Japanese competitive success

The purpose of this study was to examine how interpersonal competition arouses the motive to avoid success in Japanese men and women. The sample is comprised of 148 Japanese women and 57 Japanese men. Over half of the participants were students at prestigious Japanese universities. Fourteen of the women had completed their schooling, and their ages ranged from 24 to 60 years old. The students represented all four college classes and a variety of majors. The participants were given six Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) verbal cues to assess the motive to avoid success as originally designed by Horner. Verbal leads (rather than picture cues) were used to eliminate as many cultural biases as possible. The participants also responded to a short sentence completion test and described three events in their lives in which they felt successful, or a situation in which they felt they had failed. Fourteen forced-choice questions determined risk preference. An anagram test assessed performance under various conditions. At the conclusion of the testing sessions, participants answered questions about stage of life, educational background, career aspirations, and family background. A small subsample of the participants was interviewed. Some of the materials have been translated into English. TATs and the remainder of the questionnaires are available in Japanese. Computer-accessible data are available as well. The interviews are not available.