Abstract
“Whoever has the most toys when he dies, wins“ reads a T-shirt that is extremely popular with the membership of a prestigious, exclusive men’s health club. The businessmen, doctors, and lawyers who sport these shirts are regularly accused of acting like immature boys----advertising their endorsement of a materialistic world-view, more appropriate to a sandbox than an executive suite. Yet few of these men would deny their privately held belief that the extent of one’s material holdings relative to one’s peers is the dominant, if not sole, determinant of success.
All excellent things are as difficult as they are rare.
Spinoza
There could be no honor in a sure success....
T. E. Lawrence
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Festinger, L., “A Theory of Social Comparison Processes,” Human Relations, 1954, pp. 117–140.
Huber, R. M., The American Idea of Success (New York: McGraw—Hill, 1971), p. 1.
Korda, M., Success! (New York: Random House, 1977), p. 237.
Blumenthal, M., “Ten Routes to the American Dream,” Time Magazine, July 8, 1985, p. 58.
Korda, p. 237.
Mandell, J., “The Pillsbury Doughboy,” Esquire, May 1985, p. 124.
Berglas, S., and Jones, E. E., “Drug Choice as a Self-Handicapping Strategy in Response to Noncontingent Success,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1978, 36, 405–417.
Bartlett, J., Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, 15th and 125th Anniversary Edition (Boston: Little, Brown, 1982), p. 637, No. 13.
Huber, p. 2.
See the definition of prestige offered by Goode, W. J., The Celebration of Heroes: Prestige as a Social Control System (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978), p. 7.
Ross, R., and Van Den Haag, E., The Fabric of Society, 1957, p. 750.
Bendix, R., and Lipset, S. N., Class, Status and Power, 2nd Edition (New York: Free Press, 1966).
Franklin, B., Autobiography and Other Writings, R. B. Nye, Ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1958), with specific quotations derived from the Introduction prepared by R. B. Nye.
Hollingshead, A. B., Elmtown’s Youth (New York: Wiley, 1949), p. 450.
Huber, p. 7.
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1986 Steven Berglas
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Berglas, S. (1986). Expanding the Definition of Success. In: The Success Syndrome. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-6303-1_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-6303-1_2
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
Print ISBN: 978-0-306-42349-9
Online ISBN: 978-1-4899-6303-1
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive