Chapter 8
Read chapter 8. Summarize the chapter. What was the most surprising thing you learned? What elements of goal setting will you be able to use to strive to achieve your goals? Why do you think some goal setting strategies will work better for you than others? Be specific.
Provide a list of terms at the end of your post that you used from the chapter.
Chapter eight contains three major sections, plans, the first section explains ‘plans’. The chapter explains that people have mental representations of the ideal states of their behavior, environmental objects, and events. People also are aware of the present state of their behavior, environmental objects and events. These concepts make sense to me and I know I have learned about them in previous psychology classes, but I had not really thought of the concept in quite some time, so these concepts were the most surprising/interesting parts of the chapter to me. When the ideal and present states do not match it is called ‘incongruity’ or ‘discrepancy’, which causes people to take action. People become motivated to operate on the environment via a planned sequence of action in an effort to make it match their ideal state.
The second major section of the chapter explains the process of ‘goal-setting’. Goals are whatever an individual strives to accomplish. Like plans, goals generate motivation by focusing people’s attention on the discrepancy or incongruity between their present level of accomplishment and their ideal level of accomplishment. The chapter explains that people with goals outperform people without goals, which I thought made sense and was glad to read about because I set goals for myself and they help me strive for excellence. One element of goal setting that I will be able to use to achieve my goals is ‘goal difficulty’. The chapter explains that the more difficult a goal is the more it energizes the performer. The chapter also explains that only goals that are difficult and specific enhance performance. The chapter continues to explain that in addition to goals needing to be difficult and specific, that there is a third variable that is necessary before goals translate into performance goals, and that is ‘goal acceptance’. Goal acceptance varies on a continuum from total acceptance to total rejection, and that only internalized goals improve performance because goal acceptance breeds goal commitment. There are four factors that determine whether an externally set goal will be accepted or rejected, and they are: perceived difficulty of the imposed goal, participation in the goal-setting process, credibility of the person assigning the goal, and extrinsic incentives. The more difficult a person perceives a goal to be the more likely they will be to reject it. It is also important for a person to at least somewhat participate in setting a goal for themselves because it provides them with the need of ‘autonomy’. And goals have to offer a person clear extrinsic incentives that they can measure throughout the process. One goal that I have had since the beginning of college is to graduate without any debt, which has obviously been very difficult, but it is something that in my third year of school that I am on track to do. It has motivated me every week and most days especially this school year to spend my money very wisely. It is very easy for me to monitor my progress by simply viewing my bank accounts, and this is a goal that was suggested by my parents, but that I chose myself to actually really try to achieve, so I had a lot of autonomy in the decision. Also my step-dad graduated college without any debt and it greatly helped him in ‘getting ahead’ out of college, so he provided a clear example of the extrinsic incentives of achieving the goal. Having a large amount of autonomy in any big decision making process is essential for me, probably more so than for other people, because for important decisions I like to seek advice of the people I value, but I need to make the decision for myself because otherwise I know I will not internalize the goal well enough to stick with it long enough to be successful with it. I may also differ from other people in that I enjoy difficult goals, probably because I am a ‘high-need achiever’, whereas ‘low-need achievers’ may seek to only every challenge themselves with moderately difficult goals or tasks.
The third and last major section of chapter eight is ‘goal-striving’, which I have sort of already touched on many of the elements. One of the key parts of goal-striving is ‘mental simulation: focusing on the action’, which is the idea of a person mentally focusing on planning and potential problem-solving steps, which help them achieve their goal in the long run. Another key part is ‘implementation intentions’, which refers to the plan to carry out one’s goal-directed behavior. The last two key parts are ‘goal-pursuit: getting started’ and ‘goal-pursuit: persisting and finishing’. In terms of getting started it is important for a person to decide in advance when and where they will enact their goal-directed behavior. As far as persisting and finishing goes, it is crucial for a person to plan how, when, where, and for how long they will carry out their goal-directed behavior because it improves their chance of realizing the goal.
