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Determining the Importance of Self-Evaluation on the Goal-Performance
Effect in Goal Setting: Primary Findings
Bruce Martin
University College Dublin
Jeffrey McNally
University of New Brunswick
Simon Taggar
Wilfrid Laurier University
Although goal-setting theory is among the most studied theories in organizational behavior and work
motivation, the underlying motivations that drive the goal-performance effect have received less
attention. The authors examined the role of self-evaluation in generating the goal-performance effect via
blind testing in a laboratory experiment, in which participants (N⫽405) performed an idea generation
task under conditions eliminating the potential for external-evaluation. Designed to replicate and extend
the work of Harkins, White, and Utman (2000), the results indicate that self-evaluation plays a role in
generating the goal-performance effect, and that the pursuit of self-knowledge as well as self-validation
plays a role in motivating self-evaluation. These findings support hypotheses that are consistent with goal
setting theory and social comparison theory, and are contrary to Harkins et al. (2000). Implications for
theory boundaries and work motivation are discussed.
Keywords: goal setting theory, self-evaluation, self-knowledge, social comparison, work motivation
Goal-setting theory (Locke & Latham, 1990) is one of the most
widely tested theories in the field of work motivation and organi-
zational behavior more generally, with more than 1,000 studies
supporting its development over the past 40 years (Mitchell &
Daniels, 2003). According to Locke and Latham (1990,2002), the
underlying premise of goal-setting theory is that (a) goals function
as immediate determinants of behavior, (b) specific and difficult
goals lead to high levels of absolute performance, and (c) for this
to happen individuals must be motivated by a perceived discrep-
ancy between current performance and a desired goal. Self-
evaluation occurs when individuals compare their desired goal
state with current performance levels (Kanfer, 1990). One problem
with not having a clear goal (e.g., adopting a do-your-best goal) is
the ambiguity as to what constitutes effectiveness. It is difficult to
self-evaluate where there is no clear goal.
Until recently, it was generally accepted that people are moti-
vated by the opportunity for self-evaluation via comparison of
their performance with a specific difficult criterion (Locke &
Latham, 1990). This view of self-evaluation as a fundamental
motivating influence stems from Festinger’s (1954) social com-
parison theory, which suggests that people are driven to self-
evaluate to avoid incorrect beliefs, or more generally to seek
self-knowledge. According to Festinger (1954), self-evaluation
occurs via objective/nonsocial means, if such means are available,
or via social comparison, if objective/nonsocial means are not
available. In other words, people have a basic desire to evaluate
their abilities relative to some standard to learn about themselves
(i.e., self-knowledge). The ideal standard is objective, such as
being able to jump four feet, versus subjective, such as being able
to jump quite far. Further, in Festinger’s view, the ideal objective
standard is one found in the physical world, without reference to
other humans (i.e., objective/nonsocial), but if such standards are
not available, people will use the abilities of others as a standard
(i.e., social comparison).
Goethals and Darley (1987) modified Festinger’s social com-
parison theory, by demonstrating that the need for self-validation
is also at play, and is likely equal to the need for self-knowledge.
In this view, people may be motivated to self-evaluate to gain
accurate information about their ability (self-knowledge), and/or to
confirm that they are as good as their peers (self-validation). Given
Goethals and Darley’s modification of Festinger’s theory, an in-
vestigation of the role of self-evaluation in goal setting must also
investigate whether the underlying motivation for self-evaluation
is generated by the need for self-knowledge versus self-validation.
The goal-performance effect has been demonstrated in a wide
variety of contexts: both field and laboratory settings; over time
spans varying from 1 min to 25 years (Howard & Bray, 1988;
Latham & Baldes, 1975;Locke & Latham, 2006); using individ-
uals, groups, and organizations as the level of analysis (Locke &
This article was published Online First October 12, 2015.
Bruce Martin, Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School, University
College Dublin; Jeffrey McNally, Faculty of Business Administration,
University of New Brunswick; Simon Taggar, School of Business and
Economics, Wilfrid Laurier University.
We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Centre for
Strategic Leadership, School of Business and Economics, Wilfrid Laurier
University, and thank Pak Hong Wong and Sarah Vermunt for their help in
collecting and coding data.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Bruce
Martin, Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School, University College
Dublin, Carysfort Avenue, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland. E-mail:
bruce.martin@ucd.ie
Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science / Revue canadienne des sciences du comportement © 2015 Canadian Psychological Association
2016, Vol. 48, No. 2, 91–100 0008-400X/16/$12.00 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/cbs0000025
91
Latham, 2002;Weldon, Jehn, & Pradhan, 1991); with assigned,
self-set, and participatively set goals (Latham, Erez, & Locke,
1988;Latham & Frayne, 1989); in studies across Asia, Australia,
Europe, and North America (Locke & Latham, 2002). As an
inductive program of research, its findings are widely supportive
of the goal-performance effect in a variety of contexts and across
time (Locke & Latham, 2013a).
