The issue of success and what is behind it as the very definition of is something that has been debated since the advent of man. If we approach the subject from a monetary view most scholars probably agree that the best predictors of success if we think in terms of hierarchies, whether it is a dominance or competence hierarchy , depending on which perspective you adopt is general cognitive ability and conscientiousness. Something I noted is that most researchers, especially psychologists underestimate the sociocultural aspects.
My question is that if you were to create a model, predicting success, which factors would you include? Can gender be a predictor? Race? Can we also approach the subject from a social constructionist standpoint? Perhaps biology? Would you look at the individual as an idiosyncratic being or would you expand your scope also to encompass culture and institutions?
What are your thoughts?
Best wishes Henrik
Vadim S. Gorshkov I fully agree and to rephrase the question to encompass Russia is perfectly fine. So you think the issue of which structure we are born into matters more than the individual him or her self? Do you believe our reality is socially constructed? Interesting. You touched on the issue of strata and stratification, Perhaps being born into the right family can compensate for the lack of cognitive ability and conscientiousness .
Well, first of all, I think that there are two preliminary reflections (A & B) that we should take into consideration before moving from your question to a tentative answer.
Please note that these two preliminary reflections will be likely to partially modify the issue as you shaped it.
Firstly (A), I think that the expression "western societies" (the general geopolitical context, let me say, in which you pose your issues) should be more accurately specified. A pacific and highly-shared specification (at least by the most influential work in the field of sociological critical research) would be "neoliberal contemporary societies" and - on the contrary - "counter-neoliberal forms of society configuration" (please refer to Teo, 2018 for an accurate reflection at the intersection of social and critical psychological analysis). This slight but yet fundamental change, I think, helps us to better frame a social, cultural, and economical frame in which your questions, and specifically the question about "success", take a form.
Secondly (B), and consequently from preliminary reflection (A), "success" becomes a concept, rather than an entity, that reflects the specific ways of a socio-cultural context to frame it. Success, for example, could be operationalized as reaching a status of economical independence from one's parents. Or, success could be operationalized as being autonomous in managing everyday life's issues. Or, of course, as merging and crossing these domains. In any case, nevertheless, "success" tend to be an individual property reached in one's life (whether professional, personal, relational). Even the RG score could be used as an index of success within a scientific community, based on specific parameters (which, recursively, reflect a process of value-attribution by a specific group of individuals, entities, and institutions).
One last example from "counter-neoliberal forms of society configuration", a thus at the opposite of the ones I have so far described, would be a university student who has not graduated on time (let's imagine he/she took his/her bachelor degree in 5-years rather than 3-years). While studying, she/he was paying for her/his studies (because hi/her parents could not afford it; because there were no available funds) and he/she is really helping his/her territorial community by providing some useful volunteer. He/she is actively engaged in political actions, and spend most of his/her time creating new networks of mutual help and so on.
Those two reflections serve the fact that, evidently, "success" is a concept that takes shape at the intersection of different and complex forms of society, subjectivity, cultural and interpersonal norms. Every factor that you highlighted could obviously be used as a factor within a model to predict success.
The question is, as (personally) a social and psychological scientist: do I really want to predict success? Do I really want a scientific community that measures success even, perhaps with the aim of providing some practical suggestions at the end of the study, if how success is contemporary socially and culturally framed could be a plague for society itself?
Thank you for your interesting questions!
Dear Ciro
Thank you for your answer. I agree with you on the premises, Why western civilisation? Think whatever we do we will be off in some respect. We can divide societies according to country, nation, strata etc etc and in the end we will have such a narrow sample that only a few can participate in any meaningful discussion. I agree with you however that the choice of Western society if a wide and imprecise sample but if I asked about middle aged men in Nykvarn ( a small city of 12.000 inhabitants) It would be more precise but less debatable.
You got around this problem however in your answer and I commend you for it .I also agree with you about the nature and definition of success. If we take RG for example, scores can be manipulated and even if not, how do you measure success? Reads? Recommendations? I think the problem is that most of us still think in monetary terms, status, a professor is a person who has a good job and therefore is successful, a CEO is usually more successful if we use this scale but! Maybe the professor is happier than the CEO? the professor can supervise someone doing a PhD, that person can have greater health etc.
I fully agree with you about the premises and your answer raises some important questions.
Best wishes Henrik
I don't know Western society well enough to talk about issue of success in a Western way. In any case, in Russia, the presence of two sets of criteria is noticeable: traditional (for example: son, house, tree) and borrowed (money to buy everything that is needed, and this, often ...: son, house, tree). If we also consider that the criteria are different for different strata of society, then there is no point in talking about this.
Vadim S. Gorshkov I fully agree and to rephrase the question to encompass Russia is perfectly fine. So you think the issue of which structure we are born into matters more than the individual him or her self? Do you believe our reality is socially constructed? Interesting. You touched on the issue of strata and stratification, Perhaps being born into the right family can compensate for the lack of cognitive ability and conscientiousness .
Henrik G.S. Arvidsson
Born into the right family? Not for all nations. In Russia, this is more often an "aggravating circumstance", with extremely rare exceptions.
Henrik G.S. Arvidsson
About the race. When I worked in the US, I encountered "racial problems" several times. But to the phrase: "Well, you, white" I calmly replied: "I am not white, but Russian". "Ah, then it's another matter ..." As one of my colleagues in the United States said: "The main problem of Russians is that they are white-skinned, if they were, for example, green-skinned, it would be easier for them to live". It makes sense. So, this is not our problem.
As for feminism, it looks strange too here in Russia. I remember my childhood as "the kingdom of women". There weren't that many men, as most of them died in the war (which you call WW2). Now the number of men and women has become equal, but most remember when women were forced to be equal. By the way, in my entire life I had 5 direct supervisors. Three were men, two were women. I didn't notice much of a difference. A woman "making a career" behaves no better than a man.
I grew up in a society focused on class and therefore successful businessmen, politicians and professionals represented the upper class alone, although true there may have been exceptions. Ambition in a member of lower classes was considered a sign of eccentricity.
I nevertheless do not believe hugher intelligence is a necessary constituent of success nor that that commodity ensures success. Personality traits are equally necessary.
Thank you for posing this question. I reckon you meant the intrinsic vs extrinsic factors while assessing success.
You rightly pointed out that these are pure psychological factors and largely determined by the internal idiosyncratic factors associated to individuals. However, due to some social pressures in some more collective societies the factors are more extrinsic of nature,where the success is determined by your social fellows rather than your internal factors. Similarly if we talk about the individualistic societies the factors are more intrinsic which determine the success, after all they listen to their inner self and are not largely concerned about the other social fellows.
Coming to your question about creating model to predict the success, there is no single answer to that as no single model exists which correctly predict the success as it varies from person to person, from gender to gender and from culture to culture. However to be on safe side, we can develop a reasonable model with some sound relevant psychological and intrinsic as well as extrinsic factors but necessarily after controlling for the effects if the individuals demographics such as gender, age, ethnicity and geographical as well as social background. As far gender is concerned, it can not predict success however we can use it as a differentiating factor to assess how the other important factors affect and predict for male and female respondents (using either as a moderator or conducting MGA based on the dichotomous variable of gender, similarly for other demographic variables). However demographic variabke cannot predict success in their own (as it would be prejudiced predictions).
This might be a little contribution for this very important issue Conference Paper Culturally Diverse Gifted Students – a brief overview of mul...
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