GOALS AND INTENTIONS AS DETERMINANTS OF PERFORMANCE LEVEL, TASK CHOICE AND ATTITUDES.
Abstract
Twenty laboratory experiments and 2 field studies were carried out to explore the relationship of goals and intentions to level of performance on tasks, task choice, and liking for, and interest in the task. The results indicated that: (1) hard goals led to a higher level of performance than easy goals and to a higher performance level than a goal of 'do your best'; (2) incentives such as knowledge of score, money, and time limits did not affect performance level independently of S's goals; (3) there was a significant relationship between behavioral intentions and choice behavior and there was no effect of monetary incentives on choice independently of S's behavioral intentions; (4) overall task liking and satisfaction with performance were positive, linear functions of the number of successes achieved on the task; further, the amount of satisfaction attained from a given success was greater when: S had expended the most effort to achieve it; when S succeeded in less time than usual; and when success followed other successes rather than a series of failures; (5) specific hard goals produced more task interest than a goal of 'do your best' (this difference was enhanced if the experiment lasted more than 2 hours); ((6) there was no relationship between task liking or interest and performance or performance improvement; both liking and performance were determined by the nature and difficulty of the individual's goal, rather than by each other. (Author)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 1967
- Accession Number
- AD0646392
Entities
People
- Edwin A. Locke
- Judith F. Bryan
Organizations
- American Institutes for Research