A closer look at level of aspiration as a training procedure: A reanalysis of Fryer's data.

On the basis of a study of Morse Code learning, Fryer claimed support for his hypothesis that having Ss set levels of aspiration would lead to a higher performance level than giving knowledge of score alone. The present writer reanalyzed Fryer's data to test the hypothesis that the superiority of the level-of-aspiration procedure would depend upon the level at which the goals were set. In 3 of 4 comparisons it was found that Ss who set high goals performed better than Ss who set low goals and better than Ss given knowledge of score alone. There were no significant differences between Ss who set low goals and Ss given knowledge of score alone. A qualification of Fryer's hypothesis, taking account of these facts, was therefore proposed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relation of goal level to performance with a short work period and multiple goal levels.

Conducted a 1-min goal-setting experiment with 247 undergraduates assigned to 14 goal levels. Ss had to think of uses for common objects within their 1 min. A significant curvilinear relationship was found between goal level and performance level. Goals were linearly related to performance when the goals ranged from easy to difficult but were unrelated to performance after goals became impossible. Performance, however, did not drop as goals reached impossible levels, since nearly all Ss were at least trying to get as close as they could to the goal. Variance in mean performance was positively related to goal level across the entire range of goal levels. Ability was unrelated to performance within the easy to difficult goal range but was significantly related to ability within the impossible goal range. (7 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's understanding of social anxiety.

202 2nd, 4th, and 7th graders evaluated story characters who were either highly or less motivated to impress an audience and had either high or low expectations of being able to accomplish their self-presentational goals. As predicted according to a self-presentation model of social anxiety, both factors were related to judgments of the character's social anxiety, especially for the older Ss. For all age groups, actors who expected to do poorly rather than well were regarded as more anxious, as more likely to exhibit nervous responses and to have communication difficulties, and as less likely to be successful in accomplishing their goal; they were also evaluated less favorably. The actor's motivation had different effects on younger and older Ss; 2nd graders attributed less anxiety to highly motivated actors, whereas older Ss attributed greater anxiety to them. For all age groups, high motivation was expected to have a channeling effect on behaviors that would increase interpersonal effectiveness. A finding that was consistent with the literature on social-cognitive development was that older Ss displayed greater differentiation in their cause–effect inferences and that they better appreciated the complex implications of social anxiety. (20 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of assigned versus participatively set goals, knowledge of results, and individual differences on employee behavior when goal difficulty is held constant.

In Exp I, 60 female clerical workers were randomly assigned to participative, assigned, and "do best" goal conditions on a clerical test. Specific goals led to higher performance than did the "do best" goals. With goal difficulty held constant, there was no significant difference between the assigned and participative conditions on performance or goal acceptance. Goal attainment, however, was higher in the assigned condition than it was in the participative condition. No main or interaction effects were found for knowledge of results (KR) or for individual difference measures with performance or goal acceptance. However, high self-esteem Ss who received KR attained their goals more often than did Ss with low self-esteem when the goals were participatively set. Exp II was conducted with 28 employees from the same sample in a performance-appraisal setting over an 8-mo period. Assigned goals resulted in higher performance and greater goal acceptance than participatively set goals. There was a positive linear relationship between goal difficulty and performance in the participative condition only. (10 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of prior group memberships on subsequent reconnaissance activities.

1,134 college freshmen completed an orientation questionnaire assessing their experiences in high school groups and expectations about college groups. 220 Ss were also interviewed later about their behavior toward campus groups at an activities fair. Ss whose experiences in high school groups were more positive tried harder to identify potentially desirable college groups, primarily because they believed that belonging to such groups would be useful for achieving personal goals. Ss with prior experience in relevant high school groups used that experience to evaluate similar college groups and thus made more realistic (less optimistic) evaluations of those groups than did Ss without prior experience. Among Ss who wanted to join a college group, those who had belonged to a relevant high school group behaved differently at the activities fair than did those who had not. Ss with prior experience were more likely to approach their chosen group at the activities fair and to avoid other groups there of a similar sort. (52 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Perspective taking and self-awareness: Drawing an E on your forehead.

