Effect of self-efficacy, goals, and task strategies on task performance.

Manipulated self-efficacy and task strategies in the training of 209 undergraduates under high strategy, low strategy, and control conditions. Ss underwent 5 trials and were administered a self-efficacy scale after each trial. Results show that ability, past performance, and self-efficacy were the major predictors of goal choice. Ability, self-efficacy, goals, and task strategies were related to task performance. Self-efficacy was more strongly related to past performance than to future performance but remained a significant predictor of future performance even when past performance was controlled. Self-efficacy ratings for moderate to difficult levels of performance were the best predictors of future performance; a reanalysis of 2 previous goal-setting studies by the first author confirms this finding. (19 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Achievement goals as predictors of achiement-relevant processes prior to task engagement.

This research comprised 3 studies (2 prospective and 1 short-term longitudinal) designed to investigate mastery, performance-approach, and performance-avoidance goals as predictors of achievement-relevant processes prior to the undergraduate examination experience. Results from across the 3 studies were supportive of the authors' hypotheses and revealed a differential predictive pattern for each of the achievement goals. Mastery goals were linked to numerous positive processes (e.g., challenge appraisals, absorption during preparation), performance-approach goals were linked to a more limited set of positive processes (e.g., challenge appraisals, grade aspirations), and performance-avoidance goals were linked to numerous negative processes (e.g., threat appraisals, anticipatory test anxiety). Implications for the trichotomous achievement goal model and educators are discussed. (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)     

Effects of self- and competitor goals on performance in an interdependent bargaining task.

We investigated the relation between goal specificity and difficulty and performance on an interdependent bargaining task. In all, 102 subjects competed as buyers and sellers in a 25-min market simulation in which each negotiator was assigned either a nonspecific do-your-best objective or a specific easy, moderate, or difficult goal. Results showed that negotiators who were assigned specific, difficult goals were individually more profitable than negotiators who were assigned easier or nonspecific goals. Concerning dyadic performance, nonspecific or easy goals led to compromise agreements. Integrative agreements that benefited both parties to the transaction were facilitated by assigning both negotiators a moderate goal or difficult-moderate disparate goals. When both negotiators had difficult goals, dyadic performance did not approach the integrative level. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The impact of comparison processes on coactors' task performance.

Conducted 2 experiments with 135 female undergraduates to investigate the operation of social comparison processes within coaction. Perceived discrepancies between coactors' performance levels were induced by altering their feedback schedules. An S was paired with a coactor who seemed to be performing either at a superior, inferior, or similar level. The pattern of results suggests that comparison processes are active components within coaction. An expectation/criterion level interpretation is discussed within a social comparison analysis. (20 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Grip strength, level of endurance, and manual task performance.

Examined the feasibility of applying the static strength and endurance relationships suggested in 1960 by W. Rohmert to a simple manual task. Results indicate that there was a relationship between grip strength expenditure and impairments in task performance similar in respect to the static strength and endurance relationships suggested. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Developmental family processes and interparental conflict: Patterns of microlevel influences.

Although there are frequent calls for the study of effects of children on families and mutual influence processes within families, little empirical progress has been made. We address these questions at the level of microprocesses during marital conflict, including children's influence on marital conflict and parents' influence on each other. Participants were 111 cohabiting couples with a child (55 male, 56 female) age 8–16 years. Data were drawn from parents' diary reports of interparental conflict over 15 days and were analyzed with dynamic systems modeling tools. Child emotions and behavior during conflicts were associated with interparental positivity, negativity, and resolution at the end of the same conflicts. For example, children's agentic behavior was associated with more marital conflict resolution, whereas child negativity was linked with more marital negativity. Regarding parents' influence on each other, among the findings, husbands' and wives' influence on themselves from one conflict to the next was indicated, and total number of conflicts predicted greater influence of wives' positivity on husbands' positivity. Contributions of these findings to the understanding of developmental family processes are discussed, including implications for advanced understanding of interrelations between child and adult functioning and development. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Confronting task difficulty in ego involvement: Change in performance goals.

Both Dweck (1986) and Nicholls (1984) proposed that when ego-involved individuals encounter difficulty, they would begin to doubt their level of ability, and as a consequence, their commitment to the goal of demonstrating high ability would decline. As difficulty continued, perceived ability would decline, and eventually the goal would be abandoned. In the present study, the authors tested these predictions utilizing a longitudinal experimental design to assess changes across time in students' perceived ability, achievement goals, performance, and affective reactions as they experienced differing levels of task difficulty in an ego-involving context. College students (N = 156) participated in 3 sessions, each 1 week apart, in which they were given ego-involving instructions and worked on “intelligence test” items. While the average level of difficulty of the session increased progressively in the experimental condition, it remained similar across sessions for the control condition. Results were generally supportive of the original predictions. As the difficulty of the items increased across sessions, students' perceived ability declined and so did their commitment to performance-approach goals, while their endorsement of work-avoidance goals increased. Also consistent with predictions, students experiencing increasing difficulty expressed stronger escapist thoughts, more negative affect, and less positive affect. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

A first examination of the relationships between primed subconscious goals, assigned conscious goals, and task performance.

