REMAINING AND COMPLETED ACTIONS OF GOAL-SETTING AND
EFFECTS ON ACHIEVEMENT, SELF-EFFICACY, AND SELF-ESTEEM
A Report of a Senior Study
by
Delaney Marie Cornelius
Major: Psychology
Maryville College
Fall, 2012
Date Approved________________, by _______________________
Faculty Supervisor
Date Approved________________, by _______________________
Editor
ABSTRACT
Goal-setting theory has shown that goal achievements are important for attitude, wellbeing, and later work. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of looking at
remaining and completed tasks from set goals over a period of three months and the
effects on goal achievement, entrepreneurial self-efficacy, and self-esteem. Participants
volunteered from a financial services business operation. A permutation resampling was
run on the data, and the difference in entrepreneurial self-efficacy was marginally
significant between individuals in the remaining and completed tasks. Qualitative results
showed that more research could be done on the differences in the response length and
emotion of the two variables. Overall, the study was unsuccessful in showing a
significant difference, but further research could be done to examine a larger sample size
over a shorter period of time. This research helps raise new questions concerning
techniques of goal-setting.
iii TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
Chapter I
Introduction
1
Chapter II
Method
23
Chapter III
Results
27
Chapter IV
Discussion
31
Appendices
43
References
55
iv CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
Goal-setting theory is a relatively new subject in the field of psychology. The
study of goal-setting began in the 1950s when McClelland, Atkinson, Clark, & Lowell
(as cited in Locke & Latham, 2002) argued that humans had internal motivations but
believed these motivations were subconscious. Twenty years later, Ryan (as cited in
Locke & Latham) maintained that these motivations were conscious intentions called
first-level explanatory concepts which led to most human action. With this theory,
psychologists began studying goal-setting research in various settings including academic
performance and the workplace. Through goal-setting research, psychologists have found
evidence of goal hierarchies in which goals build on one another, achievement
differences in goal pursuit when considering temporal distance to a goal, and personality
differences in goal orientations. Further research (Bandura & Cevone, 1983; Corker &
Donnellan, 2012; Lee & Liu, 2009) has also focused on boundary goals or the lowest
level of acceptable performance, the effects of feedback on individual goal-setting and
self-regulation, and the application of goal-setting to the workplace.
1 Goal Ladders
Personal goals are often arranged in a goal hierarchy or goal ladder. According to
Masuda, Kane, Shoptaugh, and Minor (2010), there are three different levels in a goal
hierarchy. Peak goals are the eventual goals that a person has for different areas of his or
her life including career, family, and any other aspects. In order to achieve peak goals,
individuals have distal goals which are stepping stone goals towards their ultimate goals.
Proximal goals are closely related to distal goals; distal goals are further away than
proximal goals but still only constitute a step towards a peak goal. A distal goal depends
upon the context of the proximal goal. For example, an individual’s peak goal might be to
become a doctor. In order to achieve this specific peak goal, a person may strive to
graduate with honors from an undergraduate program, which is a proximal goal, and the
distal goal might include to get accepted to a highly ranked medical school. In this way,
individuals view the goals that are closer differently than those that are far away. Below
distal and proximal goals are task goals, such as making straight A’s, which encourage an
individual to keep pursuing higher goals. When a person defines this goal, they start to
discover different strategies that not only help them accomplish the task but also help
them for the future.
The attainment of a task goal allows for self-regulation and feedback that then
allows a person to alter or come up with new strategies to continue pursuing proximal
goals (Masuda et al., 2010). One way of viewing the relationship between peak and distal
goals is personal vision. Personal vision allows a person to purposefully more forwards
towards his peak or ultimate goals. In the study, a student’s commitment to the semesterlong goals that they set was related to their personal vision. The more challenging and
2 direct a student’s personal vision, the more likely he was to accomplish goals, stick to
them, and put effort towards accomplishing them. The study also suggested that
commitment to distal goals was affected most by higher-order goals. Personal vision also
contributed to overall goal difficulty. This supports a logically connected goal system; if
a higher-order goal is more difficult, then other proximal goals that are important to the
development of ultimate fulfillment also become harder. Furthermore, individuals who
have a distinct idea of their ultimate ten year goal lead to more challenging and more
vivid personal visions.
With each progressive subgoal that is achieved, a person becomes closer to
achieving his or her peak goal. According to Heath, Larrick, and Wu (1999), through
subgoals, individuals are more sensitive to progress than those with only one peak goal.
Attainable proximal goals lead to greater chances of ultimate success. By breaking a peak
goal up, people are able to track their success through small steps. As individuals
progress, they must decide whether they would prefer to stay at their current level or
move up to a more advanced level in whatever they are trying to accomplish. Individuals’
goal attainment differs when they regard completed versus remaining goals (Koo &
Fishbach, 2010). In the study, the researchers discriminated between the enjoyment of the
goal experience versus incentives to make progress and move on to bigger goals; this
difference between engagement or progress depended on the goal and the individual.
When an individual focuses on actions that they have already completed, the value of
their current goal increases, but focusing on remaining actions leads the person to strive
to move up to a higher level. The more satisfied a person is with his current goal pursuit,
the weaker his desire to move up to a higher level of achievement. Also, the more an
3 individual focuses on remaining actions the higher his aspirations, dedication to more
difficult tasks, and desire to progress to a higher level. When people expect to move up to
a higher level, they spontaneously monitor their remaining actions.
Another approach to subgoals is through the prospect theory value function
proposed by Kahneman and Tversky in 1979 (as cited in Heath et al., 1999). In this
theory, there are three principles in which values change on the basis of three different
assumptions. The first principle is that goals are a reference point by which people judge
their success and failures; secondly, losses are more damaging than equivalent pleasure.
The third belief is that outcomes have a smaller effect when they are further from a
reference point. Within this framework, Heath et al. (1999) describes difficulty in
beginning towards a goal as the “starting problem.” This occurs when a person is so far
away from the goal that he does not feel like he is progressing towards it; then he may
have difficulty starting towards a goal if it is difficult because he does not see any
progress. The study showed that a person first committed to a goal which then proceeded
to change their values; a change in values led to the starting problem. To overcome the
starting problem, people could set subgoals to see more progress. This theory also relates
to self-efficacy because individuals who feel that they are proceeding have higher selfefficacy. Some researchers (Earley & Lituchy, 1991, as cited in Heath et al.) believe that
proximal goals inspire higher performance because they allow for task mastery.
Corker and Donnellan (2012) describe target goals as subgoals to overarching
achievement goals in a hierarchical structure. Target goals are more concrete and
straightforward than higher level goals. Target goals direct more goal fulfillment
strategies than higher order goals and greater amounts of effort directed towards the goal.
4 Also, boundary goals have more psychologically motivating significance than the level of
aspiration that a person holds.
Subgoals also allow for easier self-regulation (Fishbach, Dhar, & Zhang, 2006).
Gollwitzer (1999, as cited in Fishbach et al.) finds that when people set subgoals that
describe links between cues and actions, they are much more likely to continue when
facing setbacks or difficulties. Fishbach et al. seek to expand this finding to multiple
goals and subgoals because, in real life, people are constantly striving for more than a
single end. As people work towards their goals, they may infer aspects of their goal
commitment or progress. Fishbach and Dhar (2005, as cited in Fishbach et al.) find that
when students initially experience academic success, they strengthen their commitment to
these goals, and later they are more likely to pursue academic tasks that further this level
of success. On the other hand, no change in performance led to decreased academic
interests if students believed that progress towards their goal had been achieved.
Individuals are likely to follow subgoals unless they are not committed or not progressing
towards a previously committed goal (Fishbach et al.). Furthermore, individuals
interpreted the realization of subgoals from either a commitment or progress viewpoint
depending on whether they viewed the subgoal concretely or if they viewed it abstractly
with more focus on the link between it and a superordinate goal. This difference could be
a result of priming the superordinate goal or thinking of the subgoal being in the distant
future. The study found that unless an individual was focused on a superordinate goal,
achieving a subgoal led to disengaging with related actions. The same actions were
redundant if only focusing on one subgoal but focus on a superordinate goal led to greater
overall commitment. In a second experiment, focus on the superordinate goal along with
5 early success directed a person to show more interest in actions that worked towards this
goal, but early setbacks led to decreases in actions towards the goals and later avoidance
of it. When looking only at subgoals that were repetitious, performing one action
continuously increased interest in later repeating the action. Through feelings of
accomplishment, people are more likely to continue towards the goal. A comparison of
social standard and feedback on personal performance affects how a person later chooses
other subgoals. Furthermore, unless an individual is highly focused on a superordinate
goal, individuals are less likely to persist on a similar task if they experience early
success.