Self-evaluations influence self-regulation, with individuals
monitoring their behavior, comparing their actions with meaning-
ful goals and adjusting their behavior to minimize discrepancies
between present actions and desired outcomes (Carver & Scheier,
1998;Cellar et al., 2011). Goal setting is primarily a goal produc-
ing discrepancy process and secondarily a discrepancy reduction
process (Locke & Latham, 2013a). The discrepancy between cur-
rent performance and the desired goal can impact performance by
focusing attention and effort (Rothkopf & Billington, 1979), in-
creasing energy applied to a task (Bandura & Cervone, 1983),
increasing persistence (LaPorte & Nath, 1976), and increasing the
identification and use of relevant knowledge and strategies (Wood
& Locke, 1990). For instance, an individual who wants to generate
50 ideas and believes (s)he is unlikely to achieve this goal unless
(s)he works hard, may (a) pay greater attention and give more
effort to generating ideas and away from activities that do not
generate ideas, (b) increase effort because (s)he anticipates the
self-satisfaction of achieving the goal, (c) continue to work rather
than stopping because the goal is not yet achieved, and (d) consider
different idea generation strategies to achieve the goal. The goal-
performance relationship is moderated by four main factors: goal
commitment, feedback regarding progress in achieving goals, task
complexity, and situational resources (Locke & Latham, 2002,
2013a). In the present experiment, we focused on a facet of goal
commitment.
Self-evaluation influences goal commitment. Goal commitment
is an individual’s determination or motivation to invest effort to
achieve a desired goal (Fishbach, Zhang, & Koo, 2009;Koo &
Fishbach, 2008;Latham & Locke, 2006;Locke & Latham, 1990)
and is influenced by the perceived importance of the goal (i.e., goal
value) and the perceived likelihood of attaining the desired goal
(i.e., goal expectancy; Monzani et al., 2015).
Although “a great deal is known about the consequences of goal
commitment, far less is known about its antecedents” (Burkley,
Anderson, Curtis, & Burkley, 2013; p. 667). Moreover, the spe-
cific role of self-evaluation in generating the goal-performance
effect is still somewhat controversial. Locke and Latham (1990,
2013b) asserted that self-evaluation plays a role in generating the
goal-performance effect, and studies such as Zimmerman and
Campillo (2003) have shown that self-evaluations significantly
influence the forethought phase of the goal-performance relation-
ship, during which individuals are expected to set their perfor-
mance goals—and their level of difficulty— on their own. Yet
Harkins, White, and Utman (2000) called into question the role of
self-evaluation in generating the goal-performance effect, and goal
setting scholars have called for more work designed to understand
the role of self-evaluation in goal setting more generally (Day &
Unsworth, 2013).
Harkins et al. (2000) pointed out that Locke and Latham’s
(1990) claim that the goal-performance effect is motivated by
self-evaluation has little, if any, empirical support, as nearly all
goal-setting studies included means for both internal evaluation
(self-evaluation) and external evaluation (evaluation by others,
such as an experimenter). Harkins and colleagues (Harkins et al.,
2000;White, Kjelgaard, & Harkins, 1995;Szymanski & Harkins,
1987) examined the impact of self-evaluation versus external
evaluation in generating the goal-performance effect. Their find-
ings purport to show that “the potential for self-evaluation does not
contribute at all” to the goal-performance effect (p. 103).
The present study was designed to examine whether Harkins et
al.’s (2000) findings should be interpreted as showing that the
potential for self-evaluation does not contribute at all to the goal-
performance effect, as the authors claim. We believe this is im-
portant because we are answering their unchallenged finding that
self-evaluation plays little to no role in the goal-performance
relationship. This conflicts with scholarly claims that self-
evaluation is critical to the goal-performance effect (e.g., Ashford
& De Stobbeleir, 2013). As such, we propose an experiment to
examine whether (a) self-evaluation plays a role in generating the
goal-performance effect, as Locke and Latham (1990) claimed and
Harkins et al. (2000) suggested they have refuted, and (b)
whether self-knowledge plays a role in motivating self-
evaluation, as Goethals and Darley (1987) claimed and Harkins
et al. (2000) suggested they have refuted. A laboratory exper-
iment, in which participants (N⫽405) performed an idea
generation task, was undertaken to first attempt to replicate the
results of Harkins et al. (2000) and then further examine the
impact of self-evaluation and self-knowledge on the goal-
performance effect.
Examination of Harkins et al. (2000) Findings
Harkins et al. (2000) reported findings from three experiments
examining the performance of undergraduate university students
on an idea generation task involving generating uses for a knife.
Their third experiment involved three manipulations, designed to
isolate conditions for (a) goal setting, (b) external evaluation
versus self-evaluation of performance, and (c) self-knowledge
versus self-validation within the self-evaluation condition. The
first manipulation varied experimenter demands by urging partic-
ipants to strive for a goal of generating 40 uses for a knife versus
saying nothing about meeting a goal, but simply encouraging
participants to do their best (goal-setting/do-your-best). The sec-
ond manipulation involved leading half the participants to believe
that the experimenter would evaluate their specific performance,
while the other half were led to believe that no one, including the
experimenter, would know their specific performance (external
evaluation/self-evaluation). The third manipulation varied the cri-
terion for self-evaluation, by justifying the goal to be achieved as
that which had been attained by similar participants versus dissim-
ilar participants (self-validation/self-knowledge).
Harkins et al. (2000) used the external evaluation/do-your-best
condition scores as the baseline for comparing all other outcomes.
