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)     

Satiated with belongingness? Effects of acceptance, rejection, and task framing on self-regulatory performance.

Seven experiments showed that the effects of social acceptance and social exclusion on self-regulatory performance depend on the prospect of future acceptance. Excluded participants showed decrements in self-regulation, but these decrements were eliminated if the self-regulation task was ostensibly a diagnostic indicator of the ability to get along with others. No such improvement was found when the task was presented as diagnostic of good health. Accepted participants, in contrast, performed relatively poorly when the task was framed as a diagnostic indicator of interpersonally attractive traits. Furthermore, poor performance among accepted participants was not due to self-handicapping or overconfidence. Offering accepted participants a cash incentive for self-regulating eliminated the self-regulation deficits. These findings provide evidence that the need to belong fits standard motivational patterns: Thwarting the drive intensifies it, whereas satiating it leads to temporary reduction in drive. Accepted people are normally good at self-regulation but are unwilling to exert the effort to self-regulate if self-regulation means gaining the social acceptance they have already obtained. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Need for cognition, task difficulty, and the formation of performance expectancies.

In the present article, the authors analyze how performance expectancies are generated and how they affect actual performance. The authors predicted that task difficulty would affect performance expectancies only when cognitive motivation (i.e., need for cognition [NFC]) and cognitive capacity are high. This should be the case because analyzing task difficulty is a process requiring cognitive capacity as well as cognitive motivation. The findings supported the expected NFC × Difficulty interaction for the formation of performance expectancies (Study 1, Study 2), but only when cognitive capacity was high (Study 2). The authors also predicted that expectancies would affect actual performance only if the task is difficult and if task difficulty is taken into account when the expectancy is generated. This hypothesis was supported: Significant relations between performance expectancies and actual performance were found only for difficult tasks and for participants higher in NFC. Studies 5 and 6 showed clear evidence that the NFC × Difficulty interaction could not be explained by differences in the use of task-specific self-concepts. The findings were robust across academic, social, and physical tasks. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Depressive self-presentation: Beyond self-handicapping.

An experiment was conducted to examine the notion that depressives' responses would reflect a protective self-presentation style (M. G. Hill et al, 1986), the underlying goal of which would be the avoidance of future performance demands and potential losses in self-esteem. In this study, depressed and nondepressed Ss were asked to perform a relatively simple visual–motor task. Half of the depressed and half of the nondepressed Ss were told that if they were successful at the task, they would be asked to perform a 2nd similar task. The remaining Ss were given no such expectation of future performance. We predicted and found that depressed compared with nondepressed Ss strategically failed at the task when presented with the possibility of future performance and further losses in esteem. Moreover, this strategic failure was associated with some costs; depressed, future performance expectancy Ss experienced more discomfort or negative affect as a result of their performance. The relationship between this depressive self-presentation and self-handicapping strategies is discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Consequences of self-handicapping: Effects on coping, academic performance, and adjustment.

Self-handicappers erect impediments to performance to protect their self-esteem. The impediments may interfere with the ability to do well and, as such, may result in poor adjustment. Using a longitudinal design, the present studies examined prospective effects of self-handicapping on coping, academic performance, and several adjustment-related variables (e.g., self-esteem). It was found that, compared to low self-handicappers, high self-handicappers reported higher usage of coping strategies implying withdrawal and negative focus. High self-handicappers performed less well academically, an effect that was mediated in part by poor study habits. Finally, high self-handicapping resulted in poorer adjustment over time, and poorer adjustment resulted in higher self-handicapping over time. These relations are consistent with the idea of a vicious cycle in which self-handicapping and poor adjustment reinforce one another. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-handicapping and defensive pessimism: Exploring a model of predictors and outcomes from a self-protection perspective.