Terms: 1) Plans 2) Incongruity 3) Discrepancy 4) Goals 5) Goal Difficulty 6) Goal Specificity 7) Goal Acceptance 8) Mental Simulation 9) Implementation Intentions 10) High-Need Achiever 11) Low-Need Achiever
In chapter 8 the author’s main focus deals with goal setting and goal striving. In the beginning on the chapter the text focuses on “plans.” Plans are considered to be mental representations of the ideal states of their behavior, environmental objects and events. In short people already have an ideal method and outcome to an activity even before they begin. Some personal examples that affect my life would be darts and basketball. In both darts and basketball, I strive for the same motion every time so that I can predict the outcome of my shots. If I have the exact same motion and velocity on the dart every time, I will hit the target in which I am aiming at. Going a little deeper within the idea of “plans,” the author goes into detail about what happens if someone’s current state doesn’t match their ideal state. The author calls this difference “incongruity.” Incongruity can lead people to formulate plans in which to elevate their current state to that of their ideal state. In terms of darts, if I felt incongruity I would have to make adjustments. If I were missing to the right of my intended target every time, I would formulate one of two “plans.” The first would be to take a small step to my left to counter-balance me missing to the right every time; or the second plan would be to simply aim my shot a little bit more to the left than I would typically want, in the hopes of making up for me missing to the right. Plans are useful in terms of motivation because it helps give people a focus or direction. A plan lays out methods that can help people go from their current state which is undesirable, to their ideal state.
The second main section of chapter 8 talks about goal setting. According to Locke, a goal is whatever an individual is striving to accomplish. Like plans, goals create motivation by focusing or directing an individual’s behavior towards the incongruity. It is thought that those who have goals outperform those who do not have goals. Same can be said about the same individual outperforming themselves when they have a goal in mind, compared to when they do not have a goal in mind. But having a goal isn’t simply stating, “I want to do this, or I want to do that.” Quality goals are complex and should have some thought put into them. The more difficult a goal is, the performance increases in linear fashion. An example that immediately came to mind was during high school basketball. At the beginning on the season our coaches would have us set goals for scoring, rebounding, assists, etc. Initially he wanted our goals to be conservative so that they could be attained, but he quickly realized that having goals set far too low had a negative impact on our performance because we got complacent when he achieved those goals in the first half. He then created goals for us that helped push us and our performance to new heights. Having a goal that is attainable, but not easily attainable will keep an individual’s focus on the goal or task at hand, as well as motivate them to work harder. Specific goals are also a good idea because they direct the behavior in a particular direction, focusing the attention on a particular area that needs improvement.
The third major section that chapter 8 focuses on is on goal striving. Goal striving is what takes you from the goal that you have in mind, to actually putting it into action. The book calls this goal pursuit. The book separates goal pursuit into two sections; the first being getting started and the second being persisting and finishing. Getting started is obviously the most important thing in terms of completing your goal because if you don’t start, you cannot finish. If my goal is to put on 15 pounds of muscle in 4 months, in this case getting started might be getting a gym membership and finding a time every day in which I am free to workout. Once those two steps are completed, going to the gym every day is me “getting started.” The second portion of goal pursuit is persisting and finishing. Obviously working out consistently and hard enough can be difficult. There will always be hurdles in life that will make things more difficult and make it seem like there is no hope. But anticipating these difficulties can be just enough to allow you to persist right through these hurdles and allow you to finish out the goal that you set out at the beginning.
What I found most interesting about chapter 8 is how they laid out the steps in an effective goal setting program. The steps are obviously split up into the goal setting process and the goal striving process. These two processes go hand in hand and cannot function without the other. Even if you have a quality goal in mind, you need to have the proper goal striving strategies in order to complete or finish the goal. I just find it impressive that we have found a relatively universal way for people to set goals and have the means to complete or finish the goal that was set out in the beginning. The main portion of goal setting that I need to better focus on to complete my goals would be “being more specific.” A lot of times when I set goals for myself I am too broad. And having a goal that is too broad can lead to boredom or a lack of focus, ultimately resulting in me giving up on the goal all-together. While I believe goal setting is relatively universal, there will always be better strategies that work out for certain people better than others. Each individual is unique and therefore needs goals and the entire goal setting process tailored to their specific needs and/or strengths and weaknesses. If someone is highly motivated by competition, you should set the goal of outperforming a rival or the individual’s previous best time. (Time in the 100m dash) But some people shy away from competition and intensity, so it would be best to focus on consistency goals such as going to the gym six days a week. You don’t have to set the goal to increase your bench 10 pounds every two weeks, but instead focus your goal on just being consistent.
Terms: Goal Setting, Goal Striving, Plans, Incongruity, Motivation, Goal Pursuit, Goal Setting Program, Competition.
Summary of Chapter 8.