When pursuing multiple goals, an individual must learn how to accomplish all of
them that are possible within executive function. The answer to this problem, according
to Gollwitzer (as cited in Masicampo & Baumeister, 2011), is to plan goals based on
situational cues. This allows goal pursuit to be transferred to a more automatic form of
processing and, in the long term, allows for much greater accomplishment of goals. This
plan should be extremely specific and describe the exact steps taken in order to attain
these greater benefits. Masicampo and Baumeister find that when individuals make plans
towards unfinished goals, they are much less likely to experience intrusive thoughts about
their unaccomplished goals than those that do not set plans. Additionally, plan-making
allows individuals to reduce the cognitive demands of a goal by decreasing the cognitive
resources spent on it. For example, individuals who focused on an unfulfilled goal of high
achievement on an exam found that the goal is not highly accessible over time unless a
plan was made. Planning does not simply shield participants from alternative goals;
instead, when individuals formulate plans to achieve goals they reduce the attentional
6 demands of all goals. Additionally, goals do not become more accessible even when
progress is perceived. In other words, a goal does not have to be active in cognition in
order to be performed. This reduction in interference is the highest for individuals who
eventually implement the plans. Emotions toward unfulfilled goals remain the same
whether plans are in place or not; therefore, plans do not seem to reduce anxiety in order
to reduce attentional demands. Ultimately, in order to reduce intrusive thoughts and
allow plans to reduce cognitive activity towards a goal, the plan must include an
extremely specific future course of action towards the unfulfilled goal.
Distance to a Goal
When considering goal gradients, or distance to the goal, studies (Liberman &
Forster, 2008; Peetz, Wilson, & Strahan, 2009) find that individuals’ motivation varies
with the way they view the remaining distance to the goal. Liberman and Forster show
that those who think that their goal is closer to the present perform at higher levels than
those who think there is significant time for them to achieve their goal. Instead of
looking at the measured distance before the goal, they examine the individual’s belief
about how far away the goal is from them at the current time. When considering goal
gradients from a promotion versus a prevention focus, those with a prevention focus
strive to do what they are responsible for without going outside of their comfort zone.
On the other hand, a promotion focus defines individual achievements as a win/no win
situation. A study by Masuda et al. (2010) shows that the degree to which an individual
sees his or her goal in the future affects the steps he or she takes towards that goal. Also,
those who know where they clearly want to be in the future are more likely to set difficult
personal goals.
7 An individual’s perception of the temporal distance to the goal also affects
realization of a goal. As Peetz et al. (2009) show, students who tried to forget about an
upcoming exam performed worse than their counterparts who consciously thought about
the exam. They attributed this difference to the temporal distance a person felt towards
the future goal. If a person feels greater proximity to the goal, they may start working
more quickly toward it. Also, people will feel closer to a goal when they anticipate
success but further away when considering failure. In this way, as a person elaborates
about his or her future self, he may be more motivated to work towards goals to get there.
In the study, college students who considered their future selves in graduation from a
closer future perspective were more likely to formulate specific steps to achieve the goal
and think less about what would happen at graduation. The focus on the process of goal
attainment led students to start striving towards graduation. They study also
demonstrated that the greater the distance a person feels towards an event, the less
motivation they had and the less they practiced.
Not only do individuals view focal goals differently based on their proximity, but
they also see subgoals based on their immediacy (Fishbach et al., 2006). When an
individual focuses on subgoals in the near future, the subgoals reflect the individual’s
feelings about his level of attainment, but, if the individual focuses on subgoals in the
distant future, the subgoals show the level of commitment the person has for a
superordinate goal. Individuals also typically have more intention of pursuing subgoals in
the distant future than the near future after experiencing some initial level of success. If
an individual feels like he has greater subgoal attainment than others, he is more likely to
be less interested in similar subgoals again unless he is primed to the original peak goal.
8 Oettingen, Hyeon-ju, and Schnetter (2001) propose that the distance to a goal
could also be considered as the difference in reality and fantasies about the future through
fantasy-realization theory. This theory recognizes three different kinds of self-regulatory
thoughts. The first kind of thought is expectancy-based; in this thought pattern, an
individual contrasts reality with the future and the obstacles in the way to achieving a
desired future. The second mode is through exclusively fantasizing about the future, and
the third route is through a reflection on current realities. In this theory, in order for a
person to act by setting goals and working towards achievement, he must recognize this
conflict between his negative reality and desired future. Instead of focusing on how goalcommitment changes based on expectations about the future, this theory emphasizes the
relationship between goal commitment and expectations. This study showed that when
people contrasted their reality and future fantasies they would take on more responsibility
and planning if they were likely to succeed; they formed a goal based on the probability
of success in achieving their desired future. However, the other two modes of thinking
did not lead to any changes in expectations or goal-setting. Furthermore, contrasting
reality and future fantasies led individuals to be more energized and be quicker to
implement action to achieve the fantasy when they were likely to be successful. They
were also more likely to expect disappointment if they failed when chances of success
were high than the other two groups. The contrast group also showed the greatest effort
and best performance two weeks after setting a goal when expectations of success are
high; however, if expectations were low, the individuals had the least amount of effort
and worst performance.
9 Goal Alternatives
When people strive towards multiple goals, one problem is how individuals can
allocate their time towards the goals in order to be most effective. Schmidt and DeShon
(2007) suggest a model that stems from self-regulation theory. In this theory,
individuals’ behaviors start by striving towards goals. They adjust their behavior through
self-regulation and learning as they continue up the goal ladder. From this dynamic and
changing perspective, external forces also influence the way in which an individual
works towards his goal. The researchers extend this theory to multiple goals; as an
individual tracks his performance towards two goals, the discrepancy between the two
goals depends on the amount of resources a person exerts towards one or the other. When
two goals are equal in importance, an individual’s progress towards one or the other
affects how he allocates his resources. When one goal has an incentive, the individual
focuses more on it, especially when he does not feel like he is progressing sufficiently.
Also, early on, he will focus more on the goal that is progressing slower. However, as a
goal deadline approaches, a person focuses on the goal that is more successful especially
when the incentives are equal between the two goals. From this perspective, an
individual redistributes his resources, instead of increasing his resources, based on the
goals at hand and the time remaining towards achieving the two goals.
Although multiple goals may lead to a redistribution of resources to achieve them,
individuals may try to invent new strategies in order to achieve both goals. Köpetz,
Faber, Fishbach, and Kruglanski (2011) suggest that alternative goals, instead of forcing
an individual to give up on his or her original focal goal, may lead a person to come up
with new strategies to achieve all goals. The researchers call this approach a multifinality
10 quest towards goals. Previous research by Emmons and King (as cited in Köpetz et al.,
2011) shows that multiple goals can cause conflict which leads to negative effects on the
individual. A person must pick between alternatives, giving up some goals while keeping
others and prioritizing where he spends his resources. Also, when faced with multiple
goals, an individual may strive towards a multifinal approach in order to achieve several
of his goals (Köpetz et al.). There are two conditions to the multifinality constraint. In
order for a person to try and find means to two goals at once, the goals must both be
feasible together and must be of similar relative importance. For example, when looking
at students’ health choices, multiple goals led to fewer options in achieving ultimate goals
in order to work towards both at once. Overall, they found that the presence of
alternative goals did not affect the way a person strived to achieve his focal goal alone.
Instead, the relationship between the alternative and focal goal was important. The more
important the focal goal was, the less the individual felt like he should be striving towards
a less important alternative goal.
Conversely, commitment to a focal goal can be affected by alternative goals.
