OBJECTIVE Research on the strength model of self-regulation is burgeoning, but little empirical work has focused on the link between distinct types of daily goal pursuit and the depletion of self-regulatory resources. The authors conducted two studies on the link between avoidance goals and resource depletion. METHOD Study 1 (283 [228 female] Caucasians, ages 18-51) investigated the concurren...

The authors examined avoidance personal goals as concurrent (Study 1) and longitudinal (Study 2) predictors of multiple aspects of well-being in the United States and Japan. In both studies, participants adopted more avoidance personal goals in Japan relative to the United States. Both studies also demonstrated that avoidance personal goals were significant negative predictors of the most relev...

Two experiments focused on examining the influence of mastery-avoidance goals on performance improvement, and more specifically, on mastery-avoidance goals grounded in an intrapersonal standard. That is, herein, mastery-avoidance goals entail striving to avoid doing worse than one has done before. Both experiments demonstrated that in a multiple-trial context, mastery-avoidance goals are delete...

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 ...

It was predicted that approach social motives and goals would be linked to outcomes characterized by the presence of positive social features, and avoidance social motives and goals would be linked to outcomes characterized by the presence of negative social features and that the link between approach motives and outcomes would be mediated by different processes than the link between avoidance ...

Depression may be related to motivational systems that govern approach and avoidance behaviour such as temperament and goal orientation. Using a remitted depression design we found that previously depressed and never-depressed individuals did not differ on number of approach goals generated, degree of goal commitment or extent of planning to reach goals. However, previously depressed individual...

Help seeking behavior in an intelligent tutoring system was analyzed to identify help seeking strategies, and it was investigated whether the use of these strategies could be predicted by achievement goal scores. Five strategies were identified, three of which were predicted by achievement goal scores. These strategies were labeled Little Help, Click through Help, Direct Solution, Step By Step,...

In the present research, a 3 2 model of achievement goals is proposed and tested. The model is rooted in the definition and valence components of competence, and encompasses 6 goal constructs: taskapproach, task-avoidance, self-approach, self-avoidance, other-approach, and other-avoidance. The results from 2 studies provided strong support for the proposed model, most notably the need to separa...

The present research investigated one antecedent and various consequences of pursuing avoidance personal achievement goals over the course of a semester. The authors assessed participants' achievement-relevant goals using the newly devised Achievement Goals Questionnaire. The motive to avoid failure, assessed with self-report and projective measures, was established as an antecedent of avoidanc...

statistics anxiety has a positive relationship with academic drop-out and deserves greater attention. this study examines a model explaining the impact of students’ achievement goals on their statistics anxiety through levels of their academic engagement. three hundred and fifteen undergraduate students (53 males and 262 females) who studied educational sciences and psychology in the state univ...