The present study is centrally concerned with self-handicapping and defensive pessimism (comprising defensive expectations and reflectivity), the factors that predict these strategies, and the associations between these strategies and a variety of academic outcomes. Major findings are that task orientation negatively predicts both self-handicapping and defensive expectations and positively predicts reflectivity; uncertain personal control positively predicts defensive expectations, and to a lesser extent, self-handicapping; and an external attributional orientation is positively associated with self-handicapping, and to a lesser extent, defensive expectations. Both self-handicapping and defensive expectations are negatively associated with self-regulation and persistence, whereas reflectivity is positively associated with these outcomes. Students high in self-handicapping received lower end-of-year grades than did students low in self-handicapping and were less likely to be in attendance 1 year later. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

I get by with a little help from my friends: The interaction of chronic pain and organizational support on performance.

The authors conducted three studies to examine the interactive effects of perceived organizational support (POS) and chronic pain on performance outcomes (i.e., effectiveness, work intensity, citizenship behavior, and task performance). After controlling for demographic factors, tenure variables, the number of subordinates, and main effects, the POS ? chronic pain interaction explained criterion variance for perceived effectiveness and citizenship behavior in Study 1; effectiveness, work intensity, and citizenship behavior in Study 2; and supervisor-rated task performance in Study 3. Higher levels of chronic pain were associated with lower levels of performance when coupled with low support, as hypothesized. Conversely, high levels of POS reduced the adverse effects of chronic pain on performance. Contributions, strengths and limitations, and future research directions are provided. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Enhancing the prediction of self-handicapping.

Levels of test anxiety, Type A and Type B coronary-prone behavior, fear of failure, and covert self-esteem were studied as predictors of self-handicapping performance attributions for college women who were placed in either a high- (N?=?49) or low- (N?=?49) evaluative test or task situation. We hypothesized that test anxiety, Type A or Type B level, and their interaction would account for reliable variance in the prediction of self-handicapping. However, we also theorized that underlying high fear of failure and low covert self-esteem would explain the self-handicapping claims of test-anxious and Type A subjects. The results indicated that only high levels of test anxiety and high levels of covert self-esteem were related to women's self-handicapping attributions. (42 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mission possible? The performance of prosocially motivated employees depends on manager trustworthiness.

The authors propose that in mission-driven organizations, prosocially motivated employees are more likely to perform effectively when trust cues enhance their perceptions of task significance. The authors develop and test a model linking prosocial motivation, trust cues, task significance, and performance across 3 studies of fundraisers using 3 different objective performance measures. In Study 1, perceiving managers as trustworthy strengthened the relationship between employees’ prosocial motivation and performance, measured in terms of calls made. This moderated relationship was mediated by employees’ perceptions of task significance. Study 2 replicated the interaction of manager trustworthiness and prosocial motivation in predicting a new measure of performance: dollars raised. It also revealed 3-way interactions between prosocial motivation, manager trustworthiness, and dispositional trust propensity, such that high trust propensity compensated for low manager trustworthiness to strengthen the association between employees’ prosocial motivation and performance. Study 3 replicated all of the previous mediation and moderation findings in predicting initiative taken by professional fundraisers. Implications for work motivation, work design, and trust in organizations are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Emotional costs of inaccurate self-assessments: Both self-effacement and self-enhancement can lead to dejection.

Despite the popularity of the idea in American culture that self-enhancement confers psychological benefits, the evidence for this idea is mixed. In the present research, we tested the contention that overly positive self-assessments could lead to psychological distress. In two correlational studies (Studies 1 and 2), we addressed some previous problems related to the measurement of self-enhancement. By measuring self-enhancement through the discrepancy between self-assessments of relative task performance and actual relative task performance, we found that self-enhancement, like self-effacement, was associated with greater vulnerability to depression. In two subsequent experiments (Studies 3 and 4), we found that leading low (or high) performers to perceive their performance as high (or low) through providing bogus performance feedback produced analogous effects on the magnitude of experienced dejection. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-esteem, self-consciousness, and task performance: Replications, extensions, and possible explanations.