Chapter 8 discusses goal setting and how to achieve those goals. Goals are formed when there is a discrepancy between what is going on right now and what they want to be happening. This motivates a person to use the “TOTE” model and operate on the environment until the want is the same as what is currently happening. There are two types of discrepancy: one is discrepancy reduction, which gives feedback to a person when the ideal is not where they want it to be, and the other is discrepancy creation, which is proactive and sets the wants higher and higher as goals are met. When goals are set, performance outcomes are better than if there are no goals. In order for goals to be successful and enhance performance, they need to be moderately difficult and be specific about how to achieve the results. This helps motivate the individual and not lose interest, while also having a set plan in place. To maintain motivation to complete goals, a person needs feedback along the way. Feedback continually allows a person to reevaluate their goals and keeps them on track for completion. One other element that says how well goal will be completed is goal acceptance. The person needs to look at how difficult the goal seems, how much effort will be required, the credibility of the person setting the goal, and if there are other extrinsic incentives.
After goal setting was discussed, goal striving was introduced. This is what keeps people motivated to continue with their goals. Research shows that if someone focuses on their goal, they don’t perform as well. It is when people focus on how to accomplish their goals is when people get better results. This is called mental simulation and leads to implementation intention, which is mentally making the plans for the goal in advance. Deciding the “whens” and “hows” in advance improves goal completion because it makes people accountable for each of the steps.
The most surprising thing learned in Chapter 8.
I was most surprised about what was not discussed. I have heard somewhere else that having too hard of goals set would discourage the person, so people should keep goals reasonable. The book discussed that moderately difficult goals were best, and that too easy of goals bored the person, so it was surprising to not have anything said about the other end of the spectrum.
Elements of goal setting that I will be able to use to strive to achieve my goals.
I liked learning that making a plan and at least mentally setting dates and specific steps help people accomplish their goals. I have noticed that I have a tendency to forget some of my goals of the day unless I take a few moments and think of them all in the morning. I realized that I should continue to do this to complete my goals of the day. I also think I need to be more specific when I set goals and not just think about the end product.
Why some goal setting strategies will work better for me than others.
Being more specific on how I will accomplish my goals will help me not focus on the end result, but on how I will get there. According to the book, I will get more goals accomplished than by just setting a goal of getting something done. This could also include an order list to keep me from jumping around from one item to another.
List of terms used in post from Chapter 8: TOTE model, discrepancy reduction, discrepancy creation, feedback, goal acceptance, goal striving, mental simulation, implementation intention, goal completion.
Chapter 8 was all about goals. A goal is something someone is trying to accomplish. In order to accomplish a goal, a person needs a plan. The motivation to formulate a plan comes from an incongruity between a current state and a desired state. When working towards a goal, the incongruity creates energy and the plan creates direction. These things create a model of test-operate-test-exit (TOTE) where the test is comparing the present and ideal state, operate is acting to achieve the desired state, and exit is the congruity of the present state with the ideal state.
The incongruity creates discrepancy reduction or discrepancy creation. Discrepancy reduction comes from a standard of excellence in the environment which is the desired state for a person which can create a discrepancy with the current state. Discrepancy creation comes from a person purposefully setting a higher standard for them to achieve.
Goal setting has been shown to increase performance. For performance to be optimal, the goal should be difficult and specific. This is one thing that surprised me. I understand goals needing to be specific but I thought easy goals would be more likely to be accomplished. The text explains difficulty by saying that it energizes the performer by increasing effort and persistence. Another thing that surprised me is the explanation of mental simulations. It was found that process simulation is more effective than outcome simulation. This is surprising because I have been told many times to visualize myself doing well but I guess it really doesn’t do any good. Timely feedback to performance is also important because it can lead to felt satisfaction which contributes to feeling competent. If it leads to felt dissatisfaction, that can lead to a greater awareness of goal-performance discrepancy which may push the performer to put forth more effort.
I think one thing I learned that will help me achieve my goals is to set multiple short-term goals to an ultimate long-term goal. Long-term goals are good for autonomy and intrinsic motivation but short-term goals will increase my persistence to my long-term goals. They will provide more opportunities for feedback and positive reinforcement which are important for competency and continued effort. Also, I feel like I’m easily distracted to constant reminders of my long-term goal would be helpful. My short-term goals should be specific and I should create an actual time to start and complete these goals. Specificity is important in creating a plan because when a goal is specific, it is more likely to be accomplished because you know what to do. A time frame to start and finish is important so that the goal doesn’t get blown off. If I give myself a general timeframe instead of a specific one I am more likely to procrastinate and say to myself that I can do it later. My goals should also be relatively difficult to energize my effort. If a goal is too easy, it may seem trivial to complete and if something is really easy you don’t even call it a goal. A goal definitely has to be difficult if self-set for any progress to happen. My goals should be internal and result from discrepancy creation. I hate when people tell me what to do. I love my autonomy and being able to set my own goals is important to me. I want to decide for myself what my desired state is not be given an outside standard of excellence.
terms: goal, plan, incongruity, current/desired state, TOTE, discrepancy reduction/creation, outcome/process simulation, felt satisfaction/dissatisfaction, standard of excellence, short-term/long-term goals, autonomy
Chapter 8 discusses the benefits of goals and goal setting, and also the necessary means of attaining them. Before getting into the steps of goal setting, it is mentioned that a big part of goal attainment is our own cognitive process. Cognition (though somewhat hard to define) are mental events that shape our "beliefs, expectations, goals, plans, judgments, values, and self concept". These all shape our actions so it is important to know that our cognitive processes are key when it comes to goal setting and achievement.