Shah and Kruglanski (2002) suggest that alternative goals can be primed to affect an
individual’s pursuance of a focal goal. They report that the presence of an alternative
goal negatively affected a participant’s pursuit towards a focal goal, and this effect was
greatest when the alternative goal seemed to be unrelated to the focal goal. Also, when
the alternative goal differed from the focal goal, individuals were less likely to come up
with their own means to the goal but, instead, relied on the means that are given. On the
other hand, when the alternative and focal goals were seen as similar, an individual
created his own means to achieve them. Priming of an alternative goal led to greater
11 mood changes when the alternative and focal goals appeared similar. Similarly, Donovan
and Williams (as cited in Locke & Latham, 2006) suggest that track-and-field athletes
who set proximal goals such as goals for their next competition and distal goals for the
season also create discrepancies to set the goals. For example, the athletes examine their
past performance and future goals in order to set season goals to improve on their
personal best goals. When discrepancies are negative, the distal goals are typically much
lower but the difficulty level of proximal goals is increased to compensate for this
undesirable progress. Furthermore, the mental representation of failure is important; if
individuals think the cause of previous of failure is unstable because of something like
effort, they are more likely to revise their goals, but, if they think that stable causes such
as ability are the reason for past performance, they are not likely to adapt their goals.
Goal Orientations
According to Nicholls (as cited in Steele-Johnson, Beauregard, Hoover, &
Schmidt, 2000), goal orientations are defined by two types of superordinate goals that
individuals hold during performance of a task. Goal orientations include learning and
performance goals. In a learning goal orientation, an individual believes that he can
improve and continues working even on more challenging tasks; on the other hand, with
a performance goal orientation, an individual thinks that he cannot change or improve his
current position, evaluate his performance, and chooses easier tasks to avoid failure.
Steele-Johnson et al. find that participants with learning goal orientations perform worse
on simple tasks than those with a performance orientation. Also, with a learning goal
orientation, individuals’ satisfaction is not changed by the difficulty of the task, but a
person with a performance goal orientation is more satisfied with achievement on simple
12 tasks. Individuals with learning goal orientations also report higher self-efficacy and
greater intrinsic motivation on inconsistent tasks. On simple tasks, individuals with
performance orientations may perform better. Differences in goal orientations are
highlighted by variances in task contexts like difficulty and consistency. Individuals with
a learning goal orientation perform better on tasks with high demands, but those with
performance goal orientation do well on simpler tasks with lower demands. However,
Seijts et al. found that setting a very specific high learning goal increases a person’s
performance regardless of his goal orientation (as cited in Locke & Latham, 2006). The
researchers call this a state orientation. Overall, performance on complex tasks is still
highest if a person has a learning goal orientation and also sets a specific learning goal.
Personality traits can also influence performance and goal orientations. Lee,
Sheldon, and Turban (2003) suggest a hierarchically organized model that includes
relationships between global personality traits, domain-specific areas of life, and
situational aspects of responses in certain situations. They also integrate selfdetermination theory into this context. According to Deci and Ryan, this theory says that
individuals are most motivated when they feel like their behavior is chosen out of free
will and aligns with their personal beliefs (as cited in Lee et al.). Three characteristics
influence motivation including autonomy, control, and impersonal orientations.
Furthermore, these three personality traits can be used to understand self-regulation and
perceptions. One experiment showed that, with an autonomy orientation, individuals
were likely to pay attention to contextual cues that permitted free will, and they made
choices based on personal desires and needs. On the other hand, control orientation is
marked by a greater awareness of status figures, and people with this goal orientation are
13 more likely to think their choices are controlled by others; they are also more likely to be
extrinsically motivated. Lastly, amotivated orientated individuals are highly sensitive to
feelings of incompetency if they do not have early success.
Performance goals are typically correlated with negative effects when a person
receives negative feedback while learning goals allow for greater growth (Grant &
Dweck, 2003); however, other research by Barron and Harackiewicz (as cited in Grant &
Dweck) shows that learning goals may simply be related to levels of intrinsic motivation.
Grant and Dweck note that the problem may be the way that the goals are defined. For
example, performance goals are goals in which a person strives to validate his or her
abilities, or can be defined through normative comparisons, such as doing better than
others. Other measures may look at a participant’s desire to perform well on certain tasks
in which failure does not always mean a lack of ability. Instead, this type of goal could
better be described as a outcome goal. Furthermore, definitions of learning goals also
include discrepancies; when referring to task or mastery goals, these goals show how
much a participant wants to master a challenge not specifically learning. As intrinsic
motivation decreases, learning goals increase, and outcome and ability goals are closely
related to this decrease. Learning goals also correlate with planning and conclusions for
failure that are based on reasons like a lack of effort. On the other hand, individuals with
ability goals that experience failure also typically feel a loss of self-worth and are more
likely to reflect over failures for longer amounts of time with significant withdrawal from
the situation. This research showed that four different types of goals could potentially be
better indicators of performance than the previous studies using two types. Also, the
higher results attributed to learning goals could possibly be explained by a higher
14 likelihood of participating in deeper levels of thinking about the material or task
especially when a task is important to a person and when material is difficult.
Lee et al. (2003) also proposes that personality traits will predict different goal
achievement patterns including a mastery pattern, performance-approach pattern, and a
performance-avoiding pattern. Through this experiment, personality differences were
linked with the three different achievement goals and goal processes. An autonomy
orientation was highly related with mastery goal orientation, higher mental focus, and
greater enjoyment while performing the tasks. The control orientation matched with the
performance-approach and –avoidance goal achievement patterns along with the same
level of mental focus, goal level, and performance. Finally, individuals with amotivated
orientations had a performance-avoiding goal approach that was also linked to a negative
goal level and mental focus based on performance.
Self-determination theory research also focuses on the difference between
intrinsic and extrinsic goal motivation (Sheldon, Ryan, Deci, & Kasser, 2004). Intrinsic
motivation refers to an internal, psychological motivation to meet one’s needs. From the
self-determination theory viewpoint, intrinsic motivation fulfills the need of being
autonomous. Extrinsic motivations are less powerful, outside desires, and, if out of
balance with a person’s internal motives, they lead to decreases in overall well-being and
happiness. However, extrinsic goals also correlate with more controlled motivation than
intrinsic goals, but intrinsic goals lead to greater happiness and higher feelings of
autonomy. Three different common extrinsic motivators of financial success, fame, and
image are all shown to be independently motivational, but an overemphasis on extrinsic
goals correlates with reductions in well-being through a decreased feeling of autonomy
15 and can lead to depression. Furthermore, an individual’s goal choice may also lead to
changes in well-being depending on the choices that he makes and how he feels
motivated by the goal.
When people set goals for themselves, they examine the differences that occur
between their behavior and their set goal (Donovan & Hafsteinsson, 2006). These
differences are defined as goal-performance discrepancies, and they affect how an
individual views a specific goal and adjusts goals and behavior in the future. One of the
ways that a person can help eliminate this discrepancy is to revise his goal. Donovan and
Williams (as cited in Donovan & Hafsteinsson) conclude that negative goal-discrepancies
sometimes lead to a downward goal revision. One study (Donovan & Hafsteinsson) finds
that most individuals raise their goals after successful performance. Furthermore, when
individuals experienced greater positive discrepancy, they set even higher goals for the
future. However, individuals with large discrepancies and a performance-goal orientation
set fewer difficult goals than those with smaller discrepancies. Especially if a person
with a strong learning goal orientation experienced small goal discrepancies, he set
higher future goals than someone with weaker learning goal orientation, but this finding
was reversed when a person experienced strongly positive discrepancies.
Personality traits can also influence a person’s choice of goals in different
domains in his or her life (Roberts & Robins, 2000). According to Goldberg, the FiveFactor Model includes the five traits of agreeableness, emotional stability, extraversion,
conscientiousness, and openness to experience; these traits are at the broadest description
of personality traits and typically stay stable throughout a lifetime (as cited in Roberts &
Robins). In research by Roberts and Robins, these personality traits are studied alongside
16 major life goals. Major life goals include overall aspirations about ultimate goals for
family, career, and other aspects. These are desirable endpoints that a person wants to
reach that are not usually as evaluative as other goals. The researchers suggest that
socioanalytic theory explains the link between major life goals and an individual’s nature
and preferences in different contexts. Through this theory, an individual strives to meet
his own needs of social acceptance, status, and the meaning of his life. In this pursuit,
individuals select goals that reinforce their own identities. Personality traits complement
life goals in many domains, and major life goals are associated with many different FiveFactor Model personality traits.