They considered only those outcomes found to be significantly
above the performance level achieved in this condition as (poten-
tial) indicators of a goal-performance effect. Given this strategy for
interpreting their results, only the two external evaluation/goal
setting conditions showed a goal-performance effect. The highest
scores in all other conditions equaled (statistically) the baseline
do-your-best condition. This led them to conclude that (a) external
evaluation is an important mediator of the goal-performance ef-
92 MARTIN, MCNALLY, AND TAGGAR
fect; (b) self-evaluation does not mediate the goal-performance
effect; (c) self-validation may play a role in improving task per-
formance, but not enough to create the goal-performance effect;
and (d) a result and implied conclusion that self-knowledge does
not play a role in improving task performance.
We now outline our research, based on an evaluation of Harkins
et al.’s (2000) conclusions and an analysis of extant literature as it
relates to these conclusions. Their first conclusion was that exter-
nal evaluation is an important mediator of the goal-performance
effect. One problem with this conclusion is that significant perfor-
mance improvements were demonstrated by those externally eval-
uated, versus those not externally evaluated in all conditions,
including do-your-best conditions. That is, even when no goals
were set, external evaluation appeared to generate significant per-
formance increases in their study. This is consistent with extant
literature (French & Raven, 1959;Latham & Lee, 1986;Likert,
1967;Locke & Latham, 1990), which shows that compliance with
legitimate authority or power often plays an important role in
increasing task performance. According to Locke and Latham
(1990):
Legitimate authority certainly exists in both laboratory and field
settings. It may account for the high degree of generalisation of results
found between the two settings (Latham & Lee, 1986). In the labo-
ratory, the experimenter is typically seen as an authority figure. An
experiment, by its nature, is a “demand situation” (Orne, 1962).
Subjects, who are almost always volunteers (and may get extra course
credit), come to the experimental situation with the mental set: “Here
I am; tell me what to do.” (p. 133)
Given this, one may interpret Harkins et al.’s (2000) results as
confirming extant literature (e.g., Locke & Latham, 1990)by
showing that external evaluation can have a significant motiva-
tional impact on task performance, regardless of the presence of
goal-setting conditions. In other words, external evaluation plays a
role in improving performance, but does not by itself generate the
goal-performance effect. Accordingly, we hypothesize:
H1: Participants subject to experimenter evaluation will outperform
those not subject to experimenter evaluation, regardless of goal
assignment.
Harkins et al.’s (2000) second conclusion was that self-
evaluation does not mediate the goal-performance effect. This
conclusion was derived from comparing the performance in goal-
setting conditions without external evaluation to performance in
do-your-best conditions with external evaluation. Given our dis-
cussion above about the potential motivating role of external
evaluation on increasing performance, this conclusion needs fur-
ther examination. Indeed, it may be derived from a comparison
that does not actually measure performance related to goal setting.
We argue that the goal setting/self-evaluation conditions can only
be compared with the do-your-best/self-evaluation conditions and
not with the do-your-best/external evaluation conditions. Thus we
suggest Harkins et al.’s finding in this area has no bearing on
goal-setting, but rather suggests, in line with social loafing learn-
ing (e.g., Karau & Williams, 1993;Williams & Karau, 1991), that
external evaluation can be a powerful motivator, even without
goal-setting conditions. Thus, consistent with goal-setting theory,
which proposes that specific, difficult goals lead to higher task
performance, we hypothesize:
H2: Among those participants subject to no-experimenter-evaluation,
those who receive specific difficult goal instructions based on a
similar comparison group will outperform those who receive only a
do-your-best instruction.
Lastly, we build upon Harkins et al.’s (2000) third conclusion
that self-evaluation via social comparison (self-validation, i.e.,
self-evaluation based on peer performance) plays a role in improv-
ing task performance, but not enough to create the goal-
performance effect. We do this to examine their implied fourth
conclusion that self-evaluation without social comparison (self-
knowledge, i.e., self-evaluation based on objective, nonsocial
means) does not play a role in improving task performance, and
thus also does not play a role in creating the goal-performance
effect. Our concern is that the specific operationalization of tasks
in Harkins et al. (2000) may understate the role of self-evaluation
in generating the goal-performance effect. It is possible that the
experimental conditions established by Harkins et al. (2000) ef-
fectively eliminated any basis for generating task motivation or
goal commitment, other than external evaluation by the experi-
menter and social comparison (self-validation). As such, results
showing that task performance in self-knowledge conditions are no
better than do-your-best levels may not be surprising given the
experimental design.
Consider the situation in which the participants in the self-
evaluation condition that relies on self-knowledge would find
themselves. They are undergraduate students who have agreed to
participate in a study to gain course credit. The task assigned to
them involves generating uses for a knife, something that is un-
likely to be inherently engaging to most people, as noted by
Harkins et al. (2000) and Szymanski and Harkins (1987). Further,
they have been told that 1) the quality of their responses does not
matter, only the quantity is of concern; 2) no one, including the
experimenter, will know how they perform; and 3) the only per-
formance comparison available is that of third-year doctoral-level
students, people not just dissimilar, but likely to be judged much
more capable than themselves (Harkins et al., 2000). In such a
situation, participants may lack the motivation to perform well on
a task, and thus it may not be surprising to find that task perfor-
mance levels were similar to do-your-best levels. Locke and
Latham (1990, p. 124) stated “it is virtually axiomatic that a goal
that a person is not really trying for is not really a goal and
therefore cannot have much effect on subsequent action.”