The first concept discussed about goal setting is "plans". Goal planning can be said to arise from incongruity. This is when a person's present state does not meet one's ideal state. So, the basis for motivational processes can go something like this. People know about their present and ideal states, and any presence of incongruity would trigger a person to come up with a plan to minimize the incongruity in hopes to transcend from present to ideal state. Corrective motivation serves as a guideline in order to achieve this ideal state of goals. It is a plan---action sequence. First, there is detection of present-ideal inconsistencies, then, a plan is generated in order to eliminate the incongruity, third, there is the instigation of plan-regulated behavior, then finally, one must monitor the feedback as to the extent of any remaining present-ideal incongruity. This corrective motivation "activates a decision-making process in which the individual considers many different possible ways for reducing the present-ideal incongruity". It is a dynamic process that consists of going back and forth between achieving the ideal state, but being readily open to changing and revising a plan if it proves to be ineffective.
Incongruity and discrepancy are basically synonymous words that describes trying to get from present to ideal state. There are two types of discrepancies when speaking of goal setting. The first is discrepancy reduction which is based on the discrepancy-detecting feedback that underlies plans and corrective motivation. This arises plan based and reactive to the environment. The other is discrepancy creation which is based on a "feed forward" system where a person looks forward and sets a future, higher goal. This is centered around goal setting and is therefore proactive.
The next concept discussed is goal setting. A goal is whatever an individual is trying to accomplish. I was rather surprised when reading on the studies that prove that people who have goals actually outperform those without. The example given was the sit up study, where those who set a goal of how many sit ups they wanted to do turned out to do much better than those who just went through the motions. An important component of goal setting is that the goal should be difficult and specific. This is because it arises effort and helps keep attention to the task at hand.
Aside from the fact that the goal should be difficult and specific, one also needs feedback on their goal. This is because it allows a person to keep track of their progress and will be able to see what actions help bring about their maximum performance. Feedback will either bring about goal attainment which leads to emotional satisfaction or goal failure which brings about emotional dissatisfaction. Both however have motivational properties for they will either motivate one to keep up the good work, or make someone work even harder.
When goals are given to you by others (ex: a parent wanting you to save money) the concept of goal acceptance is key. It involves a person's decision on either to accept or reject goal. There are four factors what would determine one's decision which are: perceived difficulty, participation in goal setting, credibility of the person assigning goal, and extrinsic incentives.
Long term goal setting proves to be somewhat harder than short term goals because there is not constant feedback or reward. It deals with persistence and intrinsic motivation. The tricky thing though is that intrinsic motivation really only arises when the task is interesting. When it comes to both short term and long term goals one needs to devise a plan to carry out one's goal-directed behavior. In the book, this was referred to as "implementing intentions". An individual needs to come up with a plan of action for getting started, persisting, and resuming. This is because roadblocks can arise, and it is important to realize how to address some of these roadblocks before they actually occur so an individual will know how to handle this.
I think that this is something I can do to really help me improve my goal setting and achieving. I am most certainly one to come up with many goals, but will neglect them as soon as plans shift or something goes wrong. I think if I were to have more "implementing intentions" and come up with a plan to stay on track, then I will have an easier time achieving the goal at hand.
Some goal setting strategies may work better for other people because of their cognitive processes. For instance, if a person has a high self esteem, they will have an easier time motivating themselves to act upon a specific goal. However, if a person has a low self esteem, they will become more easily defeated when something wrong occurs, or will not have the confidence in taking the actions needed to achieve that goal, because they think that they are doomed to failure.
