The Effects of Task Importance and Publicness on the Relation Between Goal Difficulty and Performance

AbstractIn a laboratory study using undergraduate students (N =200), perceived task importance was found to moderate therelationship between goal level and performance. More-over, participants performed better when both the goaland performance were public rather than anonymous.These findings suggest that by manipulating task impor-tance and publicness of performance, it is possible to influ-ence the impact that the difficulty of specific goals have onperformance. The results are consistent with our hypothe-ses that the motivation to preserve one's self-image andthe motivation to preserve one's public-image are twofactors that determine effort and persistence devoted toassigned goals.ResumeUne etude de laboratoire menee aupres d'etudiants de pre-mier cycle (N = 200) a revile que la perception de l'importancede la tache attenue la relation entre le niveau de l'objectif et laperformance. De plus, les participants fonctionnaient mieuxlorsque l'objectif et la performance etaient publics plutot qu'a-nonymes. Ces resultats suggerent qu'en modifiant l'impor-tance de la tache et le niveau de diffusion de la performance, ilest possible d'influencer l'incidence de la difficulte reliee a desobjectifs precis sur la performance. Les resultats confirmentnos hypotheses. La motivation pour preserver l'image de soiet la motivation pour preserver l'image publique sont deuxfacteurs qui determinent l'effort et la persistance consacresaux objectifs designes.Among the most robust findings in the behaviouralscience literature is that individuals who set a specificgoal perform significantly better than individuals who areurged to do their best (Latham & Locke, 1991). In addi-tion, assuming that individuals are committed to the goal,goal setting theory (Locke & Latham, 1990) states that themore difficult a specific goal, the better the performance.However, when individuals reach the limits of theirability at high goal difficulty levels, the goal diffi-culty-performance function levels off (Locke, 1982). Though the overall validity and usefulness of goal settingtheory has been demonstrated in several reviews (Latham& Locke, 1991; Locke & Latham, 1990), meta-analyses(O'Leary-Kelly, Martocchio, & Frink, 1994; Wood, Mento,& Locke, 1987), and comparative assessments of goalsetting theory relative to other theories of motivation(Kanfer, 1990; Pinder, 1984), the specific reasons whyindividuals are motivated to devote effort and persistencetowards goal attainment are unclear. Thus, goal settingtheory offers explanations about how individuals attaina goal; however, the specific reasons for doing so areunknown. In the present study, two factors that mayexplain why individuals devote energy towards goalattainment were investigated, namely, task importanceand publicness of performance.A number of theories embrace the notion that individ-uals attempt to protect or enhance their self-image.Individuals prefer to feel positively rather than negativelyabout themselves. For example, a core assumption of theself-evaluation maintenance model (Tesser & Campbell,1983; Tesser, 1988) is that individuals attempt either tomaximize positive self-evaluation or to minimize negativeself-evaluation. Similarly, self-discrepancy theory (Hig-gins, 1987) states that individuals feel disappointed anddissatisfied when their performance is discrepant from anideal, personal aspiration. However, for any particularindividual it will be important to do well on only a smallsubset of all possible performance dimensions. These willtypically be the more central and important performancedimensions that form the core of the individual's identity.