Self-awareness theory assumes that individuals direct their attention outward or back on themselves as a function of characteristics of the situation. Taking this theory literally, it was hypothesized that Ss taking a self-focused perspective would draw a capital letter E on their forehead such that the E would be oriented for the external perspective of an observer. Ss' whose attention was directed outward would draw an E that would appear backward to another person. As hypothesized, in 3 experiments with 175 female undergraduates, Ss in high self-focus conditions significantly more often than low self-focus Ss drew an E on their forehead oriented toward the perspective of an outside observer, even though they believed they could not be observed by anyone else. Self-focus was induced using a video camera placed either to the side of the S (Exp I) or behind the S (Exp II), where it could not record how the E was drawn. In Exp III, an audiotape recorder was used to induce self-focused attention. The results demonstrate that an external, reflexive visual perspective could be induced by an auditory self-focusing manipulation. Furthermore, in Exp III, when situationally induced self-focus was low, Ss who were high in public self-consciousness (as measured by the Self-Consciousness Scale) were more likely to draw the E from an external perspective than were Ss low in public self-consciousness. Degree of private self-consciousness was unrelated to perspective taking. (13 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Liking for the group and the perceived merit of the group's behavior.

Paris of Ss were told, individually, that their partners were congenial and they would probably like them (high like), or the converse (low like). Ss were then separated and given an artillery gunnery problem in which they were to judge the accuracy of their "observer's" range estimates. Both Ss in each pair thought the other 3 was the "observer," which was actually a taped recording piped to each S. High like Ss judged their "observer's" estimates as more accurate than low like Ss. Ss who had been led to believe that they had "observers" of high proficiency in range estimates tended to judge the estimate as more accurate than when they had low proficiency "observers." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effect of previously assigned goals on self-set goals and performance.

[Correction Notice: An erratum for this article was reported in Vol 70(2) of Journal of Applied Psychology (see record 2008-10965-001). The third line was left out on p. 696, top right column. The entire section should read as follows: "Figure 1 compares the goals on T-1 with the mean goals chosen on T-2 by the same groups of subjects (i.e., grouped according to T-1 goals). On T-2 the mean goal levels of the seven original groups ranged from 4.8 to 12.9, in contrast with the T-1 range of 2 to 26."] 231 undergraduates were asked to list from 2–26 uses for common objects depending on the level of difficulty of the section (1 of 7) to which they were assigned. Ss were given a 1-min practice trial after task explanations and were then administered 2 experimental trials. Ss were told they were free to change their goals to a higher or lower level for the 2nd trial if they did not like the goal they had been assigned. Results show that Ss chose more difficult goals, if the assigned goals had been easy, and easier goals, if the assigned goals had been difficult. Ss were heavily influenced in their self-set goals by their previously assigned goals. The performance of Ss with impossible goals did not drop on the 2nd trial. A goal–expectancy interaction was found on the 2nd trial that was due to expectancy being positively related to performance at the higher but not the lower goal levels. (8 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Uncertainty orientation, the self, and others: Individual differences in values and social comparison.

97 undergraduates completed materials from which uncertainty orientation was assessed. Several months later, 60 of the Ss were asked to complete an abbreviated version of G. W. Allport and P. E. Vernon's (1931) values survey. Subsequently, they were shown their scores and permitted to view as many comparison scores as they wished. Uncertainty-oriented Ss (UCOSs) viewed more comparison scores than did certainty-oriented Ss (COSs). This occurred regardless of whether they believed that the scores came from a similar (student) or dissimilar (community) sample or of how important the specific value was to them. UCOSs also scored higher than COSs in theoretical and aesthetic values on the values survey, reflecting an interest in trying to understand one's world. COSs scored higher in religious values. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Some characteristics in affiliation motivation.

151 students in Officer Candidate School were given a measure of affiliation motivation. (1) Increased affiliation cues in the environment increase the level of both goal oriented and threat oriented responses. (2) Popularity is unrelated to level of affiliation motivation but does determine the extent to which the S is goal or threat oriented. (3) Those Ss with high internal affiliation motivation are more responsive to external affiliation cues than are Ss with low internal motivation. (4) Those Ss with high affiliation motivation tend to estimate their popularity level more accurately and to estimate it higher than Ss with low affiliation motivation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Believing another likes or dislikes you: Behaviors making the beliefs come true.

