A Comparison between Motivational Structure and Tolerance of Ambiguity and High and Low Socio-economic Condition among Girl Students in Tehran

This research compares motivational structure and tolerance of ambiguity with high and low socio-economic condition among girl students in Tehran. The motivational structure is the persons’ goals and the ways to follow them and is measured by PCI test. The tolerance of ambiguity is the perception and reaction of people to ambiguous conditions and stimuli which is measured by ATS-I test. the sample of this research included sixty students, thirty high school girl students with high socio-economic condition and thirty high school girl students with low socio-economic condition in Tehran. These students were selected by cluster sampling method. Students filled out the PCI and ATS-I questionnaires. The Cronbach α for PCI and ATS-I were 0.81 and 0.77 respectively. The results of t-test showed that there are significant differences between 1) the students’ control to achieve their goals 2) the students’ happiness if they achieve their goals, 3) the students’ unhappiness if they do not achieve their goals, and 4) the students’ tolerance of ambiguity in two groups. However, there are no differences regarding 1) the importance of goals, 2) the possibility of achieving them, 3) students’ awareness of what steps are to be taken to achieve their goals, 4) students’ commitment to achieve goals, 5) the amount of time needed to achieve their goals, 6) their freedom to select their goals, 7) the importance of each goal over the other goals, and 8) the number of their goals. This study also indicated that the adolescents with low socio-economic condition have more control over stressful situations and they experience more joy if they achieve their goals and are more unhappy if they do not achieve them.