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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

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Psychology

MSU Graduate Theses

2017

Goal setting

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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

The Effects Of Motivation And Goal Setting On Response Latency And Mental Effort, Jessica K. Willis Aug 2017

The Effects Of Motivation And Goal Setting On Response Latency And Mental Effort, Jessica K. Willis

MSU Graduate Theses

Researchers have found that performance is enhanced when participants set goals that are specific, difficult, and perceived as attainable. Also, motivation contributes to performance; specifically, intrinsic motivation, approach motivation, and avoidance motivation. Ninety participants were assigned randomly to one of two motivation groups; a goal setting or a control and assessed over a series of memory problems; solvable and unsolvable. Participant’s response latencies (RL) following an unsolvable problem was examined as a function of motivation type. Based upon the results from a 2 (Group; goal setting vs control) X 2 (test order) X 2 (memory problem difference scores) mixed ANOVA, …


Cognitive Origin Of Reported Goals, Nikolas M. Pate Aug 2017

Cognitive Origin Of Reported Goals, Nikolas M. Pate

MSU Graduate Theses

Goal setting theory assumes that goals that drive self-regulation exist in ‘goal structures’ and that asking participants to report their goals draws from these pre-existing structures. This study tested this assumption of pre-existing goals against the notion that goals are generated by goal-setters at the time they are requested to report their goals. A model of working memory was used to differentiate between goals existing in memory or goals generated on the spot. Participants were 211 students from a large Midwestern public university, randomly assigned to one of two groups. The experimental group participants reported their career goals while also …