Accordingly, we suggest that this condition is not measuring the
effect that self-knowledge has on generating a goal-performance
effect, but rather the ability to generate the goal-performance effect
when there is little task motivation. Hence, we suggest that these
findings may not provide an appropriate basis for drawing conclu-
sions with regard to the motivating potential of self-knowledge,
nor the role that this might play in generating the goal-performance
effect.
To examine the self-knowledge condition it is necessary to
ensure that participants are given at least some means for gener-
ating task motivation, such as a stimulus that makes the task
outcome appear to have some value (value-of-outcome-specified).
Of course, such a unique stimulus would need to be applied
equally to all comparison conditions. Consistent with this, Harkins
et al. (2000) did acknowledge that presenting participants with
evidence of the value of the idea generation task may overcome
93
SELF-EVALUATION IN GOAL SETTING
concerns with the lack of inherent interest the task holds and the
lack of justification provided to participants for why the task
should be performed. Addressing this would better recognize
Locke and Latham’s (2002) assertion that goal attainment must
hold importance to people, either because they have set the goal
themselves or because they have been given a good reason or
rationale for why the goal should be attained.
Utman and Harkins (2010) attempted to address the issue of
goal attainment importance in a replication and extension study
building on Harkins et al. (2000), by introducing a prime that tied
performance on the knife-uses idea generation task to intellectual
ability, telling participants that past research showed that the more
knife-uses people generated the higher their academic ability.
Their results indicated that with this prime, those in self-validation
conditions achieved the goal setting effect.
Proceeding on the basis that a stimulus—specifying the value of
the task outcome— can be introduced, we continue to develop
hypotheses for testing both self-validation and self-knowledge in
goal-setting contexts. Consistent with Goethals and Darley’s
(1987) version of social comparison theory, proposing that people
may be motivated to self-evaluate to confirm that they are as good
as their peers (self-validation); and with Locke and Latham’s
(1990) assertion that self-evaluation is a motivating factor in
goal-setting, we hypothesize:
H3: Among those participants subject to value-of-outcome-
specified conditions and no-experimenter-evaluation, those who
receive specific difficult goal instructions based on a similar com-
parison group will outperform those who receive only a do-your-
best instruction.
Unlike Harkins et al. (2000),Utman and Harkins (2010)
examined only self-validation as a means for generating the
desire to self-evaluate, and not self-knowledge, perhaps be-
cause they viewed the Harkins et al. (2000) results as having
proven that self-knowledge does not generate the desire to
self-evaluate. In the current study, we examine the role of
self-knowledge as well as self-validation in generating the
desire for self-evaluation. This is in line with Festinger’s (1954)
social comparison theory, which suggests that people are driven
to self-evaluate to seek self-knowledge. Goethals and Darley’s
(1987) emphasized the addition of self-validation as a motivator
of self-evaluation within the context of Festinger’s social com-
parison theory, but they acknowledge that self-knowledge is
also a motivating factor, and may be used when social compar-
isons are not possible. Although they do not delineate the
underlying motivators of self-evaluation, between self-
validation and self-knowledge, Locke and Latham (1990,
2013b) asserted that self-evaluation is a motivating factor in
goal-setting, operating through goal commitment. Thus, there is
reason to expect that self-knowledge may play a role in moti-
vating the goal-performance effect, but no study to our knowl-
edge has properly assessed this phenomenon. Accordingly, we
hypothesize:
H4: Among those participants subject to value-of-outcome-
specified conditions and no-experimenter-evaluation, those who
receive specific difficult goal instructions based on a dissimilar
group comparison will outperform those who receive only a do-
your-best instruction.
Method
Participants
Participants were 405 undergraduate business students enrolled
in Organizational Behavior or Human Resources Management
courses in a midsized Canadian university, who received course
credit in exchange for their participation in the study. On average,
participants were 20 years old (SD ⫽1.23) and 53% were male.
Participants were randomly assigned to one of 12 conditions.
Procedure
To ensure a direct replication of Harkins et al. (2000), we first
designed our study using their published procedures and then
contacted the lead author to confirm that our interpretation was
accurate (S. Harkins, personal communication, January 29, 2009).
The study uses an idea generation task to examine performance on
a task. The use of idea generation exercises, such as creating uses
for a knife, is common in task performance studies of this sort
(e.g., Szymanski & Harkins, 1987;White et al., 1995) as they are
exercises that can be performed by a wide variety of participants
without the need for long explanation or considerable prior skills
or practice. Also, there is limited range restriction, allowing for
considerable variance, which is important to examining work
performance outcomes.
Our design follows Harkins et al. (2000) in all respects except,
when a goal was given, we used a goal of 50 uses for a knife, rather
than 40 uses for a knife as in Harkins et al. (2000). Our need for
a higher goal was determined in a pilot study we conducted, which
showed that a goal of 40 was inappropriate for our participants.
Locke and Latham (1990) suggested that goals be set at a level that
is attainable by approximately 10% of participants in laboratory
experiments, to fit with the difficult but attainable parameter. In
our pilot study, we found that 54% of participants in the do-your-
best condition generated 40 or more ideas, and that 12% generated
50 or more. This suggested that a goal of 40 uses for a knife was
too low and that 50 uses for a knife would be more appropriate.
Thus, although our pilot replication study was accurate in all ways
including sample size per cell, it did not create a valid represen-
tation of goal setting for this population, as the goal was set too
low to motivate significant increases in performance levels.
