Motivation through conscious goal setting (original) (raw)
The development of goal setting theory: A half century retrospective
Motivation Science
This chapter summarizes the authors' joint development of the goal setting theory. The basic concept was based on more than 50 years of research and the formal theory has endured for 28 years (Locke & Latham, 1990). The theory was not developed through overgeneralization from only a few studies or by deduction but rather by induction. The inductions involved the integration of hundreds of studies involving thousands of participants. The theory initially focused solely on consciously set goals. To date, the goal setting theory has shown generality across participants, tasks, nationality, goal source, settings, experimental designs, outcome variables, levels of analysis (individual, group, division, and organizational), and time spans. The theory identifies both mediators and moderators of goal effects. Numerous subsequent studies since 1990 have supported the main tenets of the theory. New findings have enlarged our knowledge of the relevant mediators and moderators as well as showing new applications (Locke & Latham, 2013). Among these discoveries are when to set learning rather than performance goals, the effect of goals primed in the subconscious on job performance, and that goal effects are enhanced by having people write at length about them.
Building a practically useful theory of goal setting and task motivation: A 35-year odyssey
American Psychologist, 2002
The authors summarize 35 years of empirical research on goal-setting theory. They describe the core findings of the theory, the mechanisms by which goals operate, moderators of goal effects, the relation of goals and satisfaction, and the role of goals as mediators of incentives. The external validity and practical significance of goal-setting theory are explained, and new directions in goal-setting research are discussed. The relationships of goal setting to other theories are described as are the theory's limitations.
Goal setting—A motivational technique that works
Organizational Dynamics, 1979
a division of American Management Associations. All rights reserved. 0090-2616/79/0015-0068/$02.00/O Gary P. Latham is a lecturer and research consuftant at the College of Business and Management at the University of Washington, Seattle. Preuiously he was a staff psychologist and manager of human resource research at the Weyerhaeuser Company in Tacoma. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Akron in 1974, his M.S. from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1969, and his B.A. from Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia in 1967. Dr. Latham is a member of the Canadian Psychological Association and the Academy of Management and is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association. He has published more than 40 articles in professional journals, including numerous field studies on the effects of goal setting.
2012
This literature summarizes research on the relationship between goal setting and task performance, conducted between 1969 and 1980. These studies identified the relationship of goal attributes to level of performance, moderators such as feedback, goal acceptance and supportiveness, and individual differences in responses to goal setting. [The SSCI and the SCI indicate that this paper has been cited in more than 395 publications.]
The Role of Goal Acceptance in Goal Setting and Task Performance
Academy of Management Review, 1983
Goal setting has been widely used to enhance work motivation. This paper discusses the importance of goal acceptance in moderating goal setting effects and shows how workers' acceptance of goals can be influenced at various stages of the progression from goal setting to goal attainment. A heuristic organization of goal acceptance strategies is proposed as a basis for extending the theoretical framework underlying goal setting research.
New Directions in Goal-Setting Theory
Goal-setting theory is summarized regarding the effectiveness of specific, difficult goals; the relationship of goals to affect; the mediators of goal effects; the relation of goals to self-efficacy; the moderators of goal effects; and the generality of goal effects across people, tasks, countries, time spans, experimental designs, goal sources (i.e., self-set, set jointly with others, or assigned), and dependent variables. Recent studies concerned with goal choice and the factors that influence it, the function of learning goals, the effect of goal framing, goals and affect (well-being), group goal setting, goals and traits, macrolevel goal setting, and conscious versus subconscious goals are described. Suggestions are given for future research.
The Effects of Self-Set Goals on Task Performance
Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 2000
Locke & Latham (l990a) report that specific, difficult goals lead to better performance than "do-your-best'' instructions, whether the goals are self-set or are set by an external source. However, in Experiment I, as well as in previous research (White, Kjelgaard, & Harkins, 1995). we did not find self-set goal effects. A meta-analysis showed that self-set goal effects can be produced if two conditions are met: Prior to setting their goals, participants take part in a pretest that is equal in duration to the experimental task; and the experimenter has access to the participants' goals and the performances. Experiment 2 confirmed these meta-analytic findings by showing that when these two conditions were met, goals stringent enough to produce the effects were set, and goal-setting effects were obtained.
The role of goal specificity in the goal-setting process
Motivation and Emotion, 1990
The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between goal specificity and task performance, with specificity operationalized as a continuous quantitative variable reflecting the range of performance levels individuals chose as their personal goals. It was hypothesized that, controlling for goal difficulty, specific' personal goals would be associated with higher levels of task performance. It was also hypothesized that task strategy would mediate the relationship between goal specificity and performance and that specific goals would be associated with smaller goal-performance discrepancies. The results from a sample of 162 college students working on an eye-hand coordination task supported the hypothesis concerning goal-perfoiTnance discrepancies. They hypotheses regarding task strategy and the relationship between goal specificity and performance were supported only on the second of two trials.