The Effect of an Anticipated Performance Evaluation on Willingness to Perform: The Intervention of Self-Presentational Motives.

Prior research has identified anticipated performance evaluations as fraught with negative motivational implications for the evaluatee. The purpose of this laboratory experiment was to show that the performance of a task while anticipating a performance evaluation can stimulate either a positive or negative sentiment and that the direction of the sentiment depends upon the protective or acquisitive self-presentational orientation of the evaluatee. Forty-seven accounting students addressed a complex tax problem after being told that the results of their performance would be reviewed by their major professors. Self-presentational orientations within the subjects were induced by altering the performance standard level against which the evaluators would judge each subject's work. The results supported the hypothesis that, given a desire to impress the evaluators, individuals who perform a task for acquisitive purposes will be more willing to continue to participate in the task than their protective counterparts.