The present research tested the hypothesis that self-evaluative and self-efficacy mechanisms mediate the effects of goal systems on performance motivation. These self-reactive influences are activated through cognitive comparison requiring both personal standards and knowledge of performance. Subjects performed a strenuous activity with either goals and performance feedback, goals alone, feedback alone, or without either factor. The condition combining performance information and a standard had a strong motivational impact, whereas neither goals alone nor feedback alone effected changes in motivation level. When both comparative factors were present, the evaluative and efficacy self-reactive influences predicted the magnitude of motivation enhancement. The higher the, self-dissatisfaction with a substandard performance and the stronger the perceived self-efficacy for goal attainment, the greater was the subsequent intensification of effort. When one of the comparative factors was lacking, the self-reactive influences were differentially related to performance motivation, depending on the nature of the partial information and on the type of subjective comparative structure imposed on the activity.The capability for intentional and purposive human action is rooted in cognitive activity. Social learning theory postulates two cognitively based mechanisms of motivation that serve such telic purposes. One mechanism operates anticipatorily through the exercise of forethought. By representing forseeable outcomes symbolically, future consequences can be converted into current motivators and regulators of behavior. The second major source of cognitive motivation derives from internal standards and self-evaluative reactions to one's performances (Bandura, 1977a).The motivational effects of setting goals, which provides the standard against which performance is gauged, have been amply documented in different lines of research conducted under both controlled and naturalistic conditions. The evidence is relatively consistent in showing that explicit challenging goals enhance performance motivation (Locke,
This article presents a theoretical framework for analyzing psychological systems that contribute to the variability, consistency, and cross-situational coherence of personality functioning. In the proposed knowledge-and-appraisal personality architecture (KAPA), personality structures and processes are delineated by combining 2 principles: distinctions (a) between knowledge structures and appraisal processes and (b) among intentional cognitions with varying directions of fit, with the latter distinction differentiating among beliefs, evaluative standards, and aims. Basic principles of knowledge activation and use illuminate relations between knowledge and appraisal, yielding a synthetic account of personality structures and processes. Novel empirical data illustrate the heuristic value of the knowledge/appraisal distinction by showing how self-referent and situational knowledge combine to foster cross-situational coherence in appraisals of self-efficacy.
This chapter reviews theory and research on intraindividual personality structures and processes. Principles for modeling the architecture of personality, that is, the overall design and operating characteristics of intraindividual personality systems, are addressed. Research demonstrates that a focus on within-person structures and processes advances the understanding of two aspects of personality coherence: the functional relations among distinct elements of personality, and cross-situational coherence in personality functioning that results from interactions among enduring knowledge structures and dynamic appraisal processes. Also reviewed are recent conceptual and empirical advances, which demonstrate that the interindividual personality variables that summarize variability in the population are wholly insufficient for modeling intraindividual personality architecture.
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