Personality can also influence what types of goals individuals set for themselves.
Sheldon and Elliot (1999) propose a self-concordance model of goal-setting. In this
model, individuals engage in conative processes, or efforts to meet their individual goals
and needs. The model begins with the decision phase in which an individual decides to
follow a goal; it does not include the deliberation up to the point of goal-setting, but,
instead, assumes that the processes leading up to goal-setting may be flawed. These goals
may not reflect their feelings of self completely accurately. Goals can be described as
harmonious with the self if they reflect an individual’s interests and intrinsic motivations.
Most importantly, the model shows the development of the goal process from adopting
the goal to attaining it and how goals affect self-worth and satisfy individual needs.
Goals may be pursued because of external or internal motivations. Furthermore, goals
are self-fulfilling to individuals; by reaching a desired outcome, they feel good about
themselves. This model emphasizes that individuals try to achieve goals, and, by doing
so, they find a state of well-being through accomplishment of the goals. Also, individuals
17 who strive for goals that are concordant with their sense of self invest much more effort
into achieving the goals than individuals with goals that go against their feelings of self.
Boundary Goals
Similar to the concept of subgoals, boundary goals are set as the minimum level
that a person must achieve in order to have success (Corker & Donnellan, 2012). In other
words, these are the minimum goals set by each individual that are considered acceptable.
Boundary goals can also be thought of as a lower bound of target goals. The study
examined the effect of boundary goals on overall performance and also looked at whether
lower boundaries or a higher level of aspiration better predicted success. Boundary goals
could be especially helpful for individuals with avoidance goal orientations because they
were more concerned with failure cues. An individual with a goal approach orientation is
expected to aim higher than a person with an avoidance goal orientation who would try to
avoid failure by setting low standards. In this way, boundary goals set a lower limit on
what is considered acceptable while striving towards a target goal. In the study of student
exam scores, the effect of boundary goals on exam performance was significant for
mastery achievement, mastery approach, and master avoidance goals. When boundary
goals were controlled for and the level of aspiration was measured, the effect was not
found. The research suggests that boundary goals may be more suggestive of effort and
level of performance than other variables.
Feedback
Bandura and Cevone (1983) show that feedback combined with goal setting leads
to significantly higher performance than either of the two variables alone. In fact,
participants in the combined condition more than doubled the performance level of the
18 other groups. The researchers relate this difference to social learning theory. When a
person is faced with goals and performance feedback, he is much more likely to evaluate
himself on the performance and be dissatisfied with his performance. An individual is
also much more likely to work harder towards achieving a goal when he is dissatisfied.
Furthermore, self-efficacy on tasks predicts performance changes for participants that are
given goals and feedback. The more self-efficacy participants feel about achieving a
goal, the higher their performance on the task. Bandura found that self-efficacy can be
raised by providing training to increase skills in an area, by finding role-models, and
through persuading the person that he can accomplish the given goal (as cited in Locke &
Latham, 2002). When participants only receive feedback on achievement with no set
goals, they are unlikely to improve unless they set their own goals (Bandura & Cevone).
Participants who create especially high-achieving goals increased their performance by
40% compared to those with lower goals. However, without feedback, goal-setting alone
does not increase achievement unless participants are extremely self-efficacious.
The kind of feedback that best motivates an individual towards a goal can depend
on his or her goal orientation according to Janssen and Prins (2007). When seeking
feedback, Ashford and Cummings showed that individuals can watch others to gain
information through an observation strategy or ask other people directly through
inquiring about their feelings of self (as cited in Janssen & Prins). When seeking selfimprovement information, Ashford found that employees contemplate the costs and value
first (as cited in Janssen & Prins). Individuals might derive two different values from this
experience. Expectancy value refers to the worth of the feedback and how it can improve
their skills, and impression management refers to a person trying to show those in higher
19 status positions his current level of success. However, individuals also risk costs of
potential embarrassment, negative feedback, or additional effort by trying to obtain
feedback. Janssen and Prins propose that subset of performance and mastery goal
orientations may be appropriate including divisions into approach and avoidance.
Approach individuals typically focus on development and competence while avoidance
types try to avoid negativity. Individuals with a learning-approach orientation seek more
self-improvement feedback than those with learning-avoidance or performance-approach
goal orientations. Also, people with a performance-avoidance orientation are also likely
to seek information on self-improvement. This kind of information can include learning
how to master tasks, improving performance, fixing problems, and other goals. On the
other hand, individuals with a performance-avoidance orientation are much more likely to
seek information about their current level of performance including seeking compliments
and statements of confidence from others.
Goal Setting in the Workplace
In the workplace, a psychological contract can also be a determining factor in
achievement motivation and attitude (Lee & Liu, 2009). In a psychological contract,
people work for an organization in return for the promise of future earns. These contracts
influence employees’ feelings about the work environment, persistence, and feelings
about bosses. Psychological contracts can also affect the work attitude that an employee
holds. Yu showed that this attitude includes a person’s identification with the company
that he works for and his level of devotion to his work (as cited in Lee & Liu). The
researchers (Lee & Lui) propose that an individual’s perspective of the psychological
contract would be affected by his or her achievement motivation. In a small sample of
20 bank staff, the results showed that achievement motivation influenced a person’s
psychological contract, work attitude, and the ways in which he performed his duties as
work. Furthermore, even without psychological contract, an individual’s achievement
motivation affected his attitude, but the effect was the strongest when the psychological
contract was included.
Personal goal facilitation through the workplace can increase employees’ attitudes
toward work and own well-being. Edwards (as cited in ter Doest, Maes, Gebhardt, &
Koelewijn, 2006) proposes a cybernetic model of organizational stress. Organizational
stress occurs when there is a discrepancy between an employee’s perceived and the
desired states that is important to the employee. The desired state can contain anything
from the conditions under which they are working to more personal goals. In this model,
when work allows for personal goals to be fulfilled, individuals experience higher job
attitudes and overall well-being as an employee. Furthermore, this theory suggests that
goals and values are all different aspects that employees desire. These desires differ from
needs that include unconscious motivations; desires are something that a person works
for and initiates movement towards. In the study (ter Doest et al.), goal importance is not
a very influential factor in determining personal goal facilitation through work; goal
importance is only significant when participants have goals of personal growth. Also, the
study uses nomothetic measures, or ways of viewing the goals abstractedly at higher
levels. Personal goal facilitation through work and job characteristics leads to differences
in attitudes and well-being, too.
21 The Current Study
The purpose of the current study is to examine goal-setting in the workplace.
Specifically, the study looks at a financial services franchise opportunity where
individuals owned their own businesses. With no quotas, individuals are able to set their
own schedules and sales appointments. Within this framework, individuals are
responsible for their own successes and failures depending on the work that they put in.
Therefore, goals are set by the individual instead of placed on them by researchers or
others. The researcher hopes to be able to implement a strategy or program that would
help the participants to further their businesses through better use of goal-setting. The
study is proposed to measure goal accomplishments, self-esteem, a combination of
entrepreneurial and sales self-efficacy, and effort. Also, the study is designed to examine
the differences between a focus on remaining versus completed tasks like Koo and
Fishbach’s (2010) study. The researcher hypothesizes that, when people focus on their
completed actions, they will value their current goal more. While this is similar to the
previous study, the researcher plans to study the individuals over a period of several
months in order to see if these results apply in the long-term. Furthermore, individuals
who focus on their remaining actions are expected to be more dedicated when their work
becomes difficult and have higher desires to move up the promotion ladder. Also, the
study is expected to show that specific and more difficult goals will lead to greater effort
unless the goals are too difficult to be achieved. Overall, this study looks at individuals in
a real-life setting in which they set their own goals and are responsible for their own
successes and failures.
