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Summary
The effect of a proximal plus a distal goal was investigated relative to setting only a distal goal or urging participants to do their best. Young adults (N a 39) were paid on a piece rate basis to make toys. An analysis of variance revealed that the amount of money earned by the participants who were urged to `do your best' was significantly greater than the amount of money earned by the participants who were assigned a distal goal. However, the amount of money earned by the participants who were assigned proximal goals, in addition to a distal goal, was significantly greater than the amount of money earned by the participants in the `do your best' condition. The correlation between perceived self-efficacy and the amount of money earned was 0.45 (p50.01). Perceived self-efficacy significantly increased only for those participants in the proximal plus distal goal condition. Proximal goals, through self-efficacy and performance feedback, appear to have focused attention on task appropriate strategies. The results suggest an informational explanation of proximal goals as opposed to a motivational one through goal commitment. Implications of these findings for mentoring and training are discussed. Copyright (c) 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Introduction
Among the most robust findings in the behavioral science literature is that setting a specific difficult goal increases performance significantly over that of individuals in a `do your best' condition (Latham and Locke, 1991). Because goal setting is a motivational theory, the tasks that have been studied have been generally straightforward for the individual so that its effect on choice, effort, and persistence can be assessed (Locke and Latham, 1990).
Locke and Latham (1990) have argued that in addition to choice, effort and persistence, a fourth benefit of goal setting is cognitive rather than motivational on tasks that are complex for the individual. That is, goal setting stimulates the development of task specific strategies to attain the goal. For example, Latham and Baldes (1975) found that truck drivers assigned a specific difficult goal to increase the total weight of the logs they were carrying discovered ways of making modifications to their trucks so that they could judge the truck weight accurately. Similarly, Latham and Saari (1982) examined the performance of truck drivers assigned specific...