Page 229 - Psychological Management of Individual Performance

demands influence performance 213
direct relationships between goal difficulty and performance. Because they did not have
either a low or a no-goal condition in their two laboratory experiments, Allscheid and
Cellar (1996) concluded that the findings from their study were due to restriction in
range. Nevertheless, they argued for the robustness of the relationship as they found a
probability level of 0.066 for the main effect of goal difficulty in spite of not including
a low or no-goal condition.
The concern that very high goals may lead to a decrease in motivation and performance
has not received empirical support (Bar-Eli, Levy-Kolker, Tenenbaum, & Weinberg,
1993; Jones & Cale, 1997). Rather, it is the person’s perception of how well he or she
will perform on the subsequent trial or task that determines performance level (Weinberg,
Fowler, Jackson, Bagnall, & Bruya, 1991). One’s perception of one’s ability to accom-
plish a specific task has been labeled by Bandura (1986, 1997) as self-efficacy.

SELF-EFFICACY

Performance is affected not only by one’s goals, but by how confident one is of attaining
them. Bandura’s (1997) research has shown that it is not so much our ability that holds
us back or propels us forward as it is our self-efficacy. Lee and Bobko (1992) found that
the higher one’s self-efficacy in performing well on a task, the less difficult the goal is
perceived to be.
Carson and Carson (1993a) found that self-efficacy influences the personal goals
that one sets. The strong positive relationship of self-efficacy to personal goals and their
performance was also documented by Earley and Lituchy (1991) as well as Zimmerman,
Bandura,andMartinez-Pons(1992).LernerandLocke(1995)toofoundthatself-efficacy
affected the individual’s personal goals.
In their review of the literature, Berry and West (1993) found that the consequences of
high self-efficacy included the setting of high personal goals, the selection of challenging
tasks, and high performance. Hinsz and Matz (1997) found that people with low task
and self-efficacy had low personal goals and performed poorly. Brown and Latham
(2000b) found that self-efficacy correlated positively with goal level, goal commitment,
and the team playing behavior of MBA students in their respective study groups. Seijts,
Latham, and Whyte (2000) found that group efficacy affects performance, and in turn,
performance affects the group’s efficacy. Seijts and Latham (2000a) found that a group’s
efficacy in making money, the group’s goal commitment, and outcome expectancies
that cooperation with others will lead to goal attainment correlated positively with the
group’s performance. Silver and Bufanio (1996) showed that group efficacy affects the
group goal difficulty performance relationship. Seijts and Latham (2001) found that high
self-efficacy led to the discovery of task relevant strategies.
Button, Mathieu, and Aikin (1996) found no support for their hypothesis that over
time assigned goals become less influential than self-efficacy on personal goals. Rather,
they found that the effect of self-efficacy remained relatively constant and that normative
information, that is, feedback that could lead to goal-setting, became more influential as
time progressed.
In summary, consistent with the findings obtained prior to 1990, individual and group
efficacy are positively associated with the setting of high goals, with goal commitment,
and with high performance. An intriguing discovery was made by Tabernero and Wood
(1999). They found that people who have high self-efficacy have an incremental view
of their ability and thus adjust their level of performance to negative feedback more