The authors conducted 2 studies of subconscious goal motivation. First, the authors ran a pilot study to establish the effects of priming of subconscious goals on a performance task frequently used in goal setting research. Second, the authors conducted the main study in which the authors examined the effects of both priming of subconscious goals and assigned conscious goals on the same performance task. The authors found significant main effects of both manipulations and a significant interaction between subconscious and conscious goals. The effects of conscious difficult and do-best goals were enhanced by subconscious goals, although conscious easy goals were not affected. All effects from the main study still held after 1 day. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Individual and group goals when workers are interdependent: Effects on task strategies and performance.

The effects of four different goal setting conditions on the performance of subjects working on an interdependent task were examined. The results indicated that an individual goal condition performed worst when compared with a no specific goal condition, a group goal condition, and an individual plus group goal condition. Questionnaire items assessed feelings of cooperation, competition, and reported task strategies. Behavioral measures also reflected the strategies used. The analyses suggested that task strategies mediated the relationship between goal setting and performance. More specifically, people in the individual goal condition tended to be more competitive and less cooperative than those in the other three conditions. These results are discussed in light of the current research on the effects of goal setting on task strategy development. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relationship of elementary school children's private speech to behavioral accompaniment to task, attention, and task performance.

Tested assumptions drawn from Vygotsky's (1934 [1962]) theory about the development of private speech (PS) and its relationship to task performance, attention, and motor behaviors accompanying task orientation. 75 1st and 3rd graders were observed in their classrooms while engaged in math seatwork. Results show a developmental trend toward increasingly task-relevant and less audible PS and a shifting relationship of intelligence to PS with grade, which was consistent with Vygotsky's assumption that PS undergoes a curvilinear course of development that is governed by cognitive maturity. The relationship of PS to task success, as measured by classroom assignment performance and scores on the mathematics portion of the Stanford Achievement Test, varied with grade and mental ability (Cognitive Abilities Test—Primary Battery). Findings suggest that using the type of PS that is in natural developmental ascendence, given the child's level of intellectual maturity, is positively related to performance, but reverting to less mature forms is negatively predictive. Use of task-relevant PS predicted greater task attentional focus and reduction of extraneous, tension-reducing motor behaviors. Findings support Vygotsky's theory of the functional significance of PS in children's cognitive development and the validity of the theory for children's task-related behaviors in natural classroom learning contexts. (22 ref) (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)     

Impact of group goals, task component complexity, effort, and planning on group performance.

Tested a model asserting that goal difficulty and task component complexity influence group performance by affecting the effort exerted by group members, the amount and quality of their planning, and the timing of their planning (preplanning vs in-process planning). Hypotheses derived from this model were tested in a 2?×?2 experimental design. 56 groups of 4 students each worked for 15 min building Tinkertoy structures. Results show that group-goal difficulty influenced group performance through effort; task component complexity influenced performance through the amount of planning performed by group members and the level of effort invested in their work; and the quality of the group's planning process also influenced group performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Understanding perceptual processes: Responses to a weight-illusion task.

In two studies, children and adults were presented with a weight illusion based on perceptual adaptation or contrast effects, in which one of two containers of equal weights felt heavier than the other. Of major concern were developmental trends in the extent to which Ss erroneously maintained that the perceived difference represented a real difference, versus one in appearance, and the extent to which cues alerting Ss to past adaptationlike experiences would affect their understanding of the illusion. Results showed improved performance, with increases in age and the effectiveness of cuing about previous adaptation experiences, but only after the task was altered to highlight the relevance of the condition that produced the illusion. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Addressees of performance goals.

As performance goals aim to both procure acknowledgment of one's abilities and to avoid revealing a lack of one's abilities, the authors hypothesized that students hold specific performance goals for different addressees and that there are specific correlational patterns with other motivational constructs. They analyzed a data set of 2,675 pupils (1,248 boys and 1,426 girls) attending Grades 8 and 9 (mean age=15.0, SD=0.97). The students completed a questionnaire consisting of 12 items measuring performance approach goals and 12 items measuring performance avoidance goals. In each subset, 4 groups of addressees were differentiated: parents, teachers, peers, and the acting individual him/herself. Additionally, several external criteria were measured. The authors concurrently tested theory-driven, structural equation models. Incorporating all 24 items, the best-fitting model was a multitrait-multimethod model, which posited 2 factors for approach and avoidance goals and 4 addressee factors. While performance goals addressing parents showed relationships to maladaptive motivational and learning patterns, performance goals addressing classmates and self showed relationships to adaptive motivational and learning patterns. The relationships between performance goals addressing teachers and external criteria were rather weak and unsystematic. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relationship of internal-external control to work motivation and performance in an expectancy model.

