An Empirical Research On Goal Setting Theory

Goal-setting theory is one of the most important process theories of motivation.The effect of goals varies in different tasks based on task complexity.An appropriate goal can lead to an optimal arousal and motivation state then result in better performance by a feasible way. Considering that the empirical research of this study is rare in domestic,it has a signifiant meaning on both in practice and theorizing.This study aims to explore the relationship between goal difficulty,goal specifity,goal acceptance and performance based on different complexity.The research contained pilot stduy and formal experiment which adopted (2x4,2x3) between group design to test the assumption of goal-setting theory by individual brianstorm task and heuristic maze problem solving task.The main results of this study are as follows:1. There is no main effect of gender on individual brianstorm task and heuristic maze task,and there is no interaction between gender and goal difficult,2. The results of the individual brainstorm task proved that compared to the vague goal (Do your best)group,the specified goal can improve subject's performance.3. When controled the personal ability,the difficult goal group's performance is better than moderate goal,easy goal and no goal group.The main effect of goal difficult and the interaction beteween goal difficulty and goal is significant.In difficult goal group,the high acceptance individual's performance is better than low acceptance ones.In high acceptance group,the difficult goal group's performance is better than moderate goal,easy goal and vague goal groups.4. In heuristic maze task,the independent variable is goal difficulty and task difficulty,the dependent variable is the moves and the solve time.The results showed that the main effect and the interaction effect is significant.The vague goal's performance is the worst in easy goal groups and the moderate goal group's performance is the best in difficult task.To sum up,the result partly proved Locke's theory:the goal setting theory's effect depend on task complexity and task difficulty. The task compexity moderate the effect of the goal setting effect.In simple task,the difficult goal and specified goals exert positive effect on performance,while in heuristic task,the specified goal motivate the simple task.The moderate goal boost the difficult task performance in complex tasks.