The Effects of Goals on Individual Behaviors in the Workplace

Some people believe that dedication, persistence, and time people can accomplish any goal. Everyone should have goals when striving to achieve a specific task. Goal setting is used by top level athletes, successful business man, and achievers in all fields. A wise athlete once said, “Without time and effort put towards ones goal for the sport, you are nearly wasting your time and your teams time and you will never achieve ones goal for that

Clearly defined goals as they relate to the organization can motivate employees through goal setting. Goals challenge to employees to make them want to explore new technology, ideas, and gain insight from a diverse workplace. Additionally, giving employees more responsibility will make them believe they have contributed with a sense of higher importance. Without motivation in the workplace, a business will suffer from the lack of efficiency from employees. Perhaps the most significant of increased employee motivation is that of increased productivity (staff@incentives.com, 2010). Therefore, it is important that employers give their employees an opportunity to work hard for their reward to obtain a high level of performance, which is an essential to the success of any business.

“I will start running”, for instance, is not a well developed goal. Professor Chang from the National Changhua University conducted an experiment testing the impact of specific and nonspecific goals. Elementary students were split into two groups: in one group, the teacher gave students nonspecific goals like “do your best” and “try hard”, and in the second group, the teacher gave each student a specific number of questions to get correct on a test. When both groups took a vocabulary post-test, students who were given a specific goal scored on average twenty-four points higher than students who were given nonspecific goals (Chang 61). To revise the first statement I wrote earlier, “I will run two miles a day” is a more specific and tangible goal that a rookie runner can take to approaching and persevering in their goal. As a note, people who feel they aren’t as motivated as others shouldn’t fear goal setting. In fact, two researchers conducted an experiment that created randomized groups with both high and low achieving students. The results concluded that “low need achievers who received externally imposed goals performed more poorly on the task than did low need achievers with self-set goals or high need achievers with imposed goals” (Horn and Murphy 275). With the research done by Horn and Murphy, it becomes evident that the goals people persevere through are usually more effective when they are self-imposed. Why?

Something else I learned from completing this assignment was effective goal-setting. When we set goals, they should be:

Eccles and Allan Wigfield (2002), four different theories are discussing regarding motivation; expectancies for success, task value, integrated expectancies and values as well as integrated motivation and cognition. The basis appears to be discovering what motivates people. Eccles and Wigfield (2002) dedicated an entire section of their article to goal theories. According to this article, various researchers have shown that goal-setting promotes positive behavioral changes as well as improved performance. Melissa has demonstrated her need for both.

Results stated that the experimental group who used goal setting had a higher adherence levels compared to the social support and controlled groups who did not set goals whilst performing exercises (experimental group 80.40, controlled group 50.43). This supports (Theodorakis et al., 1996), as they both obtained similar results in terms of the goal setting groups receiving significantly increased results, this ultimately shows that goal setting helped participants to stick to their rehabilitation programs and also perform better during exercises. (Coppack, R et al., 2011), also backed up the results of (Theodorakis et al., Evans, L. and Hardy, L. 2002), results as again he used similar methods of an experimental group and two controlled groups. His results showed that the experimental group showed higher adherence scores compared to the controlled groups. This shows that the method was used by many experts to test goal setting. Although all studies suggested that goal setting had a positive effect on an athlete’s rehabilitation as self-efficacy and satisfaction improved. Results obtained may not be as accurate as possible, and therefore, may not be reliable. (Evans, L. and Hardy, L., 2002) explained that methodology’s that use feedback to asses self-efficacy and satisfaction suggest that result could not be as accurate as

Many people set goals for themselves. These goals are what motivate us to work hard in order to achieve success and drive our daily motivation. Goals such as going to University, having a high-paying career, getting married, purchasing the car of our dreams, or buying a property are what drive a person to succeed. However, we must remember to take small achievable steps and not set ourselves unrealistic goals in order to maintain a positive attitude and desire to accomplish the goal, even when we are not too feeling enthusiastic.