Conducted a study of 80 officer and 127 enlisted Naval personnel to investigate the hypotheses that internality (perception of much control) is positively related to (a) the concept of instrumentality from expectancy theory, (b) work motivation as measured by ratings and by expectancy theory measures, (c) job performance as measured by ratings, and (d) rank. These hypotheses were confirmed at or beyond the .05 significance level. A multitrait-multirater matrix showed convergent but no discriminant validity for ratings by supervisors, peers, and the Ss themselves on the Ss' job effort and performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Dyadic performance on two tasks as a function of task difficulty, work strategy, and member ability.

Replicated the manipulation of divided and shared labor used in previous studies by the present author (see PA, Vol 49:1265 and Vol 51:2005), while varying task difficulty and member ability in order to examine their combined effects upon dyadic performance on 2 tasks: analogies and crossword puzzles. Ss were 72 US Army enlisted men; 54 had a mean of 12.4 yrs of education, and 18 were technicians with a mean of 3.6 yrs of higher education. Dividing labor was found to be more efficient in terms of man-hours to a performance criterion, but sharing labor was more effective (i.e., it produced greater total performance). The efficiency effect was more pronounced on the analogies tasks, while the effectiveness findings were more pronounced on the crossword puzzles. Results occurred across task difficulty and group ability. The hypothesis that task difficulty would indicate the importance of ability redundancy on group performance was not supported. Differences in the performance curves for the 2 tasks are discussed in terms of the role of feedback regarding the adequacy of a response to the task. It is suggested that a distinction be made between task difficulty and task complementarity when considering the effects of ability redundancy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Contribution of cognitive abilities to performance and improvement on a substitution coding task.

Age-related performance variance on substitution coding tests has been found to account for much of the age-related variance in tests of fluid and other abilities, leading to the conclusion that cognitive decline is due to slowing. Although it is an easy task, which could easily be performed accurately given adequate time, the substitution coding task is not a pure measure of cognitive speed. Evidence from growth curve analyses involving 3,708 volunteers (49–95 years of age) from the Manchester and Newcastle Studies of Cognitive Aging (P. Rabbitt, C. Donlan, N. Bent, L. McInnes, & V. Abson, 1993) indicates that, with practice on this task, improvement is related more to memory than to age, reasoning, vocabulary, or perceptual speed. In other words, faster performances are related primarily to memory. Operational similarities between speeded measures and measures of higher order abilities, which weaken the argument for causal relationships, are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Influence of information, choice and task complexity upon goal acceptance, performance, and personal goals.

Tested the hypothesis that information about a goal and/or task, choice in setting a strategy to achieve a goal, and task complexity interact to influence goal acceptance, personal goals, and performance. A laboratory experiment with 96 college students working on a class-scheduling task was used to test the hypothesis. The task consisted of producing mock class schedules consisting of 5 nonredundant classes. The Ss were assigned to either high-information, choice manipulation, or task-complexity conditions. Ss were administered a questionnaire assessing goal acceptance, personal goals, and performance prior to and on completion of the task. Results of 3-way ANOVA conducted on measures of goal acceptance, personal goals, and performance supported the hypotheses that choice in goal-setting and the provision of information interact as do information and task complexity. A 2nd study conducted to generalize these findings also supported the hypotheses. In the 2nd study, 40 animal caregivers (average age 28 yrs) were participants in a replication of the laboratory experiment with task complexity as a repeated-measures factor. Findings are discussed as a means of expanding the position of participation within the goal-setting model. (15 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reflections on conceptual tempo: Relationship between cognitive style and performance as a function of task characteristics.

Reflectives have been shown to outperform impulsives on tasks that require a cautious, systematic approach. A study was conducted to determine whether reflectives, particularly high-anxious reflectives, would show superior performance on speeded tasks; i.e., whether they would exhibit flexibility vs continued caution at the expense of performance. 46 male and 54 female 4th graders, selected by their scores on the Test Anxiety Scale for Children and the Lie Scale for Children as being reflective and impulsive, high and low anxious, were presented with speeded tasks of increasing difficulty. Results reveal that contrary to prediction, high-anxious reflectives performed as well as low-anxious reflectives and both were generally faster and more accurate than impulsives. Only for girls on the most difficult task was there evidence that reflection in combination with high anxiety resulted in overly cautious behavior and impaired performance. Results suggest a definition of cognitive style that stresses the strategy used rather than the disposition for long or short decision times. In addition, a model is proposed to predict the relative speed and accuracy of reflectives and impulsives as a function of the strategy required and the degree of intertrial transfer on the task. (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)