22 CHAPTER II
METHOD
Participants
The participants included 22 volunteers from a business franchise office in
Knoxville, Tennessee. The office includes many individuals who own their own
franchises, and the overall mission is to help middle class families on their way to
financial independence. At a training seminar, volunteers were asked to sign up on a
sheet for the survey by giving their name and email address. They were told that they had
the option to stop participating at any time. The participants were told that they would be
asked to complete a series of surveys examining how performance is affected by various
kinds of reflections through self-monitoring activities. The potential gain for the
participants is that they could gain experience in goal-setting techniques and thus
improve their own businesses. The negative side of participating could be a loss of time,
although the researcher attempted to make the surveys as concise as possible. Also, they
were told to continue their own goal-setting practices over the course of the experiment.
The participants were asked to give a six-digit number that they could remember in order
to complete the surveys anonymously. Participants were not asked to report on race or
any other demographic variables. However, the participants were mostly males of
23 varying ages mostly between twenty-one and sixty. The volunteers all consented to
participate in the survey, and the surveys were completed anonymously with an
identification number only known to the participant.
Materials
This experiment began with an introductory survey to gauge the participant’s
current goal-setting techniques, personal effort, business self-efficacy, and current
situation in their business. The entrepreneurial self-efficacy scale was modified from
other surveys (De Noble, Jung, & Ehrlich, 1999; Wilson, Kickul, & Marlino, 2007).
Then, participants were asked through email directions every other week to complete a
bi-weekly survey that manipulated the independent variable of completed versus
remaining tasks. The surveys were completed through online survey software called
Survey Monkey. Those in the completed tasks condition had a script that asked them to
discuss what goals they had met the past two weeks while the remaining tasks script
asked about the goals they had not yet accomplished. The participants completed this on
their own time using their own equipment. The email directions were sent directly to each
participant by the researcher. The script in each email was the same for each group except
a different link depending on which manipulation group they were in. Finally,
participants were given a conclusion survey like the introductory survey to measure
changes in goal-setting, self-esteem, and self-efficacy.
Procedure
The experiment and surveys were first submitted and approved by the Maryville
College Institutional Review Board (see Appendix). Participants volunteered for the
survey, and the researcher emailed the first survey to them. In the first survey,
24 participants gave informed consent before proceeding to the questionnaire. The first set
of questions established contract level of each participant and how long he or she had
been a part of the company. They were also asked what kind of goal setting techniques
that they currently used and what their current goals included. The next set of questions
asked about their perceptions of their goal-setting. The surveys also asked about their
entrepreneurial self-efficacy. Finally, they were asked to rate themselves compared to
their peers with an overall score to measure self-esteem.
Two weeks later the participants were randomly split into two groups with a
matched pairs design by contract level. The contract level of an individual depends on
his work and time in the business, with certain specified requirements allowing him or
her to move up to the next level. Basically, this is a reflection of the time spent and
amount of work put into the business. This means that District Leaders and below were
randomly divided, followed by Division and Regional Leaders, and finally Regional Vice
Presidents and above. One group was the completed tasks group and the other was the
remaining tasks group. In the completed tasks condition, participants were asked to focus
on what actions they completed over the past two weeks to work towards their goals. In
the remaining tasks condition, they were asked what remains to be completed from their
goals over the past two weeks. They were given a blank space to fill in as much or as
little as they wanted. Both groups were asked to be as specific as possible in their
reflections on all parts of their business. The participants were given these surveys biweekly four times. The purpose of these bi-weekly surveys was to continue reminding the
participants about either their remaining or completed tasks.
25 Lastly, the participants were given a conclusion survey like the introductory
survey. The survey first asked about their goal completion over the survey period and if
their goal setting techniques changed. Then they were once again asked about their
perceptions of their own goal setting, their entrepreneurial self-efficacy, and, finally, their
comparison of themselves to their peers. At the conclusion of the survey, the participants
were debriefed about the experimental manipulation. They were told that the bi-weekly
surveys consisted of one of two experimental manipulations. One of the manipulations
asked them to reflect on the goals that they had remaining and had not accomplished
while the other focused on the goals they had completed.
26 CHAPTER III
RESULTS
Over the survey period, several participants dropped out. The experiment ended
with a sample of only nine participants. Seven males and two females participated in both
the introductory and conclusion surveys and at least one of bi-weekly manipulation
surveys.
A permutation resampling was performed on the data because of the small data
set, and, therefore, concerns about the normality assumption. In this method, a computer
program randomly selects samples from the original data and matches it into groups to
find out what would happen by chance. For change in goal score, the difference was
nonsignificant, p =. 128. However, it is interesting to note that the mean for the
completed task condition decreased by 0.140 and the mean for the remaining task
condition increased by 0.200.
A permutation resampling was also performed on the change in entrepreneurial
self-efficacy score. The result was marginally significant for the one-sided hypothesis, p
= .064. The remaining task condition significantly increased (M = 0.058, SD = 0.171),
and the completed task condition significantly decreased (M = -0.185, SD = 0.228). The
hypothesis that the remaining task condition score would increase was supported.
27 A permutation resampling was performed on the change in self-esteem dependent
variable. The p-value was nonsignificant, p = .413. Interestingly, the means for both
conditions did decrease even though it was not significant. The mean for the completed
condition decreased by 0.257 and for the remaining task condition decreased by 0.143.
There were no significant differences on Goal Scores, Entrepreneurial SelfEfficacy scores, or self-esteem scores between individuals on the pretest who did and did
not complete the post-test, all p > .05. There was also no relationship between the number
of years that a person had been part of the company and those who had completed the
surveys. All of the individuals that completed the surveys already participated in some
sort of goal setting that included something outside of only mentally thinking about them;
all of the individuals who completed the entire process already wrote down goals in some
form.
A regression analysis was performed on several of the survey questions that were
originally hypothesized about. There was no significant difference for either the
remaining or completed conditions on goal difficulty and a perceived participant’s ability
to accomplish goals, p = .252. Also, there was no significant difference between the
remaining and completed task conditions in continuing despite adversity. When
examining whether setting specific goals also correlated with more difficult goals while
controlling for the independent variables, the interaction was marginally significant,
p=.09. Also, the difference between the conditions and feelings about the completed
goals over the task period was nonsignificant, p = .231.
The original qualitative data on goals was examined to look for themes that
individuals used in the goals that they were setting. Common themes included their
28 reasons for wanting to succeed in business such as winning a trip, helping their parents,
or quitting their job. Also, the quarterly convention and goals towards it were another
topic choice that was mentioned in four of the reports. Working towards state and federal
licenses was also a common theme in four of the responses. Partnership was also a key in
several of the reports using terms such as “we,” “our,” “help,” “partner,” and “me and my
husband.” Finally, working towards promotions was mentioned in seven of the reports.
The qualitative bi-weekly data was analyzed using a scale of negative to positive
word choice. A “1” was given to responses that had two or more negative words or
sentences, “2” to those with one negative word, a “3” to neutral responses, “4” to those
with one positive word or sentence, and a “5” to those with at least two positive words.
The two tasks did not differ very much with the completed condition having an average
score of 2.68 and the remaining tasks condition scoring 2.71. However, the two
conditions did differ in the amount of words that were used. The remaining task
condition had an average of 60 words and the completed task only used 23 words. The
remaining task condition also had many more emotional words than the completed tasks
condition. In other words, the completed task condition was much more likely to be
neutral and simply state exactly what they had completed while the remaining task
condition elaborated more with more negative or positives.
The additional comments were looked at on both the pretest and the posttest,
although these were limited to a small number of responses. The responses included
having trouble staying motivated and again mentioned partnership by stating that the
husband and wife had the same goals. Two participants stated that their goals had
changed over the survey period by staying more motivated to keep up with their goals
29 and changing their approach and attitude towards business. On the posttest, participants
mentioned difficulties with maintaining self-discipline and letting work or other aspects
of life get in the way of business. The posttest comments included positive words of
improvement and belief about the future.