The experiment was conducted by a male Masters student in his
20s and a female doctoral-level student in her 30s, neither of whom
was informed of the study’s hypotheses. Data were collected from
one to six participants at a time. Participants were seated at
individual workstations in a laboratory with walls that blocked
their view of other participants. They also wore sound dampening
headphones to minimize awareness of fellow participants’ writing
activity. After being seated, all participants were asked to turn off
cell phones and other electronic items. The experimenter explained
that they would be asked to perform a number of idea generation
task exercises. They completed a warm-up session to become
familiar with an idea generation task. This warm-up session in-
volved generating uses for a box over a 3-min time period. Before
beginning the warm-up, all participants were told that the quality
of uses they generate does not matter, only the quantity will be
measured. Half of the participants were told that the experimenter
would count the number of uses each one of them generates at the
94 MARTIN, MCNALLY, AND TAGGAR
end of the session and then add their list of uses to a box containing
the lists of uses generated by previous participants (external-
evaluation group). The other half of the group was told to add their
list of uses to a box containing the lists of uses generated by
previous participants, before the experimenter enters the room
(self-evaluation group). They were told that, as this box already
contained other responses, the experimenter would have no way of
knowing any one individual’s response.
After completing the warm-up exercise, participants were told
that the main exercise involved generating uses for a knife over a
12-min time period. At this point, the external evaluation/self-
evaluation instructions were repeated. A third of participants (do-
your-best group) were instructed “to come up with as many ideas
for using a knife as you possibly can” and encouraged to “do your
best.” Another third of participants (undergraduate-goal group)
were told:
This experiment was run before with undergraduate students in Or-
ganisational Behaviour and Human Resources Management courses.
They could generate up to 50 uses for a knife in 12 minutes. I would
like you to use this as a goal for your own performance. Therefore, I
would like you to work hard to try to reach 50 uses.
The remaining third of participants (graduate-goal group) were
given the same 50-goal message as the undergraduate-goal group,
but with “third-year Ph.D. students” replacing “undergraduate
students in Organisational Behaviour or Human Resources Man-
agement courses” as the type of participants from which the goal
was derived.
As an extension of Harkins et al. (2000), participants were
further divided in half based on the value-of-outcome manipula-
tion. One half of the participants (value-of-outcome-specified
group) were told that their performance on this task is important
because “a $500 donation will be made to the local United Way if
the average results in this study are at least equal to previous
studies.”
A charitable donation was chosen as the means for ensuring that
those in the (no-experimenter-evaluation, dissimilar-comparison-
goal group) condition who, as we described in some detail in the
literature review, face the unusual situation of being asked to do a
task that is inherently uninteresting, for which no one including the
experimenter will know their performance, and about which they
are given a goal based on a group that is dissimilar to them, will
still have some reason to view performing well on the task as
meaningful. We avoided using a direct extrinsic reward, recogniz-
ing that such incentives have been shown to differentially impact
based on individual differences, such as personality characteristics,
for instance (e.g., Locke & Braver, 2008), and thus may impact
results within groups.
The United Way was chosen as the donation recipient because
it supports a broad array of social services, and a small informal
survey of our target sample indicated that it was known to and
would appeal to a broad selection of participants. The remaining
half of the participants (value-of-outcome-not-specified group)
were not told anything about the value of the outcomes they
produce, thus following Harkins et al.’s (2000) procedure.
After delivering the instructions to participants, the experi-
menter left the room and closed the door. After 12 min, the
experimenter knocked on the door and either entered and counted
the participants’ uses (external-evaluation group) or waited until
the participants put their sheets into the box and then opened the
door (self-evaluation group). At this point, the participants filled
out a questionnaire, which included manipulation checks and de-
mographic information. Manipulation checks included the follow-
ing questions: “Did the experimenter examine the results of your
individual performance on the ideation task? (yes/no);” “Will the
experimenter(s) be able to determine: 1. Your specific results on
the ideation task? 2. Only the average results of all participants?
(Please choose only one answer);” “Were you told that a donation
would be made based on the level of task performance of all
participants in this study? (yes/no);” “If you were told that a
donation will be made, to what organisation will the donation be
given? 1. United Way, 2. Habitat for Humanity, 3. Food Bank, 4.
I Don’t Remember, 5. Not Applicable (Please choose only one
answer);” “Were you given a specific goal to achieve on this
ideation task? (yes/no);” “If you were given a goal, what was it?
(Please write the number in digits);” “If you were given a goal,
what was the goal based on (why was that level chosen)? 1. It was
based on the level that other undergraduate students achieved, 2. It
was based on the level that other third-year Ph.D. students
achieved.”
Results
Manipulation check responses were compared with group as-
signment and those participants whose answers did not match the
group to which they were assigned were removed from the sample,
resulting in a reduction of 21 participants from the original 426
who joined the study. Hypotheses were tested using analysis of
variance (ANOVA) and Tukey’s honestly significant difference
test for pairwise comparisons.
To test H1, data were analyzed using a 2 (value-of-outcome-not-
specified vs. value-of-outcome-specified) ⫻2 (external-evaluation vs.
self-evaluation) ⫻3 (do-your-best vs. undergraduate-goal vs.
graduate-goal) ANOVA, with a significant overall result, F(11,
394) ⫽4.14, p⬍.001. Results are reported in Table 1, indicating that
only the goal factor (do-your-best vs. undergraduate-goal vs.
