Leiden University Student Repository

Boogaard, Daphne van den (2025)

Investigating the Association Between Education as a Proxy for Socioeconomic Status, Autonomy, Perceived Competence and Number of Personal Goals

Bachelor thesis | Psychologie (BSc)

Prior studies linked socioeconomic status (SES) to personal goals (Tsai, 2015), autonomy, and perceived competence (González et al., 2016). Past studies also used autonomy (Keshitidar et al., 2017) and perceived competence (Iwasaki et al., 2017) as mediator variables. In this study, I aimed to investigate whether education, a proxy for SES, is associated with the number of personal goals that participants list, and whether this relationship is mediated by autonomy and perceived competence, by using a mediation analysis. A questionnaire was conducted with 331 participants. I found no significant support for the hypotheses that education is associated with the number of personal goals, nor that this relationship is mediated by autonomy and perceived competence. I interpret these results as being due to the similar levels of need for autonomy and perceived competence among participants, resulting in relatively little variance across levels of education and number of personal goals. I...Show morePrior studies linked socioeconomic status (SES) to personal goals (Tsai, 2015), autonomy, and perceived competence (González et al., 2016). Past studies also used autonomy (Keshitidar et al., 2017) and perceived competence (Iwasaki et al., 2017) as mediator variables. In this study, I aimed to investigate whether education, a proxy for SES, is associated with the number of personal goals that participants list, and whether this relationship is mediated by autonomy and perceived competence, by using a mediation analysis. A questionnaire was conducted with 331 participants. I found no significant support for the hypotheses that education is associated with the number of personal goals, nor that this relationship is mediated by autonomy and perceived competence. I interpret these results as being due to the similar levels of need for autonomy and perceived competence among participants, resulting in relatively little variance across levels of education and number of personal goals. I also discuss possible extraneous variables and sample homogeneity that could have influenced this study’s findings. Suggestions for future research are also made, including recommendations to consider including income as a proxy for SES, and to study the influence of relatedness.Show less

Socioeconomic Status, education, Autonomy, Perceived Competence, Number of Personal Goals, Persoal Goal Pursuit, Personal Goals

Author

Boogaard, Daphne van den

Faculty

Faculty of Social & Behavioural Sciences

Specialisation

Health, Medical and Neuropsychology

Supervisors

Satu Koivusaari

ECTS Credits

15

Language

en