Clarifying achievement goals and their impact

How Goals and Beliefs Lead People into and Out of Depression

There is evidence that beliefs (cognitive vulnerabilities) and goals (to prove self-worth) contribute to depression but little consideration of how they work in tandem. Synthesizing research on beliefs and goals leads us to four propositions: (a) People with cognitive vulnerabilities often adopt self-worth goals (seeking to prove self-worth and to avoid proof of worthlessness). People with the opposite beliefs often adopt learning goals. (b) Stressors trigger depression largely because they lead people with self-worth goals to focus narrowly on goals to avoid proof of worthlessness. The same stressors do not lead people with learning goals to become depressed. (c) People with goals to avoid proof of worthlessness adopt defensive self-handicapping behaviors (e.g., effort withdrawal, rumination) when dealing with stressors, because those behaviors serve their goals. The same stressors lead people with learning goals to adopt constructive, problem-solving strategies. (d) A key to alleviating depression is fostering a shift from self-worth goals to learning goals and from the beliefs underlying self-worth goals to the opposite beliefs.

Relations of Parent-Youth Interactive Exchanges to Adolescent Socioemotional Development

This study examined the relations of parent-youth agreement and disagreement during a joint problem-solving task and multi-methodological indices of socioemotional outcomes in adolescents (Mean age = 13). One hundred and sixty seven parents and their adolescent children participated. Each parent-youth pair played the interactive game Jenga, and their interactions were analyzed for frequency of elaborations (agreement during three or more conversational turns) and negotiations (disagreement during three or more conversational turns). Elaborations during parent-youth interactions were related to less negative classroom behavior, better self-regulation, and more task persistence in youth. Findings are discussed in light of the importance of parent-youth interaction and youth autonomy in adolescent socioemotional development.

Moving from ethnography to epidemiology: lessons learned in Appalachia

BACKGROUND

Anthropologists are beginning to translate insights from ethnography into tools for population studies that assess the role of culture in human behavior, biology, and health.

AIM

We describe several lessons learned in the creation and administration of an ethnographically-based instrument to assess the life course perspectives of Appalachian youth, the Life Trajectory Interview for Youth (LTI-Y). Then, we explore the utility of the LTI-Y in predicting depressive symptoms, controlling for prior depressive symptoms and severe negative life events throughout the life course.

SUBJECTS AND METHODS

In a sample of 319 youths (190 White, 129 Cherokee), we tested the association between depressive symptoms and two domains of the LTI-Y - life course barriers and milestones. Longitudinal data on prior depressive symptoms and negative life events were included in the model.

RESULTS

The ethnographically-based scales of life course barriers and milestones were associated with unique variance in depressive symptoms, together accounting for 11% of the variance in this outcome.

CONCLUSION

When creating ethnographically-based instruments, it is important to strike a balance between detailed, participant-driven procedures and the analytic needs of hypothesis testing. Ethnographically-based instruments have utility for predicting health outcomes in longitudinal studies.

A longitudinal study of motivation and competence in children with Down syndrome: early childhood to early adolescence

BACKGROUND

Motivation has been identified as an area of difficulty for children with Down syndrome. Although individual differences in mastery motivation are presumed to have implications for subsequent competence, few longitudinal studies have addressed the stability of motivation and the predictive validity of early measures for later academic achievement, especially in atypical populations.

METHOD

The participants were 25 children with Down syndrome. Mastery motivation, operationalized as persistence, was measured in early childhood and adolescence using tasks and parent report. At the older age, preference for challenge, another aspect of mastery motivation, was also measured and the children completed assessments of academic competence.

RESULTS

There were significant concurrent correlations among measures of persistence at both ages, and early task persistence was associated with later persistence. Persistence in early childhood was related to academic competence in adolescence, even when the effects of cognitive ability at the younger age were controlled.

CONCLUSIONS

For children with Down syndrome, persistence appears to be an individual characteristic that is relatively stable from early childhood to early adolescence. The finding that early mastery motivation is significant for later achievement has important implications for the focus of early interventions.

Self-Image Goals and Compassionate Goals: Costs and Benefits

Two types of interpersonal goals-self-image goals and compassionate goals-reflect distinct motivational perspectives on the relationship between the self and others-egosystem and ecosystem perspectives, respectively. Research on the associations of self-image goals and compassionate goals with students' experiences in their first semester of college is described. Chronic self-image goals and compassionate goals predict changes in learning and achievement goals, self-regulation and goal progress, social support and friendships, emotions, and symptoms of anxiety and depression. Self-image goals have costs for belonging, and compassionate goals have benefits for belonging.