Table 1
Mean Uses for a Knife Experiment
Comparison MSDnd
95% confidence
interval
Value of outcome not specified
External evaluation
Do-your-best (base) 36.8 11.5 32
Undergraduate goal 45.7 14.4 32 .68 [.17, 1.20]
Graduate goal 41.1 8.3 32 .43 [⫺.08, .93]
Self-evaluation
Do-your-best (base) 36.3 10.5 37
Undergraduate goal 41.2 12.0 37 .44 [⫺.03, .90]
Graduate goal 43.7 14.7 37 .58 [.11, 1.05]
Value of outcome specified
External evaluation
Do-your-best (base) 36.7 9.9 32
Undergraduate goal 45.9 11.6 32 .85 [.33, 1.37]
Graduate goal 40.7 13.4 32 .34 [⫺.16, .84]
Self-evaluation
Do-your-best (base) 35.4 10.7 34
Undergraduate goal 46.9 14.5 34 .90 [.40, 1.41]
Graduate goal 45.7 11.3 34 .94 [.43, 1.45]
95
SELF-EVALUATION IN GOAL SETTING
graduate-goal) was significant, F(2, 403) ⫽18.65, p⬍.001, d⫽
.431). Thus, H1 was not supported.
To test H2, we conducted a one-way ANOVA comparing do-your-
best versus similar-comparison-goal versus dissimilar-comparison-
goal for each condition specified. The test of H2, which examines the
goal variable outcomes within the value-of-outcome-not-specified/no-
experimenter-evaluation condition, yielded a main effect, F(2, 109) ⫽
3.31 p⬍.05, d⫽.350. However, as shown in Table 1, the similar-
comparison-goal condition (M⫽41.2), specified in H2 did not show
a significant increase in knife-uses performance over the do-your-best
goal condition (M⫽36.3). Thus, H2 was not supported. It is inter-
esting to note, however, that a significant increase in performance was
found for the dissimilar-comparison-goal condition (M⫽43.7, p⬍
.01).
The test of H3 and H4, examining the goal variable outcomes
within the value-of-outcome-specified/no-experimenter-evaluation
condition, yielded a main effect, F(2, 100) ⫽8.99 p⬍.001,
indicating support for the goal setting condition. As Table 1 shows,
both H3 and H4 were supported, with increased performance over
the do-your-best goal condition (M⫽35.4) shown for both the
similar-comparison-goal condition (M⫽46.9) p⬍.001 and the
dissimilar-comparison-goal condition (M⫽45.7) p⬍.01.
Discussion
Theoretical Contributions
This study was designed to answer two main questions: (a) Does
self-evaluation play a role in generating the goal-performance
effect in the absence of potential for external evaluation; and (b)
does the pursuit of self-knowledge play a role in motivating
self-evaluation? Our results provide support for the view that
self-evaluation plays a motivating role in generating the goal-
performance effect and, further, that the pursuit of self-knowledge
plays a motivating role in generating the desire to self-evaluate.
These findings provide a valuable contribution to theory by (a)
providing support for Festinger’s (1954) social comparison theory,
by showing that self-evaluation for the purpose of gaining self-
knowledge does play a role in motivation, and (b) providing
support for Locke and Latham’s (1990) assertion that self-
evaluation plays a motivating role in generating the goal-
performance effect.
Results of this study differ from Harkins et al.’s (2000)
findings in a number of important ways. We argue that these
differences are consistent with the goal setting literature and
result from methodological differences between the present
study and Harkins et al. (2000). First, the goal-performance
effect was exhibited by participants with and without experi-
menter evaluation, contrary to Harkins et al. (2000), but consis-
tent with Locke and Latham (1990). This is an important finding
in that it directly addresses the challenge that Harkins et al.’s
findings made to goal setting theory; that their study was one of the
few to examine the goal-performance effect in conditions without
external evaluation, and the inability to obtain the goal-
performance effect in such conditions suggested that goal setting
results may be driven primarily by external evaluation influence.
We argued that the specific experimental conditions established by
Harkins et al. (2000) may have effectively eliminated any basis for
generating participant task motivation in the absence of external
evaluation by the experimenter and social comparison, because the
task of identifying uses for a knife was unlikely to be inherently
interesting to most people (i.e., low value). Second, contrary to
Harkins et al., we show that the goal-performance effect occurs in
both self-validation and self-knowledge conditions, which is con-
sistent with theoretical expectations outlined initially by Goethals
and Darley (1987) for performance motivation generally, and by
Locke and Latham (1990) for goal commitment in goal setting
theory specifically.
Practical Implications
Our findings may also contribute to management practice.
Given that the application of goal-setting theory is widespread in
the workplace (Locke & Latham, 2013b), furthering our under-
standing of the underlying motivations that generate the goal-
performance effect can better inform the specific workplace ap-
plications of goal-setting. Among the common methods used to
build goal commitment in organizations is the use of authority
figures to evaluate employee performance outcomes and attaching
a monetary reward to goal achievement (Katzenbach & Khan,
2010). Although further research is needed before specific practi-
tioner guidance can be offered, the present study suggests alterna-
tives to both these prescriptions.
