Goal - setting theory (Curtis 37) starts with the situationally specific, conscious motivational factors closest to action: goals and intentions. Goal theory then works backward to determine what causes goals and makes them effective. The specific, close-to-action goal - setting approaches have been more successful in explaining performance than the general, far from-action motivational approaches that stress general needs and motives based on subconscious values. Only when ideas become goals based on beliefs about what is important or what one wants to attain or should attain do they affect action. Having a goal affects task performance because people will do things (take action) to attain the goal.
Goals affect task performance in at least three ways. First, they energize performance by motivating people to exert effort in line with the difficulty or demands of the goals or task. It is not simple physiological arousal that...
Generally, one expects more effort to be expended when goals are difficult than when they are easy. Greater effort should produce in greater performance, and more effort is needed to attain hard goals than easy goals. More effort typically gets better results than less effort, given that ability is adequate.
Second, goals motivate individuals to persist in their activities through time. Hard goals will keep people working for longer periods than vague or easy goals. Hard or challenging goals inspire the individual to be tenacious, to refuse to settle for less than could be achieved. Individuals who set easy goals stop working sooner than those with hard goals do. While this result may seem trivial, it does illustrate the fact that challenging goals keep people motivated longer than less challenging goals, even when all individuals are working at the…
