Motivation for Choosing Studies Among Psychology Students, Foreign Languages Students and Their Life Satisfaction

As factors that significantly influence students to choose psychology studies, sources often cite the need to help others and the desire to understand people and their behaviour in the literature. One of the reasons for choosing a study program is generally pragmatic reasons. On a smaller sample of students that consisted of students studying psychology and students studying foreign languages (N = 158), we investigated whether could identify three types of motivation for choosing a study based on the three needs mentioned (needs to help others, needs to understand people and their behaviour, and pragmatic needs). Motivation for the choice of study was measured with a self-constructed scale, while life satisfaction was measured with the Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS). In psychology students we identified all three types of motivation, while in foreign language students we identified pragmatist motivation for choice of studies and the other two components of motivation did not appear as separate factors, but formed one factor. Life satisfaction was unrelated with any type of motivation among psychology students, and in the other group of students it showed a slight correlation with pragmatic motivation. In pragmatist motivation, the difference between the two subsamples of students was not registered, while in life satisfaction it was. Psychology students showed higher life satisfaction.