks as the key of success (Szabó 2012). Good relationships were considered important by adolescent respondents in another study (Szabó 2007) too.

Váriné és Solymosi (1999) explored that the image of a typical successful individual was more negative than the image of a personally known successful individual. The data collected from representatives of different professions show that the auto-stereotypes play role in the success realizations. The important part of the success perception is the economic factor.

As for mobility it is important to know teachers’ thoughts about successful students.

Szabó’s (2012) stereotype research revealed that in case of the successful students the positive properties are the key factors but competitive behavior is important too. The

95 adolescent respondents also believe that good school performance and intellectual abilities are indispensable for a successful life.

2. Method

The central question of our research is: What do members of different social groups associate with the term ‘success’ and what is the valence of these associations and which topics are mentioned by the respondents. We distinguished the categories of respondents by their parental educational background.

We had a national representative sample of young people between 18 and 34. The data we used as a part of a wider study what was a mutual project of ELTE University and the Hungarian Educational Authority in 2014. The data collection was implemented through personal interviews. The respondents were asked to associate a keyword to success and to specify the first three words. In our study we examined closely the first of these three words.

In the table below the group formation we use for later comparison can be seen. In order to maximize the parental background the basic idea of group formation was the same parental educational level. So in our sample there were 174 responders (50.8% male), contained 141 associations because of missing answers. We found it important to specify the family background as the educational level of both parents instead of the traditional method measuring only the fathers’ educational level.

Table 1 Grouping of responders links to parental educational background Lower educational parental

In the present study the focus was on the parental educational background, however, this factor correlates with the economic and generally with socio-economic status.

96

3. Results

As first step, we merged the associated words of similar or same meanings (e. g. money-lot of money, work-workplace). Among the answers we found high variability of words; for instance, in the tested sample the most common word “work”, covered the 8,5% of all answers. In addition many answers related to “money” (7,1%), and “knowledge” (5,6%).

The responders were also asked to judge whether the mentioned words were positive, negative or neutral. The diagram below shows that the valance of associations in the highest proportions was positive, but some of the words were judged as negative or neutral, as well.

Figure 1 The valance of the success assotiations according to the responders

In the second step of our study, we created 14 categories paying attention to their meanings because of the diversity of the answers.

We used these categories: family (e.g. children, grandchildren), finances (e.g. money, income), health, and learning (e.g. intellect, good exam, happiness (e.g. joy satisfaction), negative words (e.g. unattainable), and fame (e.g. public appearance), and result (e.g. do something well), work, power, luck, diligence (e.g. work for it), others (e.g. summer holiday), “I don’t know answers/ no answers”. (In this case forming categories “negative words” is not necessarily equivalent with the sum of words judged negative by the responders).

97 In the group with lower educated parents 18% of associations belong to the category of happiness, 17% of finances, 11% of work and 9% of learning. Among the responders with medium level educated parents the most frequently mentioned category was also

“happiness” (20%), it was followed by “finances” (16%), “work” (8%) then “learning” (5%).

We can observe that the order of the categories is identical in the first two groups; we can found difference in the proportions of percentage of the associated words. The order is different in the third group (responders with higher parental educational background). In their case the first place was occupied by the “finance” category with 19%, “fame” and

“happiness” followed it with 13%. “Work”, “learning”, “result” and “diligence” scored 6% as we can see it in the diagram below.

The category of “health” meant different aspects in the groups: it appeared exclusively in the lower educated parents’ children’s group. The category of “fame” was not present in the

“medium educated parental group”. The number of categories or the heterogeneity of associations was the lowest in the third group (responders with higher educational parental background). It is remarkable that in their case words of the categories of “family”, “health”,

“power” and “luck” were not present. Apart from the attributions of valance of the words, following the meanings we created a category for the “negative” expression (e. g.

unattainable). This category appeared only in the group with lower educated parents.

Figure 2 Dispersion of success associations according to responders with different background

98

Denying answers, “I don’t answers” was common in our three groups; which is not rare in similar research methods. Proportionally, most answers were derived from the group with lower parental educational background.

4. Discussion

Related to success at the first glance it may seem surprising and unusual that among the associations there are words with negative meanings. The responders in the group with lower parental educational background judged their associations in 12,4% as negative, this ratio in the “medium” group is 1,9% and 6,3% in the third group. We can conclude from this that the success may be represented as unattainable. We emphasize that the category of

“luck” is not present in the group with higher parental educational background. The

“negative words” category did not appea in their group.

These results are consistent with the perceptions of counter selection in Hungary (Hunyady 2012). These concepts refer to the feeling that a group does not exploit their possibilities;

moreover it is a waste of human resource. Consequently, the development of the group remains under the optimal level. At an individual level the perception is that high status positions are not filled with the most competent persons.

The attributes of a successful person (money, work, learning) found in previous studies were also present in our results. From the respect of social mobility it is an important data that the learning – success associations appeared with the highest proportion in the group with the lower educational parental background.

Literature

Boudon, R. (1978): Education, Opportunity, and Social Inequality: Changing Prospects in Western Society. Willy Interscience, New York.

Bourdieu, P. (1978): A társadalmi egyenlıtlenségek újtaremelıdése. Gondolat, Budapest.

Csekei L. (2008): A bolognai folyamat szociális dimenziója. Felsıoktatási Mőhely, 1: 28-44.

De Graaf , N.D., De Graaf, P. M., Kraaykamp, G. (2000): Parental Cultural Capital and Educational Attainment in the Netherlands: A Refinement of the Cultural Capital Perspective. Sociology of Education, 73 (2), 92-111.

Di Maggio, P.(1982):"Cultural Capital and School Success: The Impact of Status Culture Participation on the Grades of U.S. High School Students." American Sociological Review 4: 189-201.

Hunyady Gy. (2002): A kontraszelekci pszichológiája. Magyar Pszichológiai Szemle, 67 (3):

397-434.

99 Ichheiser, G. (1943): Ideology of success and the dilemma of education. Ethics, 53 (2):

137-141.

Kiss L. (2012): EUROSTUDENT IV fıbb vizsgálati fókuszai és eredményei. Felsıoktatási Mőhely, 3: 99-109.

Kiss P. (2008): Tervek, eredmények és kompromisszumok: bejutás a felsıoktatásba.

Felsıoktatási Mőhely, 2 (3): 63-73.

Kiss P. (2009): Szociális reprezentáció, ahogy a közösség megszelídíti az ismeretlent.

Pedagógusképzés, 7(36): 87-101.

Moscovici, S. (1981): On Social Representation. In: Social Cognition, Forgas, J. P. (Ed.), Academic Press, London.

Szabó, É. (2007): „Sikeres embert faragni”- Pedagógusok véleménye a sikerességrıl és az iskola szerepérıl. Pedagógusképzés, 2007, 1: 27-37.

Szabó, É. (2012): A serdülık sikerfelfogása. A siker, mint társadalmi érvényesülés cél az információs társadalom korában. In: Fiatalok biztonságkeresési stratégiái az információs társadalomban, Kırössy J.- Kıváry Z. (szerk.), Primaware, Szeged, 9-35. http://www.psy.u-szeged.hu/psy/attachments/article/620/ebook_0618_2.pdf (Accessed on 02 August 2014) Váriné Szilágyi I., Solymosi Zs. (1999) (szerk.): A siker lélektana. Szociálpszichológiai és szociológiai tanulmányok a sikerrıl. Hatodik Síp Alapítvány- Új Mandátum Könyvkiadó, Budapest

Veroszta, Zs. (2012): A bachelor-master át lépés szelekci ós háttértényezıi. Felsıoktatási Mőhely, 2: 75-83.

100