Previous research has suggested that the task performance of low self-esteem individuals (low SEs) is impaired under conditions designed to increase self-focused attention. Task-focusing, rather than self-focusing, manipulations have actually bolstered the achievement of low SEs. The results of the present 2 experiments with 207 undergraduates demonstrated that the performance of low SEs on a concept formation task was affected by a variety of attentional manipulations. As before, task-focusing instructions enhanced and self-focusing stimuli impaired their performance on a concept formation task (Study 1). Similar results were obtained for Ss who scored high (but not for those who scored low) on an individual difference measure of self-consciousness. Study 2 also demonstrated that when the task-focusing manipulation worked, it neutralized the adverse effects of the self-focusing stimulus on the low SEs' performance. Supplementary data suggested that the manipulations generally had their intended effects on attentional focus and that attentional focus influenced performance. (27 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Alcohol consumption as a self-handicapping strategy in women.

Assessed whether women self-handicap with alcohol consumption prior to engaging in a social evaluation task, which may be more relevant to their self-esteem than the intellectual tasks used in past self-handicapping studies on substance use. 113 women (aged 19–32 yrs), who were evaluated as normal drinkers, performed either a solvable or an insolvable social judgment task and then received either success feedback or no feedback. Ss received access to alcoholic and nonalcoholic beverages while awaiting a retest. The study terminated before the retest. The self-handicapping hypothesis that noncontingent success would produce relatively greater alcohol consumption was not supported. Regardless of feedback, insolvable test Ss consumed more alcohol than did solvable test Ss. Findings suggest that the hypothesis may be limited as a general model of alcohol consumption in both sexes. (13 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relationship of core self-evaluations to goal setting, motivation, and performance.

A newly developed personality taxonomy suggests that self-esteem, locus of control, generalized self-efficacy, and neuroticism form a broad personality trait termed core self-evaluations. The authors hypothesized that this broad trait is related to motivation and performance. To test this hypothesis, 3 studies were conducted. Study 1 showed that the 4 dispositions loaded on 1 higher order factor. Study 2 demonstrated that the higher order trait was related to task motivation and performance in a laboratory setting. Study 3 showed that the core trait was related to task activity, productivity as measured by sales volume, and the rated performance of insurance agents. Results also revealed that the core self-evaluations trait was related to goal-setting behavior. In addition, when the 4 core traits were investigated as 1 nomological network, they proved to be more consistent predictors of job behaviors than when used in isolation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Held in contempt: The psychological, interpersonal, and performance consequences of contempt in a work context.

Guided by a social function of emotions perspective, the authors examined a model of the psychological, interpersonal, and performance consequences of contempt in a series of 3 experiments that tested the outcomes of being a recipient of contempt in the work domain. In these experiments, participants engaged in a business strategy simulation with a virtual partner—a computer programmed to give contemptuous and other types of feedback. In Study 1, which examined the task performance and interpersonal outcomes of contempt, recipients of contempt had significantly better task performance but also significantly more interpersonal aggressiveness toward their virtual partners compared with recipients of failure, angry, or neutral feedback. Study 2 examined 3 psychological outcomes mediating the contempt–task performance/aggression relationship: self-esteem, returned feelings of contempt, and activation levels. Lowered levels of implicit self-esteem and greater levels of activation significantly mediated the relationship between receiving contempt and task performance, whereas the contempt–aggression relationship was mediated by lowered implicit self-esteem and increased feelings of returned contempt. Study 3 examined status as a moderator of these relationships. Low-status recipients had significantly better task performance than did equal-status recipients, who performed significantly better than did the high-status recipients of contempt. In addition, low-status recipients displayed significantly lower levels of aggression in response to contempt than did equal-status and high-status recipients. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Perceptual learning style and learning proficiency: A test of the hypothesis.

Given the potential importance of using modality preference with instruction, the authors tested whether learning style preference correlated with memory performance in each of 3 sensory modalities: visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. In Study 1, participants completed objective measures of pictorial, auditory, and tactile learning and learning style self-assessments. The results indicate that objective test performance did not correlate with learning style preference. In Study 2, the authors examined in more detail the information participants used to answer the learning style self-assessment. The findings indicate that participants answered the inventory using general memories and beliefs rather than specific examples of learning in different modalities. These results challenge the hypothesis that individuals learn best with material presented in a particular sensory modality. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Composition, process, and performance in self-managed groups: The role of personality.