30 CHAPTER IV
DISCUSSION
The hypothesis was that individuals in the remaining task condition would have
higher scores in each of the three categories and would value their goals more and have
greater desire to earn a promotion and move up to more difficult goals. The study
examined the effects of focusing on remaining versus completed task over three months
in a longitudinal study. The specific effects looked at included entrepreneurial selfefficacy, their opinions on their goals, and self-esteem.
The study did not find any significant effects on the main quantitative measures;
however, this could have been due to the small sample size that actually completed both
surveys. The study did find a marginally significant effect for entrepreneurial selfefficacy. The mean for the remaining task condition increased and the mean for the
completed task condition decreased. The qualitative results showed differences in word
length and use of emotional words. Entrepreneurial self-efficacy showed marginal
significance, and individuals in the remaining task condition increased their feelings of
self-efficacy over the survey period while the completed task condition participants had a
31 decrease in the same trait. There was no evidence in the quantitative research that those
in the remaining tasks felt more strongly about moving up, and none of the participants
received promotions during the survey period.
The difference in the words used and amount of words written could be explained
as those in the remaining action condition being more passionate or that the condition
allowed for greater elaboration on their goals. Since the completed condition only asked
them what they had done, participants might have felt limited to statements while those in
the remaining tasks could have wanted to explain why they failed to meet their goals.
Also, self-efficacy scores decreased, although not significantly, for both conditions. This
potentially could have been caused by the knowledge that they were somewhat
accountable to someone else for their goals and their reflections on this or the fact that
many were not accomplishing the goals that they had set over the survey period
according to their bi-weekly reports.
Unlike the Koo and Fishbach (2010) study, the study did not find significance in
the differences between remaining and completed task conditions. However, in goals and
entrepreneurial self-efficacy the remaining task condition increased while the completed
task condition decreased. This study also did not find evidence that the completed task
condition had less desire to move up or were less dedicated to more difficult goals.
Neither group earned promotions, and the dropout rate was similar for each condition.
The number of individuals who dropped out could be explained by a variety of
explanations. First, participants were reminded of the study once by email every other
week; they could simply have forgotten about it if they did not fill out the survey
immediately. Others could have become bored or frustrated with the survey. One
32 comment to the researcher indicated that individuals were tired of filling out what they
had not accomplished. Furthermore, ter Doest, Maes, Gebhardt, and Koelewijn (2006)
found that low self-confidence was linked to burnout among employees. Similarly,
participants could become burnt-out if they failed to achieve their goals each week in
either condition. This amount of burn-out could show that it may be very important for
individuals to set goals that are attainable for them and to reexamine their goals if they
are not achieving them. Likewise, individuals may benefit from setting boundary goals
that are difficult but attainable (Corker & Donnellan, 2012) or setting subgoals that allow
them to have some small measure of success.
The results of goal research trying to discern which ways of setting goals are more
likely to be successful and lead to greater persistence is important because facilitation of
personal goals through business can stimulate more positive attitudes and personal wellbeing. Edwards’ (as cited in ter Doest, Maes, Gebhardt, & Koelewijn, 2006) cybernetic
model of organizational stress proposed that stress occurs when there is a difference
between the way an employee feels and the state in which he wants to be. When an
individual has a specific desire, he unconsciously strives towards it; if his work allows
him to pursue the goals, he displays higher goal attitudes. In this setting, the participants
should have had higher well-being since they were allowed to set their own goals.
However, self-esteem did decrease some for each condition. This could have been from
setting goals that were too difficult or that participants were not working hard enough to
reach. Also, this difference in attitude may change for business owners. Furthermore, an
individual’s feeling about his psychological contract with the business can influence a
person’s feelings (Lee & Liu, 2009). In a business environment, the owners must decide
33 for themselves what future earns they want to receive for their work. In this study,
participants set their own goals and have their own standards which could affect the way
that they feel about their environment and their persistency. This autonomy could also
affect the way that individuals look at their businesses. Also, in such an environment, a
person ideally should have a higher level of devotion if he or she is going to own a
business. This should lead to greater identification with the ideals of the company and
attitude towards it.
The outcomes of the study could also depend on how individuals compared their
current state and a positive view of the future based on their probability of success. Like
Oettingen, Heyon-ju, and Schnetter (2001) report, if individuals think they have a good
probability of success, then they are more likely to take on responsibility and make
further plans when comparing their negative reality and positive fantasy. For individuals
who always keep a positive long-term goal in mind, this could be beneficial to their
overall esteem and self-efficacy and could better help them reach their in-between goals.
Furthermore, these individuals are the ones that are the most energized and most likely to
quickly initiate action. Individuals with the highest expectations also may have the best
results which would be interesting to study in a more quantitative form than this study.
However, if the individuals were not contrasting their negative reality with a positive
future goal, they may have had drops in self-esteem and feelings of self-worth. If the
individual had low expectations in the beginning, he may show less effort and worse
performance overall.
An extension of this study could include getting other opinions about a person’s
goal-setting behaviors and accomplishments. According to Janssen and Prins (2007), this
34 type of feedback could potentially be beneficial or negative. If a person meets his goals
and wants to demonstrate the level of success he is currently experiencing to others,
feedback could be beneficial. Bandura and Cevone (1983) found that individuals that got
feedback and set goals had significantly greater performance than those who had only
one. However, if a person is given feedback and shown goals, he is more likely to be
dissatisfied with his performance overall if he is not accomplishing them; this
dissatisfaction should cause a person to work harder. This was expected to be similar to
the remaining task condition since they were shown the discrepancies in their goals and
performance; however, the difference in goals was not significant. The researcher
proposes that this lack of significance could have been caused by a lack of commitment
to the goals or setting goals so high that they could not possibly be achieved. If an
individual had started out with no goal setting and began by setting extremely high goals,
he could have become dissatisfied and aloof from the situation instead.
Bandura’s research showed that self-efficacy is highly correlated with goal
commitment (as cited in Locke & Latham, 2002). In order to help individuals increase
their entrepreneurial self-efficacy, training in skills in entrepreneurship, positive
reinforcement through persuasive communication, and use of role models could help
individuals become more confident in their abilities. Although the quantitative results for
entrepreneurial self-efficacy were only marginally significant in this study, this means
that a focus on remaining tasks could, with a larger sample and more time, be significant
for increasing self-efficacy. This focus could lead people to seek out role-models that are
accomplishing the goals that they set and could encourage them to improve their skills by
making them feel like they have not mastered all of them. Similarly, in our qualitative
35 data, one of the participants mentioned reading more self-help books and trying to focus
on motivational materials and role models in an attempt to accomplish more goals.
Furthermore, participants were not asked to report on the reasons that they
thought that they failed to reach their goals. However, some of the qualitative research
found that participants cited a lack of effort, failure to produce results, insufficient goalsetting, and outside responsibilities or distractions as reasons for not achieving their biweekly goals. According to Donovan and Williams (as cited in Locke & Latham, 2006),
participants were more likely to revise their previous goals because the reasons for failure
were unstable. Most people did not see lack of ability as a problem which would have
led them to be less likely to revise their goals.
Also, the study asked for participants to explain all of the goals that they had for
the survey period, not just focusing on one focal goal. Shah and Kruglanski (2002) found
that when individuals had alternative goals, their focal goal would be negatively affected,
especially when the alternative goal was unrelated. The goals that participants set at the
beginning of the experiment were also important to determining their feelings and
behavior over the course of the survey period. Donovan and Williams (as cited in; Locke
& Latham, 2006) found that proximal and distal goals were set based on past
performance and goals for the distant future in order to improve upon their personal best
behaviors. If there is a large negative discrepancy between the two, the proximal goals
are typically set higher while the overall goal is lower. Therefore, individuals need to
feel confidence in their goal-setting and past performance so that they can increase upon
it. Self-esteem and self-efficacy are both important in this aspect in that they can lead to
higher evaluations of past and future performances. However, Köpetz, Faber, Fishbach,
36 and Kruglanski (2011) found that multiple goals can be efficient if an individual can find
new strategies in which to achieve all the goals. If both goals are reasonably able to be
attained and similarly important, an individual may use a multifinal approach to the
goals. If the two goals are of equal importance, the presence of the alternative goal does
not affect the individual in his goal pursuit. This is also important to the research because
in many aspects of goal setting there is not one simple goals but many goals that make up
the ultimate goal. In the current study, individuals displayed a variety of goals and most
described more than one. This approach shows that two or more goals can be
accomplished at once if they are not in conflict with one another. In business, there are
often many different goals to be accomplished; if a person can find a way to approach all
the goals equally, he could assumedly accomplish all of them together.