Tested the idea that when target persons believe that a perceiver has a general negative evaluation of them, especially after a personal encounter, the targets would be unlikely to believe that the perceiver's behavior can be modified easily, resulting in an expectancy confirmation. This expectancy confirmation should occur regardless of the target's self-perceptions. 60 undergraduates participated in a 2 (expectancy [like or dislike])?×?2 (role [perceiver or target])?×?2 (self-likability [high or low]) factorial study. Results show that falsely leading Ss to believe that another liked or disliked them led Ss to be actually liked or disliked. Ss who believed they were liked after a personal encounter self-disclosed more, disagreed less, expressed dissimilarity less, and had a more positive tone of voice and general attitude than Ss who believed they were disliked. These behaviors led to reciprocal behaviors on the part of the other. No differences were obtained in number of conversations initiated, compliments, eye gaze, forward leaning, or placement of the chair. Being liked was also correlated with self-disclosure, expressions of similarity and dissimilarity, voice tone, and general attitude. Perceived self-likability was correlated with the belief that one was liked and tended to be correlated with actually being liked. (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"Effect of previously assigned goals on self-set goals and performance": Correction to Locke, Frederick, Buckner, and Bobko.

Reports an error in "Effect of previously assigned goals on self-set goals and performance" by Edwin A. Locke, Elizabeth Frederick, Elizabeth Buckner and Philip Bobko (Journal of Applied Psychology, 1984[Nov], Vol 69[4], 694-699). The third line was left out on p. 696, top right column. The entire section should read as follows: "Figure 1 compares the goals on T-1 with the mean goals chosen on T-2 by the same groups of subjects (i.e., grouped according to T-1 goals). On T-2 the mean goal levels of the seven original groups ranged from 4.8 to 12.9, in contrast with the T-1 range of 2 to 26." (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 1985-08583-001.) 231 undergraduates were asked to list from 2–26 uses for common objects depending on the level of difficulty of the section (1 of 7) to which they were assigned. Ss were given a 1-min practice trial after task explanations and were then administered 2 experimental trials. Ss were told they were free to change their goals to a higher or lower level for the 2nd trial if they did not like the goal they had been assigned. Results show that Ss chose more difficult goals, if the assigned goals had been easy, and easier goals, if the assigned goals had been difficult. Ss were heavily influenced in their self-set goals by their previously assigned goals. The performance of Ss with impossible goals did not drop on the 2nd trial. A goal–expectancy interaction was found on the 2nd trial that was due to expectancy being positively related to performance at the higher but not the lower goal levels. (8 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Group decisions as social inference heuristics.

Three experiments investigated whether people use group decision outcomes as heuristic cues to judge group members' attitudes. In Experiment 1, Ss read a vignette in which a group's decision either was explicitly stated or in which Ss were compelled to infer the decision from other relevant information. It was hypothesized that Ss would be more likely to use the group decision outcome as an inference heuristic when the outcome was provided for them than when they were forced to generate that outcome. The results confirmed our hypothesis. In Experiment 2, a group decision was presented to Ss for whom the decision was either high or low in personal relevance. The results showed that Ss displayed a stronger correspondence bias for group decisions low in personal relevance than for ones high in personal relevance. Moreover, the decision outcome was better remembered over time than other decision-relevant information. Experiment 3 replicated this result for a nondichotomous decision outcome and also found that the more likely Ss were to remember the outcome over time, the more correspondent their inferences became. These and other data are shown to support a heuristic model of the social inference process. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social presence, facial feedback, and emotion.

To test whether facial expressions regulate the expressers' emotional experience, 59 high school and college students smelled pleasant and disgusting odors while reacting to them spontaneously, with a facial pose indicating that the odors were pleasant, or with a facial pose indicating that they were disgusting. In a result that supported the facial feedback hypothesis, Ss evaluated the odors consistently with their facial poses, but the odors themselves had a far greater impact on evaluations than did posing instructions. To test whether spontaneous and deceptive emotional expressions would be more effective as communication if the expresser were in the presence of another rather than alone, Ss smelled odors when they were alone or when seated next to another naive S who could not see them. Contrary to prediction, Ss were less successful facial communicators in the presence of another, as assessed by 7 undergraduate judges. In this condition they communicated their evaluations less when they were spontaneously reacting to the odors and leaked their evaluations more when they were trying to hide their expressions. (38 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Protestant work ethic and reactions to negative performance evaluations on a laboratory task.