Goal priming and the emotional experience of students with and without attention problems: an application of the emotional stroop task

The primary purpose of the present study is to evaluate the emotional experience of students with (n = 52) and without attention problems (n = 272) during an achievement task. A secondary purpose of the present study is to compare students' emotional response to various stimuli, when motivated by various achievement goals. Participants were randomly assigned into a mastery goal condition, a normative performance goal condition, and a non-normative performance goal condition. Results, using a latent means analysis, indicate that students with attention problems needed additional time to process emotion-loaded but not neutral words, providing evidence for an interference effect. Furthermore, students in the performance-normative, relative to the performance non-normative, condition showed a salient interference effect with respect to various emotion-loaded and neutral words.

Talking about Success: Implications for Achievement Motivation

Three studies investigated the influence of verbal descriptions concerning the performance of others on children's ability conceptions among 177 elementary school children ranging in age from 8 to 12 years. Study 1 showed that when high-performing characters were described with labels such as "math whiz," children tended to view the character's ability as more innate, and less susceptible to being altered by a change in effort. Study 2 showed that a reference to a successful character's previous struggles led participants to conceive of ability as more malleable, and to express more optimism about their own prospects for academic success. Study 3 provided further evidence that hearing descriptions of change in performance over time can influence children's reasoning. These results suggest that when individuals frequently make use of ability-related labels or describe people as maintaining stable patterns of performance over periods of time, they may implicitly convey maladaptive conceptions of ability to children.

Sieben Arten der Lernmotivation

Zusammenfassung. Der Artikel vermittelt einen Überblick über zentrale theoretische Ansätze der Lernmotivationsforschung. Als integrativer Rahmen zur Darstellung dient dabei ein Handlungsmodell, das in Anlehnung an Heckhausen und Heckhausen (2006) entstanden ist. Es werden sieben Arten von Lernmotivationstheorien vorgestellt und in das Handlungsmodell eingeordnet: klassische Leistungsmotivationstheorie, erweiterte Erwartungs-Wert-Theorien, Attributionstheorien, Zielorientierungskonzepte, Theorien intrinsischer Motivation, Volitionsmodelle und Theorien sozialer Motivation. Für jede Theorieart wird aufgezeigt, an welche Prozesse im Handlungsverlauf die Motivation gebunden ist. Dadurch treten Gemeinsamkeiten und Unterschiede zwischen den Motivationstheorien deutlich hervor. Zur Veranschaulichung des Zusammenhangs zwischen Motivation und Lernleistung auf empirischer Ebene werden die Befunde aus Metaanalysen präsentiert.

Reasons for disclosing depression matter: the consequences of having egosystem and ecosystem goals

People with depression often conceal their depression and do not seek help, in part because of the stigma associated with mental illness. We propose two motivational systems for the self: egosystem motivations, concerned with protecting and inflating desired self-images, and ecosystem motivations, concerned with contributing or supporting others. Using a sample of 48 individuals at a Midwestern university, USA, this study examined motivations for disclosing or concealing a concealable stigma, to test the hypotheses that: (1) these motivations load on two factors corresponding to egosystem and ecosystem goals, and (2) ecosystem motivations for disclosure have more positive effects on disclosure and psychological well-being. We found that people with egosystem goals disclosed less, and also experienced lower psychological well-being when they did disclose. Conversely, people with ecosystem goals disclosed more and experienced greater psychological well-being while doing so. Implications of these findings for deciding when and to whom to disclose one's depression are discussed.

Nursing students motivation toward their studies - a survey study

Background

This study focuses on Swedish nursing students' motivation toward their studies during their three year academic studies. Earlier studies show the importance of motivation for study commitment and result. The aim was to analyze nursing students' estimation of their degree of motivation during different semester during their education and to identify reasons for the degree of motivation.

Methods

A questionnaire asking for scoring motivation and what influenced the degree of motivation was distributed to students enrolled in a nursing programme. 315 students who studied at different semesters participated. Analyzes were made by statistical calculation and content analysis.