One example of the value of understanding how the goal-
performance effect can be achieved without external evaluation is
in workplace situations where providing external evaluation is
costly or difficult. In such cases it may be advisable to lower
monitoring levels or even eliminate them altogether. Indeed, recent
scholarly work has begun to question the value of high levels of
employee monitoring in organizations, with evidence that in-
creases in employee monitoring can actually reduce effectiveness,
as costs rise and cooperative signals from management are per-
ceived by employees to decrease (Gnyawali & Madhavan, 2001).
Employee monitoring also appears to be significantly associated
with fear of job loss (Oz, Glass, & Behling, 1999), work dissatis-
faction (Schleifer, Galinsky, & Pan, 1995), and even chronic
health disorders (Smith, Carayon, Sanders, Lim, & LeGrande,
1992).
Over the past few decades there has also been growth in jobs
that afford employees greater autonomy. For instance, in addi-
tion to jobs that have traditionally required autonomy from
individuals (e.g., police officers and social workers working in
the “field”), many organizations have reduced supervisory po-
sitions as part of becoming lean, designing work for teams, and
decentralization so that supervisors have the ability to exercise
greater authority over their employees (e.g., Kristensen & Mor-
gan, 2012;Mena Report, 2015;Sumathi, Kamalanabhan, &
Thenmozhi, 2015). Under work conditions of reduced external
evaluation, the goal-performance effect may be aided in orga-
nizations through methods of gaining goal commitment other
than external evaluation.
Specifically, we found that rather than do-your-best goals,
individuals appear to benefit from specific goals with a valued
outcome attached to them, along with self-validation and self-
knowledge information. Appropriate self-validation informa-
tion obtained via social comparison may encourage the belief
that individuals are able to complete required actions (i.e.,
expectancy beliefs) and potentially motivate employees to
96 MARTIN, MCNALLY, AND TAGGAR
avoid the stress and potential dissatisfaction if the set goal is not
reached (i.e., value).
With respect to goal achievement value, for many organiza-
tions a lack of goal commitment is remedied by greater finan-
cial incentives for goal achievement. Money improves goal
commitment, within certain parameters. For instance, a small
monetary reward can undermine performance when perceived
as insulting (Gneezy & Rustichini, 2000). Monetary rewards
attached to goal achievement may impact the value facet of goal
commitment but not the expectancy aspect of goal commitment.
Interestingly, in the present study, a charitable donation was
sufficient to make goal achievement motivating for participants
when paired with the potential for self-validation or self-
knowledge. With a low expectancy of success, individuals tend
to disengage and abandon their goal (Carver & Scheier, 1998).
Our results suggest that self-evaluation via either self-
validation or self-knowledge can fuel motivation. With self-
validation, when people feel that others with whom they might
compare have achieved a specific goal they are likely to believe
that they can also achieve the goal if they work hard. Similarly
with self-knowledge if people feel that in pursuing a specific
goal they can compare their performance with an objective, but
meaningful performance criterion they are likely to be moti-
vated to work hard. This is consistent with Lee, Keil, and Wong
(2015), who suggest that goals that are more difficult but still
viewed as achievable actually promote greater goal commit-
ment.
Many workplaces have removed social comparison information
in the form of evaluations via rankings because they demoralize
workers, foster backstabbing and favoritism, and foster power
struggles among managers (Kwoh, 2012;Ovide & Feintzeig,
2013). Goals that are rewarded and provide potential for self-
knowledge via objective information related to the task and the
achievement needs, at the time of goal-setting, may be a way of
providing information that improves performance without these
detrimental effects.
The importance of self-evaluation in the goal-performance ef-
fect highlights the need for organizations to ensure the potential for
self-evaluation is optimized. According to Garcia, Tor, and Schiff
(2013) this can be achieved by increasing the relevance of the
performance dimension during goal setting, the similarity of com-
parison competitors who are performing the task, and their rela-
tionship closeness to the individual, as well as the various
individual-differences variables relating to social comparison more
generally. Situational factors impacting social comparison that can
be manipulated by organizations include proximity to a standard
(i.e., near the number 1 ranking vs. far away), the number of
competitors (i.e., few vs. many), and social category fault lines
(i.e., disputes across vs. within social categories).
Our results are consistent with Shalley, Oldham, and Porac
(1987) in suggesting that intrinsic motivation, arguably a precursor
to performance in at least the “value of outcome not specified”
condition, is highest when achievement goals are set regardless of
external evaluation by an authority figure. That is, counter to
Shalley and Oldham (1985), our findings support the notion that
managers can help subordinates achieve relatively higher intrinsic
motivation under relatively low personal control goal setting con-
ditions (i.e., when goals are predetermined) compared to high
personal control conditions (i.e., do your best goals). Intrinsic
motivation is relevant to organizations because it is linked to
individuals’ creativity on tasks, risk taking, and product quality
(Amabile, 1979).
Potential Limitations
We considered that our results related to external evaluation
may have been impacted by the image of our experimenters. Most
(83%) of the experiments reported here were conducted by a male
Masters student in his 20s, while the remaining were conducted by
a female doctoral-level student in her 30s. It is possible that they
did not appear to be authority figures. Although not conclusive,
this would appear not to be an issue, relative to Harkins et al.
(2000), as communication with the lead author indicates that a
male graduate student in his 20s also conducted a significant
portion of their study, although the lead author, a mature male,
conducted the remaining portion (S. Harkins, personal communi-
cation, March 15, 2009).