Similarly, Schmidt and DeShon’s (2007) self-regulation theory suggests that
progress towards two goals depends on the importance and resources placed on each goal
separately. If one goal has an incentive, such as in our case a promotion, winning a
vacation, or recognition, this may cause an individual to work harder towards these
aspects of the goal. Especially when the goal progress seems to be going slowly, an
individual focuses on the incentive-based goal. If the incentives are equal, then an
individual will likely contribute to the more successful goal more as the deadline
approaches. Therefore, in the current study, at the end participants may have focused on
their goals that they were more successful in accomplishing as the deadline for
recognition at a convention and the end of the survey approached.
This experiment concentrated mainly on proximal and task goals on the goal
hierarchy (Masuda, Kane, Shoptaugh, & Minor, 2010). The proximal goals are important
37 because they ultimately let an individual achieve his peak, or ultimate, goal. Many
participants addressed their proximal goals in their comments, and they also explained
what they needed to do to reach them in the form of task goals. When the task goal is or
is not met, the individual can then self-regulate and adjust his goals to try and find a new
means of achieving his next goal. A previous study (Masuda et al.) showed that the more
direct and challenging an individual’s personal vision is, the more likely he is to stick
with goals and accomplish them. Also, individuals who set proximal goals that are
attainable are more likely to ultimately succeed through the use of subgoals (Heath,
Larrick, & Wu, 1999). Allowing participants to self-regulate themselves and set their
own goals should have allowed them to change their goals as needed and hopefully set
goals that they believed were both part of their personal vision and challenging but
attainable. Similarly, Corker and Donnellan (2012) showed that more difficult boundary
goals, or the minimum level that a person feels like makes him successful, led to higher
overall levels of performance than individuals who did not strive so high. Additionally, in
a literature review, Locke and Latham (2002) found that specific goals were extremely
important; individuals who set high, specific goals increased their performance on over
one-hundred tasks. Some individuals set very specific quantitative goals in the bi-weekly
surveys; however, some of them may have been too difficult to achieve, and the
participants may not have revised them over time.
Furthermore, participants were asked to set specific goals. While some
participants only mentioned one or two areas of business they were working on, others
gave a more overarching view of their business and their ultimate concrete target goals.
Specific goals that were mentioned that were concrete included aspects of business and
38 not just “I want to be successful” or “I want to make money.” The achievability and
concreteness of target goals is important because when individuals see the link between
action and cues, they continue to work hard towards the goal. If they feel like it is
something that they can accomplish, they will continue to pursue it. Although there was
some qualitative data, there was no quantitative data in the bi-weekly surveys of this
experiment to see how the participant felt like his achievement was towards his specific
goal; participants may have forgotten exactly what their goals were two weeks ago if they
were not completely committed or it was not specific enough. Also, if people felt like
they were not accomplishing any headway towards their goals, some participants
responded with short answers such as “nothing.” Fishbach and Dhar (as cited in Fishbach
et al., 2006) found that if individuals did not experience immediate success, they were
less committed to their goals and were less likely to continue similar goals. This may
have been a problem for some participants leading to dropout rates.
The kind of goals that participants set could also have influenced their
achievement and likelihood of keeping the same level of commitment towards their goal.
Fishbach, Dhar, and Zhang (2006) found that when individuals achieved a subgoal they
were likely to disengage unless they were ultimately focused on their superordinate goal.
Also, participants were only asked to set their own goals, not try to compete against
anyone which was shown to give individuals important feedback concerning their level of
attainment and commitment to their goals. This study did not examine individuals’
commitment to an overall goal, but it might be interesting to examine whether focus on a
superordinate goal was beneficial or harmful for each of the two manipulations that this
study used.
39 While the study allowed the participants to select their own goals, a previous
study (Gomez-Minambres, 2012) showed that commitment to a goal depends on whether
the goal exceeds an individual’s personal standard so that he feels like the goal is
challenging. Even if the goals are not attained, if a person feels like he has worked hard
he may be satisfied. However, if an individual lacks self-control or discipline and simply
does not try hard enough, he will be unhappy with his overall performance. Even if goals
are not directly attributable to wages, individuals show improvements in performance;
therefore, goal setting can be very helpful for intrinsic motivation. For this study, the
participants that continued may have kept going despite failing to achieve their goals
because they felt like they were working hard.
One practical implication of this study would be to better understand goal-setting
and its importance in the workplace. Also, there was a qualitative correlation between
the type of reporting that was asked for and the amount of words that individuals used to
describe their experiences over each two week period. Therefore, when trying to increase
the amount of feedback, asking participants to examine their remaining goals might lead
to a more thorough, emotional evaluation of their own efforts as far as their writings.
Also, the study has practical implications for retention of participants; whether those who
did not complete the surveys forgot, decided not to participate, or simply were not
satisfied with their goal achievement is interesting to speculate about. Also, although
there were no significant results, the fact that for two of the independent variables the
mean score increased for the remaining task condition in goal score and entrepreneurial
self-efficacy could provide further evidence that the results would have been similar to
the Fishbach and Dhar (2010) study if there had been more participants. This study may
40 have found that individuals who focused on remaining tasks were more interested in
moving up than those in the completed tasks condition. Also, the application of the study
to a realistic setting where individuals set their own goals could show a more accurate
view of how people view goal-setting. Also, there may be a fine distinction between
those that dropout from not hitting their goals and others who feel motivated and
challenged to continue trying to achieve their goals. Furthermore, the decrease in selfesteem for both variables, while not significant, could show that there is some negative
effect for self-esteem when looking at goal-setting overall, especially when not
accomplishing any of the set goals. Optimizing goal-setting technique is important in
order to help individuals in any setting make the most of their goals. One environment
where this research could be applied would be in school settings. For example, teachers
could learn how to best encourage their students to become self-motivated, especially
when working on term papers or semester long projects. In the workplace, jobs could be
done more efficiently if the employees’ considerations and goals were taken into effect
and implemented into programs. Also, discovering more information on the remaining
versus completed tasks condition could help individuals set better goals that keep them
motivated and from getting discouraged. Also, these differences in wording could change
how individuals view promotions or their current level of achievement.
One of the limitations to this analysis is that all of the values were self-reported
by the individuals who set the goals. There were not any outside measures of
performance such as sales or work performance. There was not also no side-by-side
comparison of goals set and goals accomplished or not accomplished. Also, the data was
severely limited by the number of participants. Although the study began with a
41 reasonable sample, the ending result was difficult to glean any information from because
of the number of participants that dropped out over the course of the study. Also, some
individuals participated in more bi-weekly surveys than others which may have led to a
weakened manipulation. Furthermore, surveys were only given bi-weekly and a more
common manipulation might have made a greater impact on the participants.
Further study might include outside measures of performance such as certain
actions that were accomplished, measuring to what extent a participant met his or her
goals exactly each week, or another individual’s evaluation. Goal-setting is important for
many aspects of life including school and in the workplace. Research on how to best
motivate employees can be extremely beneficial to business owners and can help keep
employees’ attitudes and motivation at a high level.