Results

The mean motivation score over all semesters was 6.3 (ranked between 0–10) and differed significantly during the semesters with a tendency to lower score during the 5th semester. Students (73/315) with motivation score <4 reported explanations such as negative opinion about the organisation of the programme, attitude towards the studies, life situation and degree of difficulty/demand on studies. Students (234/315) with motivation score >6 reported positive opinions to becoming a nurse (125/234), organization of the programme and attitude to the studies. The mean score value for the motivation ranking differed significantly between male (5.8) and female (6.8) students.

Conclusion

Conclusions to be drawn are that nursing students mainly grade their motivation positive distributed different throughout their entire education. The main motivation factor was becoming a nurse. This study result highlights the need of understanding the students' situation and their need of tutorial support.

Self-Objectification and Well-Being in Women's Daily Lives

Laboratory experiments and surveys show that self-objectification increases body shame, disrupts attention, and negatively predicts well-being. Using experience sampling methodology, the authors investigated self-objectification in the daily lives of 49 female college students. Building on the predictions of objectification theory, they examined associations between internalizing an observer's perspective on the self and psychological well-being, and examined the moderating roles of trait self-esteem and appearance-contingent self-worth. Within-person increases in self-objectification predicted decreased well-being, but this association was moderated by trait self-esteem and trait appearance-contingent self-worth; high self-esteem, highly appearance-contingent participants reported increased well-being when they self-objectified. Furthermore, perceived unattractiveness partially mediated the main effect and the three-way interaction: high self-esteem, highly contingent participants experienced smaller drops in well-being when they self-objectified, in part because they felt less unattractive. These results suggest that in daily life, some women receive a boost from self-objectification, although most women experience decreases in well-being when self-objectifying.

Why are students with LD depressed? A goal orientation model of depression vulnerability

The thesis of the present study was that failure in achievement tasks may constitute a stress factor that can trigger a depression episode, particularly for students with learning disabilities (LD), and that a particular motivational pattern may constitute a cognitive diathesis for depression. Participants were 104 students referred for LD who were drawn from a pool of approximately 900 students from Grades 5 and 6. Students were challenged with a series of difficult math exercises, and their achievement behaviors were examined as a function of achievement goal orientations. Results from structural equation modeling provided empirical support of the contention that performance-avoidance goals may account for a series of negative cognitions and affect. Direct positive paths linked performance-avoidance goals to anxiety, depression, and negative affect; negative paths were revealed with regard to self-esteem and positive affect. Thus, performance-avoidance goals may possess elements of the diathesis mechanism described by Dykman, constituting a vulnerability factor that triggers the mechanism of depression when negative events are in place.

Contingencies of Self-Worth, Academic Failure, and Goal Pursuit

Two studies examine the effects of failure on explicit and implicit self-esteem, affect, and self-presentation goals as a function of people's trait self-esteem and academic contingency of self-worth. Study 1 shows that participants with low self-esteem (LSE) who receive failure feedback experience lower state self-esteem, less positive affect, and less desire to be perceived as competent the more they base self-worth on academics. In contrast, participants with high self-esteem (HSE) who strongly base self-worth on academics show a slight boost in state self-esteem and desire to be perceived as competent following failure. Study 2 shows that following failure, academically contingent LSE participants downplay the importance of appearing competent to others and associate themselves with failure on an implicit level. Taken together, these findings suggest that academically contingent HSE people show resilience following failure, whereas academically contingent LSE people experience negative outcomes and disengage from the pursuit of competence self-presentation goals.

Implicit theories of intelligence predict achievement across an adolescent transition: a longitudinal study and an intervention

Two studies explored the role of implicit theories of intelligence in adolescents' mathematics achievement. In Study 1 with 373 7th graders, the belief that intelligence is malleable (incremental theory) predicted an upward trajectory in grades over the two years of junior high school, while a belief that intelligence is fixed (entity theory) predicted a flat trajectory. A mediational model including learning goals, positive beliefs about effort, and causal attributions and strategies was tested. In Study 2, an intervention teaching an incremental theory to 7th graders (N=48) promoted positive change in classroom motivation, compared with a control group (N=43). Simultaneously, students in the control group displayed a continuing downward trajectory in grades, while this decline was reversed for students in the experimental group.

Performance-Approach and Performance-Avoidance Goals: When Uncertainty Makes a Difference

Performance-avoidance goals (the desire to avoid performing more poorly than others do) have been shown to have consistently deleterious effects on performance but the effects of performance-approach goals (trying to outperform others) are more complex. Two studies examine uncertainty as a moderator of the effect of performance-approach goals on performance. Experiment 1 shows that manipulated performance-approach goals lead to better performance than do performance-avoidance goals in the absence of uncertainty about performance but when participants learn that a coactor disagreed with them about problem solutions, creating uncertainty, performance-approach goals do not differ from performance-avoidance goals in their effect on performance. Experiment 2 shows that uncertainty also moderates the effects of self-set performance-approach goals. Moreover, the same dynamic occurs with another kind of uncertainty: negative competence feedback.