We also considered that our results might be impacted by the
fact that our experimenters were blind to the hypotheses of the
study, whereas both experimenters used in Harkins et al. (2000)
were aware of the study hypotheses (S. Harkins, personal com-
munication, March 15, 2009). The impact of experimenter
knowledge of study hypotheses has been shown to be consid-
erable in the fields of medicine and psychology, for instance,
but this issue has received only scant attention in work perfor-
mance and organizational behavior literature. It is difficult to
assess the impact that experimenter knowledge of the study
hypotheses might be having on outcomes of the current exper-
iments, but future research should test the effects by controlling
for this potentially important factor.
Another potential limitation relates to the generalizability of our
results. By testing our hypotheses on only one specific popula-
tion— undergraduate university students—we are unable to show
that these phenomena apply widely in the population. Further, our
use of laboratory experimental methods only, which allowed us to
better control the variables to be examined, diminishes generaliz-
ability to real life settings. Future work should examine these
phenomena amongst a broader sample of the population and in
settings that better reflect real life contexts. Also, although self-
efficacy and goal commitment are often measured in goal setting
studies, we do not include measures of these two variables, con-
sistent with the study we replicated, Harkins et al. (2000). Future
research incorporating measures of self-efficacy and goal commit-
ment may provide further insight into the relationships examined
here.
Future Research
The findings from this study also raise a number of interesting
issues for further research. As well as the need to conduct repli-
cation studies to determine the robustness of the above findings, it
is important to further examine the impact of external evaluation
on task performance. Results from this study suggest that external
evaluation may not always play an important role in task perfor-
mance, which contradicts findings from Harkins et al. (2000). The
fact that other extant literature (French & Raven, 1959;Latham &
Lee, 1986;Likert, 1967;Locke & Latham, 1990) indicates that
external evaluation by an authority figure plays an important role
97
SELF-EVALUATION IN GOAL SETTING
in increasing task performance suggests the need for further study
via experiments designed to specifically examine this phenome-
non.
We also considered that our sample might be biased toward high
achievement individuals. There is some indication that this might
be the case, as evidenced by our need to increase the assigned goal
from the level of 40 set by Harkins et al. (2000), due to the fact that
so many participants in our sample, who were given no goal
instructions, surpassed the 40 uses level in the pilot study. It is also
possible that the impact of external evaluation is moderated by the
base level of self-motivation of participants or their intrinsic mo-
tivation in the task, such that at higher levels of self-motivation,
the impact of external evaluation is diminished to the point of
being insignificant. Further study in this area is warranted. In
addition to base level self-motivation, it may also be valuable to
examine self-efficacy and goal commitment levels among partic-
ipants to better illuminate the phenomena under study and the
impact of sampling differences stemming from these characteris-
tics. Future studies should also sample nonbusiness students, and
ideally a random sample of the general adult population to ensure
that these findings are generalizable and to assess moderators
related to such population differences.
Concluding Remarks
This article provides insight into an understudied aspect of
one of the most studied theories in work-motivation and orga-
nizational behavior, goal-setting theory. We find evidence that
supports Locke and Latham’s (1990) assertion that the desire to
self-evaluate drives the higher relative performance outcomes
of those striving to achieve specific, difficult goals versus those
who strive to do their best. Further, we show that self-
evaluation can be motivated by the need for either self-
validation or self-knowledge, as predicted by Goethals and
Darley’s (1987) extension of Festinger’s (1954) social compar-
ison theory, but contrary to Harkins et al. (2000). We also
demonstrate that this new understanding may open up new lines
of investigation related to goal setting theory. For instance, by
combining our learning with work that shows how the use of
social comparisons can be increased, such as via self-activation
(Stapel & Tesser, 2001), we can begin to examine ways to
increase the likelihood that individuals set specific difficult
goals for themselves and thus improve their self-directed task
performance.
Résumé
Bien que la théorie d’établissement d’objectifs soit parmi les
plus étudiées dans le domaine du comportement organisationnel
et de la motivation au travail, les motivations sous-jacentes
expliquant l’effet du rendement axé sur les objectifs ont reçu
moins d’attention. Les auteurs examinent le rôle de
l’autoévaluation dans la création de l’effet du rendement axé
sur les objectifs au moyen d’une expérience a
`l’insu en labo-
ratoire, dans laquelle les participants (N⫽405) devaient ré-
aliser une tâche de génération d’idées sous des conditions
exemptes de la possibilité d’une évaluation externe. Conçus
pour dupliquer et élargir le travail de Harkins, White et Utman
(2000), les résultats indiquent que l’autoévaluation contribue a
`
générer l’effet du rendement axé sur les objectifs, et que la
poursuite de la connaissance de soi et l’autovalidation con-
tribuent a
`favoriser l’autoévaluation. Ces résultats vont dans les
sens d’hypothèses conformes a
`la théorie d’établissement
d’objectifs et a
`la théorie de la comparaison sociale, et vont a
`
l’encontre des conclusions de Harkins et al. (2000). Des réper-
cussions sur les limites des théories et la motivation au travail
sont présentées.
Mots-clés : théorie d’établissement d’objectifs, autoévaluation,
connaissance de soi, comparaison sociale, motivation au travail.
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Received October 8, 2014
Revision received August 2, 2015
Accepted August 4, 2015 䡲
100 MARTIN, MCNALLY, AND TAGGAR
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