An Examination of the Relative Impact of Assigned Goals and Self‐Efficacy on Personal Goals and Performance Over Time

A model of goal‐setting processes was developed that depicted the influence of previous performance, assigned goals, and self‐efficacy on personal goals and performance. Three levels of assigned goals were manipulated in a counterbalanced fashion across two performance trials. Assigned goals were hypothesized to have a greater influence than self‐efficacy on personal goals for the first trial, whereas efficacy was hypothesized to have a stronger influence than assigned goals on Trial 2 goals. Although the hypothesized model fit fairly well overall, the specific results concerning the relative impact of assigned goal and self‐efficacy were not supported. In general, the observed trends indicated the effects were the opposite of what was expected. Potential explanations for these results and recommendations for future research are offered.