The Impact of Socio Economic Status on Development of Self Confidence and Achievement Motivation Among Indian Sports Women

Abstract

It is understood that the high socio economic status would be highly advantageous for an individual as an individual enjoys the better standard of living, quality education, high income, positive self-image, high dignity and status in the society, good training facilities and subsequent high self-confidence which invariably helps in gaining positive personality traits and higher achievement motivation. Whereas, an individual of low socioeconomic status would inherit the motivational and personality characteristics like low achievement motivation, aspiration level, expectation, self-image, and neuroticism, insecurity, rigidity, conformity, anxiety, extroversion, alienation, past orientation, lack of future orientation, external attribution for success and internal attribution for failure and use of dysfunctional coping strategies like escape, helplessness, hopelessness and denial. Considering these typical characteristics of a low and high Socio Economic Status individual, the current research was undertaken with an aim to study the impact of socio economic status on development of selfconfidence and achievement motivation while restricting the study to sports women only. To achieve the purpose of study 130 sportswomen from inter-collegiate athletic meet were selected. 68 sportswomen were later screened and convenient samples were selected for further studies. Socio-economic status scale developed by Bharadwaj and Chavan (1989), Self-confidence Inventory by M. Basavanna (1975) and Achievement Motivation Test developed by Dr. Beena Shah were applied. Thereafter, sportswomen were divided into two groups of 34 each as having high and low Socio Economic Status groups. Later, the Self-confidence Inventory by M. Basavanna (1975) and Achievement Motivation Test (Dr. Beena Shah) were administered. A positive and significant influence of socio-economic status on self-confidence and achievement motivation of sportswomen and significant differences in self-confidence and achievement motivation level between low and high socioeconomic status sportswomen were noted during the study. The outcome of the present work is expected to influence policy decisions by various sports governing bodies.