Explaining performance variability: Contributions of goal setting, task characteristics, and evaluative contexts.

A laboratory experiment was conducted in order to test the effects on performance and satisfaction of goal-setting, task-characteristic, and evaluative contexts. Two hundred and sixty-three students participated in a 4 goal conditions (no goal, do your best, easy goal, and difficult goal) X 3 evaluative contexts (control, peer evaluation, and compliance) X 2 task characteristics (low and high variety) X 2 (order of task presentation) factorial design; all subjects worked on two tasks (manual and cognitive). Univariate analyses of multivariate analyses of variance results revealed: (a) Performance on the cognitive task was significantly affected by type of goal, task variety, and evaluative context, and (b) performance on the manual task was affected by task variety and evaluative context but not by type of goal. For both tasks, satisfaction was adversely affected by the presence of goals but was unaffected by evaluative contexts. For the cognitive task only, satisfaction was significantly higher in the low-variety condition. Research examining the effects of several potentially important task characteristics is suggested in order to develop a better understanding of goal-setting effects.