In 1970, Locke, Cartledge, and Knerr released Studies of the relationship between satisfaction, goal setting, and performance which provided evidence that using short term goals helped attain the success of long term goals (Locke, Cartledge & Knerr, 1970). This was furthermore discussed by Bandura and Simon in 1977. This has been incorporated into the athletes’ session plans below, specifically the second- acquiring short term and long term goals in the form of process and performance, and outcome

Motivation in the workplace is one of the major concerns that managers face when trying to encourage their employees to work harder and do what is expected of them on a day-to-day basis. According to Organizational Behavior by John R. Schermerhorn, James G. Hunt and Richard N. Osborn the definition of motivation is "the individual forces that account for the direction, level, and persistence of a person's effort expended at work." They go on to say that "motivation is a key concern in firms across the globe." Through the years there have been several theories as to what motivates employees to do their best at work. In order to better understand these theories we will apply them to a fictitious organization that has the following

"Successful people maintain a positive focus in life no matter what is going on around them. They stay focused on their past successes rather than their past failures, and on the next action steps they need to take to get them closer to the fulfillment of their goals rather than all the other distractions that life presents to them" Jack (2001-2016). Motivational theories can help support an employee to progress in the workplace; a few theories such as Extrinsic Motivation, Intrinsic Motivation, Acquired Needs Theory, Self-Determination theory, and expectancy theory relate to my professional life. I will explain if I agree/disagree with my PsyCap self-assessment and some developing strategies to advance in my career using my strengths. Also, I will talk about how I can employ goal-setting to increase motivation, and how my engagements at the workplace influence my job performance.

To motivate employees, goals must take into consideration the degree to which each of the following exists: clarity, challenge, commitment, feedback and task complexity. If all five of these elements are present, goal theory says that we will be motivated to produce to a maximum. The specificity of the goal acts as an internal stimulus, the more difficult the goal, the higher the level of performance. Difficult goals energise us because we have to work harder and persist to attain them.

Motivation has become a term as ubiquitous as it is undefinable. What exactly is motivation and how is it used to achieve a desired result? In many circumstances, individuals are motivated by different aspects at different times in their lives. Compounding this issue further are the environmental factors embedded in an individuals motivation. Depending on an individual's background, he or she may be motivated differently than others of similar socio economic circumstances. As such, it is quite difficult to appraise the merits of a single motivational characteristic or theory. This difficulty has given rise to numerous theories of motivation throughout history, each with its own distinct value. The problem with many of these theories is that they are imperfect by nature and do not encompass all possible options of behavior. This document will focus primarily on the achievement motivation theory established by Harackiewicz, Barron, Carter, Lehto, & Elliot in 1997 and how it can and cannot be used effectively within workplace situations.

Path-goal theory, originally developed by Evans (1970) and later modified by House (1971), was designed to identify a leader’s most practiced style as a motivation to get subordinates to accomplish goals, as commented by Leana Polston-Murdoch (2013). The theory builds strongly on two theories of work motivation: goal setting and expectancy theory. Goal-setting theory suggests that an effective way to motivate people is to set of SMART goals and to offer rewards if goal accomplished. Expectancy theory explains why people work hard and motivated to attain work goals. People will engage in behaviors that lead to goal attainment if they believe that their goal attainment leads to something they value, for example: increments or

How to set and achieve goals are the subjects of many motivational speakers, hundreds of Ted Talks and thousands of self-help books. I also watched a few videos on goals and goal setting and in doing so, came across a video by Arina Nikitina (a Russian Psychologist) “How to set your goal on autopilot”.

The research particular interest was in direct correlation with the study of goals in psychology, and how motivation is affected in terms of how your goals are constructed and carried out. What has been previously studied and examined is how goals are the basis of certain maladaptive patterns, and thus conceptualizing important differences and how a person perceives and behaves and what personality is best suited for them. Uniquely on all basis of scientifically finding goals have been defined differently amongst a wide variety of researchers. Goals are the achievable desires and ambitions of people and how they rationalize and decipher how to achieve and complete the tasks efficiently. Additionally, another significant area of value and previously studied is for some goals can structure as elements of status, exemplary grades might reflect a filling of self-worth or some important reassurance in abilities leading to a boost in confidence in all things related. Goals can be created out of the necessary ability to perform or for the additive benefit in assimilating a growing mindset. The review of the body of knowledge on the topic on the study of goals in psychology was two different approaches of mindset from individuals, how their patterns demonstrated their motivation and their cognition levels which essentially lead to a certain behavior. The first approach identified by (Bandura and Cervone, 1983; Locke & Latham, 1990) revealed the importance of developing hard to