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Performance-Approach and Performance-Avoidance Goals: When Uncertainty Makes a DifferenceUniversité Pierre Mendès France, Grenoble, celine.darnon{at}univ-bpclermont.fr
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Université de Lausanne
Université de Genève
Université de Genève Performance-avoidance goals (the desire to avoid performing more poorly than others do) have been shown to have consistently deleterious effects on performance but the effects of performance-approach goals (trying to outperform others) are more complex. Two studies examine uncertainty as a moderator of the effect of performance-approach goals on performance. Experiment 1 shows that manipulated performance-approach goals lead to better performance than do performance-avoidance goals in the absence of uncertainty about performance but when participants learn that a coactor disagreed with them about problem solutions, creating uncertainty, performance-approach goals do not differ from performance-avoidance goals in their effect on performance. Experiment 2 shows that uncertainty also moderates the effects of self-set performance-approach goals. Moreover, the same dynamic occurs with another kind of uncertainty: negative competence feedback.
Key Words: performance goals • uncertainty • disagreement
This version was published on June
1, 2007 Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Vol. 33, No. 6,
813-827 (2007) This article has been cited by other articles:
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