Testing the contribution of self-evaluation to goal-setting effects.

The social loafing paradigm was used to test the contribution ofself-evaluation to goal-setting effects. If, as E. Locke and G. Latham ( 1990 ) argued, goals lead to improved performance because they serve as standards for self-evaluation, eliminating the opportunity for experimenter evaluation should not reduce performance. Results suggest that when the goal is seen as informative, the prospect ofself-evaluation may contribute to goal-setting effects. However, the results also suggest that when goals are seen as too stringent or too lenient, it is concern over evaluation by an external source, not self, that motivates performance. Implications of these findings for E. Locke and G. Latham's (1990) theory of goal setting and general theories of self-evaluation are discussed.