Date of Award

January 2013

Degree Type

Open Access Thesis

Document Type

Master Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Psychology

First Advisor

Jonathan S. Gore

Department Affiliation

Psychology

Abstract

The current study intended to test a model which integrated different self-construal types, goal motivation types, and goal outcomes, and also to test the moderating effects of culture on the model. Based on previous literature, a hypothesized model was proposed. 250 American university students and 246 Chinese university students were recruited to test this model. All the participants completed several scales that measured the levels of three types of self-construal, four types of goal motive, goal-direct effort and progress, and two components of well-being. Based on the preliminary analyses, an adjusted model was generated. The results of the adjusted model generally refuted the proposed model, showing that for people in both cultures, independent self-construal and collective self-construal predicts RARs, whereas relational self-construal did not predict RARs. Moreover, both PARs and RARs predicted effort and both effort and progress predicted two components of well-being. The results also showed that there was no moderating effect of culture on the entire model, but there was a tendency that culture might affect the relationships between some variables in the model. Specifically, independent self-construal had a relatively stronger association with PARs for Americans than for Chinese students, whereas collective self-construal had a relatively stronger association with PARs for Chinese students than for Americans. Moreover, RARs predicted progress only for Chinese people, whereas PARs predicted progress only for Americans. These findings provided a new perspective of how these constructs are related with each other when they are considered in a holistic way.

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