THE INFLUENCE OF SELF TALK ON ACHIEVEMENT ORIENTATION AMONG ADOLESCENTS
ABSTRACT
This study examined the influence of self-talk on achievement orientation among adolescents in Surulere LED Lagos State. Four hypotheses were formulated to guide the study:
· There is no significant influence of self-talk on achievement orientation of adolescent.
· There is no significant impact of age on self-talk and achievement orientation of adolescents.
· There is no significant influence or religious inclination and self-talk on achievement orientation amongs
adolescents.
· There is no significant influence of socio-economic background of the adolescents on their self-talk and
achievement orientation.
The sample comprised of two hundred (200) SS 2 students randomly selected from ten selected secondary schools
in Surulere. The data collected were analysed using the one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), all the hypotheses
were tested at 0.05 level of significance. The result of data analysis obtained indicated as follows:
Achievement orientation influences the adolescent self-talk and also that the age interaction of the adolescent does not influence their self-talk and achievement orientation.
CHAPTER ONE
1.1 Introduction
The level of orientation achieved by the adolescent in the society today, plays back to the kind of early care which the
child received from parents, pre – school teachers and the society at large. This is because all the key ingredients of
emotional intelligence such as confidence, curiosity, intentionally, self control, relatedness, capacity to communicate
and co-operateness that determines how a child learns and relates in school and in life general are developed.
Anderson (1999), stated that, childhood is the time we learn basic skills and establish the platform for our future.
Therefore, the need for achievement orientation among adolescent in our society is paramount because it is what
ever orientation he or she get that affect the feeling about himself and his relationship with others. People with a high
need for achievement sick out situation in which they can compete against some standard be it grades, money, or
winning at a game and prove themselves successful while people with low achievement orientation tend to be
motivated primarily by a desire to avoid failure as a result, they seek out easy tasks, being sure to avoid failure or
seek out very difficult tasks for which failure has no negative implications, since almost anyone would fail at them.
However, the beginning of the adolescent perception of his environment is the accumulated experiences the
adolescent gathers from the infant stage to the adolescent period. This is a period the adolescent begins to see
things as relative rather than absolute.
Piaget (1966) as contained in Osarenren (2000), observed that it is a period known as formal operational stage (11-15
years) the key patterns of reasoning at this stages combinational, proportional, probabilistic and correlational during
this period, the adolescent reason out everything key perceive in their own way.
Bond (1989) asserted that adolescent with a background of family tension may approach schooling as unhappy and
insecure, those from a culture different from that of the teacher and different from that portrayed in the learning
materials may experience unusual difficulty in learning.
Some adolescents come from a home environment which provides love, understanding, an opportunity to develop
individuality and a feeling of security which others do not. Quarreling parents, broken homes, child neglect, child
abuse, over protection, parental domination, anxiety, hostility and destructive rivalry among siblings are likely to
produce nervous tension and feelings of insecurity and consequently lead to low achievement orientation.
When the behaviour of a low achiever is compared to that of an adolescent making normal progress, it becomes
obvious that there are differences in personal and social adjustment. Adolescent who are failing to achieve well are
more likely to show signs of emotional and social maladjustment than their successful peers. Most adolescent with
low achievement manifest some sort of maladjustment ranging in degree of mild to severe.
In the classroom, adolescent with low achievement manifest symptoms of stress in one way or the other. Often, they
appear shy or restless, some seems unable to concentrate. They lack self-confidence, they become discouraged
easily and tend to give up when work becomes difficult. The inability to achieve satisfactory usually means severe frustration for the adolescent when his unsuccessful attempts to achieve high make him conspicuous in a society
unfavorable way, the adolescent is hurt and ashamed. His continued lack of success with attendant frustration and
feelings of insecurity bring on emotional maladjustment.
Sornson (2002), stated that, some of these adolescent easily become convinced that they are stupid. This feeling of
inadequacy is enhanced by the attitude of their classmates, their parents and their teachers. Sometimes, failure leads
adolescent to become timid, withdrawn and they frequently day dream. Others may compensate for their feelings of
inferiority by developing various forms of anti social behaivour which leads to negative self talk.
Negative statements about self originated from poor conceptualization of idea and thoughts. An individual first think
of something within him before he acts. This is because a thought of an idea is first generated or conceptualized
before one verbalizes or acts it. This thought might be rational or irrational, positive or negative.
The achievement orientation of an adolescent plays back at his thought process which consequently makes that
adolescent make either rational or irrational statement about self which are capable of influencing his behaviour.
Hensen (1997) observed that because man has been endowed with the ability to verbalize, thinking and emotion as
presented by Elis takes the forms of self talk, and this self talk directs the individuals behaviour in either rational or
irrational direction
It is imperative however, that the handicapped who has been tagged with various adjectives like unproductive, totally
dependant, second class citizen, by the society tends to direct his behaviour towards irrational direction and hence
negative self concept, wrong perception of self, poor actualization, poor judgmental value of the ideal self. He makes
distorted statements about self and about others. He is biased about other people’s opinion about him. On the whole,
he is socially maladjusted in the society.
Nelson (1997), asserts that teachers can become more effective classroom managers by increasing their rate of
contingent positive statement for appropriate students behaviour and decreasing the rate of negative statements for
in appropriate students behaviour.
The praise and ignore techniques has been repeatedly demonstrated to be an effective classroom management
procedure by some behaviourist (Becker, Madsen abd Thomas, 1987, Madson and Thomas 1988 )
Nelson (1997), carried out two experiments with classroom teachers, using self-monitoring to alter negative
classroom verbalization. In experiment 1, two teachers self-recorded positive and negative classroom verbalization
during different phase of the study. In experiment 11, four teachers self-recorded positive or negative classroom
verbalizations and received experimental instructions to increase positive statements or to decrease negative
statement the result of their study showed that self-recording tend to increase positive statements but was less
effective in decreasing negative statements.
Merchenbaum (1995), noted that negative self talks contribute to maladaptive behaviour in many situations. He went
further to say that adolescents thinking style or what he says to himself has an important role in the definition of the
present problem. According to Meichanban, investigations who had treated phobias with different treatment procedures have all
suggested that a common mediating mechanism underlying the therapy process is a change in the client’s self
statements. Those who have attempted to reduce phobia behaviour by means of desensitization, modeling, flooding
and altering cognitions about internal reaction have all commented on the change process, even when no direct effort
is made to change these talks.
As Herter (1994), noted the therapy technique which is used to modify the internal dialogue and maladaptive
behaviour in large part depends upon how one views the thinking style. Different conceptualizations leads to different
therapeutic interventions.
Mecichenbaum (1995) also observed that some semantic or cognitive therapists view the negative self. Talks and
poor achievement orientation of the faulty belief system and faulty thinking patterns. It was however concluded that
modeling, behavioural and imagery rehearsal, operant and aversive conditioning and others could be used to modify the adolescent’s self talk and belief systems for positive achievement orientation.
THE INFLUENCE OF SELF TALK ON ACHIEVEMENT ORIENTATION AMONG ADOLESCENTS