Conducted 2 experiments in which male college students scoring high on the Protestant Ethic (PE) Scale performed better on repetitive, digit-copying tasks than those scoring low. In Exp I, 84 Ss told by the experimenter that they were doing well improved their performance regardless of their PE endorsement; when told that they were doing poorly, the performance of high PEs improved and low PEs declined. In Exp II, 72 Ss were told that their performance level was lower than their co-workers', but that their co-workers' superiority would bring them an unearned reward. High PE Ss performed at a high level and felt neutral about the task; low PE Ss performed poorly and liked the task, suggesting that they welcomed the unearned reward. Findings indicate that reactions to negative performance evaluations are moderated by endorsement of the Protestant work ethic. (19 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Expectancy theory prediction of the goal theory postulate, "The harder the goals, the higher the performance."

Goal theory postulates that harder goals lead to higher performance than do easier goals. The present study tested the prediction, based on expectancy valence theory, that this would be true only if the payoff for succeeding at the harder goal is sufficiently greater than the alternatives to compensate for its greater difficulty. 63 undergraduates were each given an easy and a hard task/goal, requiring the comparison of paired sets of 3-digit numbers. Expectancy theory measures for the 2 goals were obtained from Ss. Performance was higher for the hard goal than for the easy goal, supporting the goal theory postulate. Force was also higher for the hard goal than for the easy goal. In addition, force change across the 2 goals was associated with performance change, supporting the conclusion that expectancy valence theory can predict the goal theory postulate. The valence of goal attainment was higher for the hard goal than for the easy goal. Valence change across the 2 goals was associated with performance change to a greater degree than was expectancy change, suggesting that the attained performance difference can be attributed to the valence difference. (10 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effects of goal setting and group size on performance in a social dilemma.

Examined the effect of self-set personal and assigned group goal setting on an individual's behavior in 3- and 7-person groups confronted with a social dilemma. 274 Ss earned between $1.82 and $4.94 by investing money in either a personal account or a group account. Self-set personal goals that were compatible with an assigned group goal led to higher group performance than self-set incompatibly high ("greedy") personal goals. Collective-efficacy in making money, outcome expectancies that cooperation with others leads to the attainment of the group's goal, and group goal commitment correlated positively with group performance. Ss in 7-person groups (N?=?28) were less cooperative than those in 3-person groups (N?=?26). Ss in 7-person groups had lower collective-efficacy, lower outcome expectancies, and lower commitment to the group goal than did Ss in 3-person groups. Furthermore, individual performance in 7-person groups was significantly lower than individual performance in 3-person groups. A social dilemma appears to be a boundary condition for the normally positive effect of group goal setting on group performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The roles of rater goals and ratee performance levels in the distortion of performance ratings.

The goal-directed perspective of performance appraisal suggests that raters with different goals will give different ratings. Considering the performance level as an important contextual factor, we conducted 2 studies in a peer rating context and in a nonpeer rating context and found that raters do use different rating tactics to achieve specific goals. Raters inflated their peer ratings under the harmony, fairness, and motivating goal conditions (Study 1, N = 103). More important, raters inflated their ratings more for low performers than for high and medium performers. In a nonpeer rating context, raters deflated ratings for high performers to achieve the fairness goal, and they inflated ratings for low performers to motivate them (Study 2, N = 120). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Distinction between places and paths in rats' spatial representations.

Rats were trained on a 3-dimensional, 4-arm radial maze. In Exp 1, Ss trained to climb to the single goal platform chose fewer novel routes to the goal than Ss trained to climb to the 4 spatially distinct platforms. In Exp 2, a reinforcement contingency was imposed, requiring a novel route choice on each trial to receive reinforcement. Learning to associate route choice with reinforcement outcome was much more difficult for Ss tested with the single goal than for Ss tested with the 4 distinct goals. In Exp 3, a partitioned central platform group learned the reinforcement contingency as quickly as the Ss given 4 spatially distinct platforms. In Exp 4, distinctive floor inserts did not affect performance relative to no inserts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)