Using the five factor model with an emphasis on extraversion and conscientiousness, the authors investigated how personality is related to small group processes and outcomes. Graduate students (N ?=?289) assigned to 4- and 5-person teams in 61 groups engaged in a series of creative problem-solving tasks over a period of several weeks. Extraversion was associated with group processes and outcomes at both individual and group levels of analysis. At the individual level, extraverts were perceived by others as having greater effect than introverts on group outcomes. Covariance structure modeling suggested that extraverts induce these perceptions through the provision of both socioemotional and task-related inputs. At the group level, the proportion of relatively extraverted members was related curvilinearly to task focus and group performance. Contrary to expectations, Conscientiousness was unrelated to processes and outcomes at either the individual or group level. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Collective efficacy, group potency, and group performance: Meta-analyses of their relationships, and test of a mediation model.

The authors examined relationships among collective efficacy, group potency, and group performance. Meta-analytic results (based on 6,128 groups, 31,019 individuals, 118 correlations adjusted for dependence, and 96 studies) reveal that collective efficacy was significantly related to group performance (.35). In the proposed nested 2-level model, collective efficacy assessment (aggregation and group discussion) was tested as the 1st-level moderator. It showed significantly different average correlations with group performance (.32 vs. .45), but the group discussion assessment was homogeneous, whereas the aggregation assessment was heterogeneous. Consequently, there was no 2nd-level moderation for the group discussion, and heterogeneity in the aggregation group was accounted for by the 2nd-level moderator, task interdependence (high, moderate, and low levels were significant; the higher the level, the stronger the relationship). The 2nd and 3rd meta-analyses indicated that group potency was related to group performance (.29) and to collective efficacy (.65). When tested in a structural equation modeling analysis based on meta-analytic findings, collective efficacy fully mediated the relationship between group potency and group performance. The authors suggest future research and convert their findings to a probability of success index to help facilitate practice. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Don't worry, be happy? Neuroticism, trait-consistent affect regulation, and performance.

People regulate their affect either to feel good or to achieve instrumental success. The present experiments show that when driven by performance goals, people can be motivated to experience unpleasant affect when it is trait-consistent, because of its instrumental benefits (e.g., M. Tamir & M. D. Robinson, 2004). In 4 studies, individuals high in neuroticism were more likely than those low in neuroticism to choose to increase their level of worry, as indicated by self-reported preferences (Study 1) and by behavioral choices in experimental settings (Studies 2-4). As predicted, such preferences were evident when expecting to perform demanding tasks but not when expecting an undemanding task (Study 2). Study 4 suggests that such preferences for short-term unpleasant affect may be beneficial to performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Behavioral self-handicaps versus self-reported handicaps: A conceptual note.

An examination of the literature on self-handicapping reveals that the construct has been operationalized in two different ways. Some writers have regarded self-handicapping as a behavioral strategy that would be expected to make success on a task more difficult, thereby augmenting a nonability explanation for failure. Other writers have treated self-handicapping as a verbal claim that one's performance has been handicapped by factors beyond one's control. These two uses of the term are discussed, and recommendations are made regarding ways of resolving the conceptual confusion resulting from using a single term to refer to both phenomena. (28 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Goal orientation and task demand effects on motivation, affect, and performance.

Two studies tested the joint effects of goal orientation and task demands on motivation, affect, and performance, examining different factors affecting task demands. In Study 1 (N?=?199), task difficulty was found to moderate the effect of goal orientation on performance and affect (i.e., satisfaction with performance). In Study 2 (N?≠&189), task consistency was found to moderate the effect of goal orientation on self-efficacy and intrinsic motivation. Results are discussed in relation to self-regulatory processes cued by goal orientations, attentional resource demands, and the need to match goal orientations to the nature of the task. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)