Abstract
This study investigated upward mobility of lower status group members from self-motivation perspectives. In Taiwan’s higher education system, private universities are more disadvantageous than public universities in both social reputation and educational resources. In study I, “social-identity enhancement”, “personal-identity enhancement”, and “self-improvement” probabilities were experimentally manipulated in this context. It was found that richer educational resources, which increased self-improvement probability, was the most influential factor on decisions to transfer from private to public universities. In study II, 98 students who had just transferred from private to public universities were surveyed. There were individual differences in valuing the above three factors. Students with high social-oriented-achievement-motivation valued social-identity enhancement, personal-identity enhancement, and self-improvement probability more than the students with low social-oriented-achievement-motivation. Students with high individual-oriented-achievement-motivation valued personal-identity enhancement less than those who had low individual-oriented-achievement-motivation.
| Keywords: | social-identity enhancement; personal-identity enhancement; self-improvement; upward mobility |
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