Micro explanations

In this section the dissertation will talk about micro explanation of success and failure, which is attributed to the
person’s ability and effort. It will first talk about how human nature give motivation for human being to be
successful, then it will present 3 factors are related to success and failure, namely personality, persistence and
attractiveness. Lastly, it will discuss the importance of presentation of self and how it relates to success and
failure.

‘Human nature consists of drives and capacities common to human’ (Leahy 2012 p809) ‘We constantly
compare ourselves with one another to make sure we win every “personal battles” against others to
proclaim our successes. Is it a human nature ' (Zheng 2009, p.149) Competition is unavoidable when we
get into the social, where students try hard to get into the best universities, shops using strategies to
make more money than the shop aside. Gregory R. Copley once said, “Victory is the goal of life and
therefore ultimately of the whole range of human emotions and skills” (A.D. 1) and it is also “an
ongoing process of social interaction” (Kasper 2008) which happens a lot in our society. When there are
winners, there are losers. And here the essay will investigate some of the key factors.

Personality could be regarded as the ‘ability’ category in Weiner’s attribution theory. It is very
common to judge people from their personality. We are very quick to use personality traits when we
describe other people, even those we have just met (Gawronski 2003 cited in Hogg and Vaughan
p44). Since personality is a long term trait which is fixed, we could at some degree predict the
actor’s actions and the outcome of actions using personality judgement on people. Stahl’s article on
Forbes lists some major qualities of successful people, like they are willing to take risks and they are
willing to adapt and they are willing to admit when they are wrong. In overall, the researcher
deduce these successful people usually are more competitive (offer the most values), obsessive,
always think and learn, optimistic but also realistic. People that own different personality type
could lead to different decision making and thus the result done.

Another factor to success is persistence or effort, which can be regarded as the ‘effort’ category in
Weiner’s attribution theory. It is a short term and controllable factor because the input of effort can
directly enhance the quality of performance of certain tasks. One example is to look at the reasons
in sports science for winning or losing in sports. Training is the effort for oneself to enhance his
ability and to do better in matches. Rejections elicit emotional pain so harp it affects our thinking,
floods us with anger , erodes our confidence and self-esteem and destabilizes our fundamental feeling of
belonging (Winch 2013). And when one fails in training, they learn from mistakes and train to be better
until succeed. Famous Football player Cristiano Ronaldo has 5 workout days in a week, and because
of the hard work put in it, it is one of the reasons that makes him win majority of matches and turns
him the Best Football Player of the Year, which is a remark of success. There is a saying about if you
try, you might succeed; but if you give up, you will never succeed.
Another factor attractiveness can be attributed to both ability and effort. ‘Research confirms that we tend to
assume that physically attractive people are ‘good’ – they are interesting, warm outgoing and socially skilled’
(Dion 1972 cited from Hogg and Vaughan p46). They are more able to influence other people and have impact
on group decision making. In comparing salaries, ‘In US where tell men are considered attractive found that
professional men taller than 1.88m received 10 percent higher starting salaries than men under 1.83m’ (Knapp
1978 cited from Hogg and Vaughan p46).

Goffman look at mundane aspect of social interaction and uses the analogy of the stage that social actors act
according to scripts and brings their skills and perform out like actors. The ‘presentation of self’ (Goffman
110-118) of every individual reflects the expectations of others and being successful is a very important ‘self-
images’ (Goffman 110-118). It helps us to ‘maintain faces’ (Goffman 155), which face is defined as ‘the
positive social value a person effectively claims for himself’. A good image to other people could lead to
high self-esteem and thus help maintain social dominance in the society.

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0011392112453834

https://www.forbes.com/sites/ashleystahl/2017/06/26/5-key-traits-of-the-successful-people/#3ca1cecd3fd4