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An Examination of the Relative Impact of Assigned Goals and Self‐Efficacy on Personal Goals and Performance Over Time
Author(s) -
Button Scott B.,
Mathieu John E.,
Aikin Kathryn J.
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
journal of applied social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.822
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1559-1816
pISSN - 0021-9029
DOI - 10.1111/j.1559-1816.1996.tb01126.x
Subject(s) - psychology , self efficacy , social psychology , applied psychology , goal pursuit
A model of goal‐setting processes was developed that depicted the influence of previous performance, assigned goals, and self‐efficacy on personal goals and performance. Three levels of assigned goals were manipulated in a counterbalanced fashion across two performance trials. Assigned goals were hypothesized to have a greater influence than self‐efficacy on personal goals for the first trial, whereas efficacy was hypothesized to have a stronger influence than assigned goals on Trial 2 goals. Although the hypothesized model fit fairly well overall, the specific results concerning the relative impact of assigned goal and self‐efficacy were not supported. In general, the observed trends indicated the effects were the opposite of what was expected. Potential explanations for these results and recommendations for future research are offered.