Investigating the Link Between Validation Seeking and Lay Dispositionism

In this study, the authors investigated the relationship between validation seeking (VS; Dykman, 1998) and lay dispositionism, the use of personality traits as the basis for social inference (Chiu, Hong, & Dweck, 1997). Specifically, the authors sought to empirically address three questions: (a) Does VS predict the tendency to make dispositional inferences and, if so, do social comparison tendencies mediate this relationship? (b) Does VS mediate the association between implicit person theories and lay dispositionism? and (c) Does contingent parental regard indirectly predict lay dispositionism via its effects on VS and/or implicit person theories? Results suggest that both VS and entity person theories facilitate lay dispositionism, yet do so via distinct processes. Both processes are driven at least partly by contingent parental regard; however, their effects on lay dispositionism differ in scope and in the extent to which they entail social comparison.

Investigação das propriedades psicométricas de uma escala de metas de realização

A motivação para aprender é um fenômeno complexo e relevante, muito discutido na literatura estrangeira, mas pouco explorado no Brasil, principalmente em relação à sua mensuração. O objetivo deste trabalho foi investigar a estrutura fatorial, a precisão e as correlações entre os fatores de uma escala de metas de realização. Os participantes foram 156 estudantes de Psicologia, de ambos os sexos, com 22,3 anos em média, de duas universidades paulistas. Por meio de análise fatorial extraíram-se quatro fatores com precisões de 0,57 a 0,86. O primeiro fator foi relacionado à meta performanceaproximação, o segundo à meta aprender e o terceiro e quarto fatores a aspectos distintos da meta performanceevitação. Com base na análise das cargas fatoriais, correlações entre os fatores e estruturas lingüísticas das frases, foram feitas sugestões que devem auxiliar na continuidade do trabalho para obtenção de uma escala validada e fidedigna para avaliação das metas de realização.

Explanation and Intergroup Emotion: Social Explanations as a Foundation of Prejudice-Related Compunction

Two studies examined whether social explanations—causal frameworks used to make sense of a group’s status and behavior—are associated with prejudice-related compunction. In Study 1, based on Devine, Monteith, Zuwerink, & Elliott, (1991), participants who endorsed external explanations (e.g. low socioeconomic status of Blacks stems from historical maltreatment) showed a particularly strong tendency to experience compunction in response to prejudice-related discrepancies. Study 2 involved a novel paradigm. Participants were induced to admit that they would discriminate against Black males. Conceptually replicating Study 1, endorsement of external explanations was positively associated with compunction in response to this imagined discrimination. Across both studies, there was also evidence that the effects of external explanations are not explicable in terms of internal motivation to avoid prejudice, global prejudice, or global positive evaluation of African Americans. Discussion centers on the importance of explanations in shaping intergroup emotions and how the concept of explanation links the intergroup emotion literature to other emotion literatures.

A novel approach to assessing achievement goals in the context of the 2 x 2 framework: identifying distinct profiles of individuals with different dominant achievement goals

In two studies, individuals' dominant achievement goals were assessed using a new, simple, and conceptually precise measure based on Elliot and McGregor's (2001) 2 x 2 framework. Next, the four groups were compared in terms of achievement-relevant variables, including need for achievement, perfectionism, perceived competence, interest, and graded performance. As expected, a very high percentage (approximately 85%) of people indicated they had a dominant achievement goal. Furthermore, the results suggest that individuals with different dominant achievement goals have clear, distinct profiles that can be characterized as positively valenced (mastery-approach), both positively and negatively valenced (performance-approach), negatively valenced (performance-avoidance), or neither positively nor negatively valenced (mastery-avoidance).

