Belief In Luck, The Relationship Of The Five Factors Of Personality And Achievement Motivation

Within the literature, there are traditionally two psychological explanations of belief in luck. The first explanation views luck as an external, unstable factor within social events. Here, belief in luck is perceived as uncontrollable, having little influence on future expectations. A second explanation of luck views belief in luck as a personal attribute, and as an internal and stable factor. Most of the studies regarded the luck as an internal and stable factor that related to people other than the early attribution theories held the luck as an external, unstable factor with which people could hardly control. Dark and Freedman authorized the scale aimed to test the level of the belief in luck of the people and made a general study of it. They found that the level of the belief in luck were different among the people. We want to find out the relations among belief in luck, the five fac(?)rs and achievement motivation to support that we think the latter is the key.In the first study, we translated the Belief in Luck Scale into Chinese, which was published by Dark and Freedman and improved by John Maltby. We deleted a subscale through the work because we thought it as unavailable. The Belief in being lucky subscale, the Belief in being unlucky subscale and the General belief of luck subscale with their reliability and structural validity being confirmed, the three contend the new Chinese version of Belief in Luck scale.In study two,428 participants were involved in our study with the instruments of Belief in luck scale, AMS and NEO-PI-R. On the analysis of the scores responded by the Chinese students studied in the universities, we found that the Chinese scores higher on the Belief in being lucky subscale and he General belief of luck subscale and have lower scores on Belief in being unlucky subscale. Scores on Belief in being unlucky subscale showed a significant difference in gender. Women scored higher than men. No significant difference showed in the variables because of their major, being form countryside or town and being as singleton or not.In the third study, we used the structural equation model to have a multiple-regression analysis between the belief in luck and achievement motivation. The results were that the belief in being lucky and the general belief of luck may predict the tendency to success, the belief in being unlucky may predict the tendency to avoid failure.In the fourth study we used the structural equation model to have a multiple-regression analysis between the five-factor and the belief in luck. The results were the nervousness of the five factors may have a negative prediction of belief in being unlucky and openness may have a positive prediction of the belief in being lucky.Based on the finds in the third study and the forth study, the fifth study gave a more deep exploration on the three variables. The data showed that the nervousness, openness and consciousness had a direct influence on the level of the people's motivation and the first twos also have an indirect influence on the level of motivation by the mediate factors of belief in being lucky and belief in being unlucky.Those made clear that the belief in luck is an stable and internal factor, which gave an strong support to the second views of luck and were consistent with the study hypothesis. From the whole study of the belief in luck, we found that Chinese people may be more apt to the belief in luck and especially the belief in being lucky and the general belief of luck, the belief in luck is an active factor and the one who hold an positive belief in luck may have a high level of achievement motivation. The nervousness of the five-factor can reflect the one's belief in luck best. The effect of the openness and consciousness of the five-factor on the belief in luck are still unconfirmed.