Achievement Goals, Task Performance, and Interest: Why Perceived Goal Difficulty Matters
- 1 December 2005
- journal article
- research article
- Published by SAGE Publications in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
- Vol. 31 (12), 1739-1753
- https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167205281128
Abstract
In field studies, mastery goals, which focus on developing skill, often predict task interest but not actual performance. Performance-approach goals, which focus on outperforming others, instead often predict strong performance but not interest. Two experiments tested the hypothesis that these distinct goal effects trace to goal difficulty perceptions. In each study, participants assigned to a performance-approach goal perceived their goal to be harder, and therefore felt more performance pressure, than those assigned to a mastery goal. Among participants low in dispositional achievement orientation, this experience translated into lower task interest when pursuing the performanceapproach goal. However, participants in both studies also performed the activity better when pursuing this goal instead of a standard mastery goal, although this was not mediated by selfreported goal difficulty perceptions. Finally, further demonstrating the role of goal difficulty, a mastery goal manipulated to appear more difficult than a standard mastery goal produced effects matching the performance-approach goal.Keywords
This publication has 48 references indexed in Scilit:
- Approach and avoidance motivation and achievement goalsEducational Psychologist, 1999
- The Joint Effects of Target and Purpose Goals on Intrinsic Motivation: A Mediational AnalysisPersonality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 1998
- Rethinking achievement goals: When are they adaptive for college students and why?Educational Psychologist, 1998
- Beyond a Two-Goal Theory of Motivation and Achievement: A Case for Social GoalsReview of Educational Research, 1995
- Winning is Not Enough: The Effects of Competition and Achievement Orientation on Intrinsic InterestPersonality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 1992
- Enhancing Student Motivation: A Schoolwide ApproachEducational Psychologist, 1991
- A social-cognitive approach to motivation and personality.Psychological Review, 1988
- Intrinsic motivation as influenced by task interdependence and goal setting.Journal of Applied Psychology, 1988
- Children's preference for challenge: The role of perceived competence and control.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1988
- Effects of externally mediated goal setting on intrinsic motivation: A laboratory experiment.Journal of Applied Psychology, 1980