The Intersection of Students' Perceptions of Instrumentality, Self-Efficacy, and Goal Orientations in an Online Mathematics Course

Abstract. The theoretical foundations of this research were Future Time Perspective ( Simons et al., 2004 ) and Expectancy × Value ( Wigfield & Eccles, 2002 ) theories of motivation. The goals of the current study were to better understand (1) the relationship of endogenous perceptions of instrumentality to student self-efficacy, self-regulation, and goal orientation during the semester; (2) the relative influence of endogenous perceptions of instrumentality, self-efficacy, self-regulation, and goal orientation on course performance; (3) the unique contribution of endogenous perceptions of instrumentality, self-efficacy, self-regulation, and goal orientation to course performance; and (4) the potential change in student endogenous perceptions of instrumentality and self-efficacy during the semester of study in relationship to course performance. Four hundred and eighty seven undergraduate students' enrolled in an online introductory algebra course participated in this study. Results indicated that, after controlling for self-efficacy and endogenous perceptions of instrumentality at the beginning of the semester, students' self-regulation, self-efficacy, and endogenous perceptions of instrumentality at the end of the semester predicted 24% of the variance in student course performance. Students' self-reported goal orientations at the beginning of the semester were not related to their course performance.

The Pursuit of Self-Esteem: Contingencies of Self-Worth and Self-Regulation

Successful self-regulation is defined as the willingness to exert effort toward one's most important goals, while taking setbacks and failures as opportunities to learn, identify weaknesses and address them, and develop new strategies toward achieving those goals. Contingencies of self-worth can facilitate self-regulation because people are highly motivated to succeed and avoid failure in domains of contingency. However, because boosts in self-esteem are pleasurable and drops in self-esteem are painful, protection, maintenance, and enhancement of self-esteem can become the overriding goal. Several pitfalls for self-regulation can result, especially when tasks are difficult and failure is likely. In this article, we describe a program of research examining these self-regulation pitfalls associated with contingent self-worth and suggest that learning orientations, particularly the willingness to embrace failure for the learning it affords, foster successful self-regulation even in people with highly contingent self-esteem.

Context sensitivity in children's reasoning about ability across the elementary school years

Children's sensitivity to context when making inferences about ability was investigated. In three studies, elementary school children (ages 5 to 10, total N = 332) were asked to reason about the relation between academic ability and the speed with which characters completed puzzle tasks. Participants were primed to interpret the characters' task completion rates with reference to either (1) the character's perceptions of the difficulty of the task, or (2) the character's level of effort on the task. Children who were primed to consider the perceived difficulty of the task were more likely to view ability as a static quality, a pattern of reasoning that included a tendency to associate task completion rates with ability, and to agree that not all individuals are capable of achieving high levels of success. These results provide evidence that even early elementary school children are sensitive to subtle contextual cues when making inferences about ability, and are consistent with the possibility that children make use of implicit cues available to them in their social environment to derive meaning from achievement situations.

Causal relationships of sport and exercise involvement with goal orientations, perceived competence and intrinsic motivation in physical education: a longitudinal study

Little information exists about the causal relationships of sport and exercise participation with goal orientations, perceived athletic competence and intrinsic motivation in physical education. A longitudinal study was conducted involving 882 Greek students who completed questionnaires on three occasions: 3 - 5 weeks into the academic year, 3 - 6 weeks before the end of the academic year, and 7 months later. The data were analysed using structural equation models, controlling for age. Task orientation and intrinsic motivation in physical education at the beginning of the academic year predicted sport and exercise participation 7 and 14 months later. Perceived athletic competence both at the beginning and end of the academic year predicted sport and exercise participation 7 and 14 months later, while ego orientation did not predict sport and exercise involvement at either time. Previous sport and exercise participation had positive effects on task orientation and perceived athletic competence 3 - 6 weeks before the end of the academic year and predicted all cognitive-affective constructs 7 months later. These results imply that the cultivation of task orientation, intrinsic motivation in physical education and perceived athletic competence will help to promote sport and exercise participation in adolescence.

PERSONAL CONCEPTIONS OF INTELLIGENCE: CROSS-CULTURAL COMPARISONS BETWEEN PORTUGUESE AND ITALIAN STUDENTS

This article presents some results of an intercultural study on personal conceptions of intelligence. The sample includes 1,540 students, 811 Italians and 729 Portuguese, from both sexes and of different socioeconomic statuses, of secondary Grades 10 and 12 and of the 1st grade of several university courses in both countries. The instrument used was The Personal Conceptions of Intelligence Scale (Faria, 2003), with 26 items, translated and adapted to Portuguese and Italian. The level of education and the cultural context appear as the only variables with either principal and interaction effects on the differentiation of personal conceptions of intelligence, which are analyzed according to the particularities of Italian and Portuguese school systems.