42 APPENDICES
APPENDIX A
HUMAN PARTICIPANTS RESEARCH PROPOSAL FORM Please complete this application as thoroughly as possible. Your application should include the following: 1. A copy of any questionnaires, interviews, surveys, scripts, etc. that will be used. 2. A copy of any recruitment documents (including ads, flyers, letters, emails) to be used; 3. A copy of the NIH training course certificate unless it is already on file with the MC IRB. Training is available at http://phrp.nihtraining.com/users/register.php 4. If the PI is a student, the faculty supervisor must submit a Faculty Supervisor Assurance Form from the faculty member’s own MC email account. Please email all documents to [email protected]. For additional information or assistance please check the Senior Study Tartan site or contact IRB Chair Dr. Tricia Bruce at [email protected]. 1. Protocol Title: Personal Goal-­‐Setting in a Business Environment Intended Start Date: July 7, 2012 2. Principal Investigator (PI) Name: Delaney Cornelius Division: Behavioral Sciences Email: [email protected] NIH Training Cert. On File Attached I am a student. If so, please provide information about your (thesis) faculty supervisor below. (Thesis) Faculty Supervisor: Crystal Colter (Thesis) Faculty Supervisor Email: [email protected] If the student is the PI, the faculty supervisor must complete and submit a Faculty Supervisor Assurance Form. 3. Co-­‐investigators Name: Email: Training Cert. On File Attached Name: Email: Training Cert. On File Attached Name: Email: Training Cert. On File Attached 45 Name: Email: Training Cert. On File Attached Name: Email: Training Cert. On File Attached 4. Funding Unfunded research Grant title: External funding Internal (MC) funding 5. Protocol Description Provide a summary of your proposed study as outlined below. You may attach the protocol to this form if you like. Purpose and objectives of the study. The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of self-­‐set goals on individuals' accomplishments in their own business. Furthermore, this experiment manipulates remaining and completed goal monitoring in order to see if they contribute to differences in goal achievement, self-­‐efficacy, and effort. Describe the research method (description of data collection and analysis, including what will be required of participants). Participants will be recruited to the study by asking for volunteers at a training session (script attached). Participants will be asked to give their name and an email address through which the researcher can contact them to give them a link to the introductory survey. In this 10 minute introductory survey, they will be asked about where they currently are in their business and their own goal setting techniques; also, the survey will measure entrepreneurial self-­‐efficacy and effort. Both experimental groups will fill out the introductory survey, but the researcher will then randomly assign the participants to either a completed or remaining tasks group. Then, participants will be asked to complete a bi-­‐weekly short, five-­‐minute paragraph with one of the experimental manipulation on either remaining or completed goals. One group will be asked to discuss their goal completion over the previous two weeks, and the other group will be asked to discuss what they wish to accomplish over the next two weeks. Participants can discuss any goals that they wish but will be asked to be as specific as possible. At the end of the three month experimental period, participants will be asked to fill out a conclusion survey similar to the introductory survey in which their self-­‐
efficacy and self-­‐esteem are also measured as well as what goals have been accomplished (attached as "Conclusion Survey"). After all data has been submitted, the research will analyze the two experimental groups in terms of number of sales, promotions, and recruiting numbers along with changes in self-­‐efficacy and effort over the experimental period. 6. Participant Information Who will be asked to participate? representatives Current MC students/faculty/staff only Other: Primerica How many participants are needed for the study? 30 What is the age range of participants in the proposed study? 18+ Describe how participants will be recruited to the study. At a training seminar, participants will be requested to participate in a study in goal setting. 46 Please attach any recruiting materials you plan to use, including the introductory script and text of any email or web-­‐based solicitations you will use. 7. Risks and Benefits Describe the anticipated benefits to participants of participation in the study. Better goal setting techniques; forms of accountability; monetary gain if it benefits their business Describe the anticipated risks to participants of participation in the study. Time; they will not be asked to forego their own goal-­‐setting, so no other risks are forseen. Discus how any risks will be managed and/or minimized. We plan to minimize these risks by making the surveys bi-­‐weekly and allowing them to write as much or little as they want. If deception is involved, please explain. N/A Please attach any consent forms and/or debriefing letters. 8. Confidentiality and Data Security Will identifying information be collected? Yes No Will identifiers be translated into a code? Yes No Will recordings be made (audio, video)? If yes, please describe. No Who will have access to data (surveys, questionnaires, interview records, etc.)? Delaney Cornelius and advisor, Crystal Colter Describe how you will protect participant confidentiality and secure research records (e.g. Will they be stored on a secure computer, locked cabinet, etc.?). Secure Computer through password protection 9. Cooperating Institutions Is this research being done in cooperation with any institutions, individuals, or organizations not affiliated with MC? Yes No If yes, please list. Primerica Financial Services Have you received IRB approval from another IRB for this study? Yes No Pending If yes, please attach a copy of the IRB approval. Principal Investigator’s Assurance Statement for Using Human Participants in Research I certify that the information provided in this IRB application is complete and accurate. I understand that as the Principal Investigator, I have ultimate responsibility for the conduct of IRB approved studies, the ethical performance of protocols, the protection of the rights and welfare of human participants, and strict adherence to the studies protocol and any stipulations imposed by the Maryville College Institutional Review Board. 47 I will submit modifications and/or changes to the IRB as necessary. I agree to comply with all Maryville College policies and procedures, as well as with all applicable federal, state, and local laws, regarding the protection of human participants in research, including, but not limited to: Ensuring all investigators and key study personnel have completed the NIH training program; Ensuring protocols are conducted by qualified personnel following the approved IRB application; Implementing no changes in approved IRB applications without prior IRB approval; Promptly reporting to the IRB any changes involving risks to research participants; Promptly and completely complying with IRB decisions to suspend or withdraw approval; and Obtaining continuing review approval prior to the date the approval for a study expires. Delaney Cornelius Principal Investigator Signature Date 6/15/12 Note: If e-­‐mailed from the PI’s MC email account, a handwritten signature is not required. Please type in name and date. If the PI is a student, the (thesis) faculty supervisor must submit a Faculty Supervisor Assurance Form. Please email all documents to [email protected]. Comments: Forms attached include: Survey and Recruitment Materials and IRB Certificate 48 49 APPENDIX B
Introductory Survey
1) Choose an ID Number: _________
2) Gender:
a. Male
b. Female
3) Email: __________________________
4) What is your current contract level?
a. Representative
b. Senior Representative
c. District Leader
d. Division Leader
e. Regional Leader
f. Senior Regional Leader
g. Regional Vice President or Above
5) How long have you been a part of [the company]?
a. 1 month or less
b. Between 1 & 3 months
c. 3-6 months
d. 6 months to 1 year
e. 1-4 years
f. 5-10 years
g. 11 years or more
6) Are you currently working part-time or full-time?
51 a. Part-time
b. Full-time
7) Do you currently set goals of some kind?
a. Yes
b. No
8) If so, how do you keep track of them? (select all that apply)
a. Daily Planner
b. Write on board/mirror
c. Mentally but don’t write them down
d. Discuss them with my spouse/upline/other person
e. Other. Please specify: ________________
9) If so, please provide a short description of your current goals for the next two
weeks, next month, and over the next three months?
10) Rate agreement with the following:
1 (Strongly Disagree) 2
3
4 (Strongly Agree)
___ Overall, I am satisfied with my current level of activity.
___ I think about my goals daily.
___ I try to set easy goals to make sure that I achieve them.
___ I enjoy my current level of work.
___ I desire to move on to more challenging goals than I am currently
setting.
___ I am happy with where I am at in the business.
___ I am not sure if I can accomplish the goals that I have set.
52 ___ I set very specific goals.
___ I believe that telling my goals to someone helps make me feel
accountable for them.
___ I achieve the goals that I set.
11) Indicate the level with which you agree or disagree to each of the following:
1 (Strongly Disagree)
2
3
4 (Strongly Agree)
___ I can create a working environment that lets people be their own
boss.
___ I can encourage people to take initiatives and responsibilities for
their ideas and decisions, regardless of outcome.
___ I have difficulty working under continuous stress, pressure and
conflict.
___
I can articulate vision and values of the company.
___ I wait until I need a product to get licensed for it.
___
I can inspire others to embrace the vision and values of the
company.
___ I can formulate a set of actions in pursuit of opportunities.
___ I can tolerate unexpected changes in business conditions
___ I can develop a working environment that encourages people to try
out something new.
___ I find it hard to persist when facing adversity.
___ I can recruit and train key people.
___ I believe that a person must lead by example.
53 ___ I am knowledgeable about the products.
*Above questions modified from De Noble, Jung, & Ehrlich (1999).
Compared to my peers, I am:
1
2
Much worse
3
a little worse about the same
____
At solving problems
____
At managing money
____
At recruiting
____
At leadership
____
At making decisions
____
At setting appointments
4
a little better
5
much better
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