The American dream revisited: Is it what you want or why you want it that matters?

Previous research Sound that aspirations to financial success related inver sely to self-actualization and that aspirations to community involvement re lated positively to self-actualization. We argue that diverse reasons can u nder-lie both of these aspirations, lending to more complex predictions. In a sample of 246 participants, we assessed both self-determining and contro lling reasons for each class of aspiration, along with endorsements of the aspirations themselves. initial regression analyses replicated the earlier findings. Subsequent analyses found that endorsement of self-determining re asons for either class of aspiration related positively to self-actualizati on and that endorsement of controlling reasons for either class of aspirati on,related inversely to self-actualization. In the analysis involving commu nity involvement, the aspiration itself no longer retained predictive power after the other variables were taken into account. In the analysis involvi ng financial success, however the aspiration retained an independent predic tive role.