Terms: cognition, goals, plans, incongruity, corrective motivation, present and ideal states, discrepancy reduction, discrepancy creation, goal setting, difficult & specific, feedback, goal acceptance, long term goal, and implementing intentions
Chapter 8 addresses the cognitive and behavioral aspects of goal-setting and goal achievement. It touches on methods to setting goals and gives examples of what kinds of goals are likely to be more successful. A lot of the chapter discusses that goals must be difficult and specific, but at an optimal level of both of these. I found the section about how we decide to take action very interesting. The chapter explained the TOTE model that shows how we test something to our “ideal” of how it should be and if they do not match we “operate” meaning that we behave in a way to decrease incongruence then test again and so forth until the present state matches the ideal state. While this seems to be very obvious, it is interesting to think about how much we do this in a single day. After reading this, I started to think about it and I’m sure I do this from everything to how I get ready in the morning to how I perform at school to the projects I do at work. If what I am doing doesn’t match what I had perceived it should be (my ideal state) then I continue to work on it.
For the most part, this chapter was not surprising to me. I have studied goal setting in some of my I/O psychology courses, and did a research study on goal-setting and personality traits in one of my classes. This project introduced me to research articles by Locke and Latham and this chapter referred to this research frequently. The one part that I hadn’t thought about previously was the discussion about goal acceptance is highest when goals are perceived as being easy. There are other things that cause high acceptance including being self-set, assigned by someone that is considered credible and trustworthy, and that promise benefit. These later conditions did not surprise me, however the difficulty level one kind of did. I can understand why people would accept an easy goal more readily because it promises a higher likelihood of success. However, challenging goals are shown to be more motivating. I often take what I read in the chapters and compare them to my behavior, and I usually find challenging goals exciting. While if it is overly difficult I am less likely to accept it, but when I am given a challenging goal at work I do get a little nervous about it but usually find trying to accomplish it kind of exhilarating. This may be because of the extrinsic rewards (money/acknowledgment/experience) that I receive for accomplishing a task, however it definitely serves some intrinsic rewards as well (I’m proud of myself when I achieve something difficult or new). The chapter does touch on similar ideas as seen in the chapter on extrinsic motivation, showing that goal setting works best when the task is uninteresting and straightforward, which in my mind makes sense. One other thing that I thought was kind of surprising was that research showed that focusing on the goal interfered with goal attainment. This makes me think of the place I intern, and most of the employees are driven by an incentive-based program, so commission and pay grade is directly related to your goal attainment over a given quarter. According to this research (and a lot of others from this semester), this is likely to be ineffective.
I think one of the biggest things for me to use from goal-setting theory is that I need to have smaller goals in order to achieve my larger, long-term goals. For example, right now my goal is to complete and defend my thesis before I walk for graduation. I think that making some more specific goals like having the data analyzed by a certain date, turning it in for revisions, and having a preview meeting by a certain time would help me keep on track. I think that saying “I will finish my thesis” is a little too broad. Lastly, I think this strategy will work for me because I enjoy being organized, it is actually a source of stress for me when I do not feel I have control over my environment; therefore I try to participate in time-management behaviors. For some people, a series of short-term goals might be overwhelming and cause burnout of the goal. I think it is important to use a strategy that works best for them. Because there is discrepencies in what works for people, businesses need to keep this in mind when implementing a goal-based structure.
ME Terms: Cognitive, behavioral, goal-setting, goal-attainment, discrepency, goal-striving, difficulty, specificity, TOTE model, ideal state, present state, goal-acceptance, intrinsic motivation, extrinsic rewards, long-term goals, challenge, incongruence.
Chapter 8 is about goal setting and goal striving. Chapter 8 begins the second section of the book: cognitions. The cognitive perspective on motivation concerns an individuals ways of thinking and believing. Chapter 8 is about the motivational agents in the cognition action sequence.
The pioneers in the study of motivation believe that people have mental representations of ideal states and present states. The mismatch between these two states is called incongruity. When there is incongruity people develop plans to remove it. Present-ideal incongruity instigates corrective motivation sequence.
The incongruity, or also can be defined as discrepency between present state and ideal state is the motivation property. There are two types of discrepency: discrepency reduction and discrepency creation. Discrepency reduction is when in the environment there is some form of ideal performance level. In discrepency creation there is no ideal level, the ideal state is created by the individual. There is also no feedback.
A goal is defined in the book as whatever an individual is striving to accomplish. Goals are like plans because idividuals focus on a discrepency or incongruity. Goal setting enhances performance but goal difficulty and goal specificity can make a difference. I was really amazed at the examples of the extent to which a goal setting can have on performance. (The loggers, elementary students, etc.) I was just surprised that even a simple study with just doing push ups made such a difference. Learning that specific types of goals are needed to enhance performance is helpful for goal setting in my own life. I feel that for some goals feedback isn't always easy to obtain. THe fourth condition for goal setting is goal acceptance. I know this is something that I sometimes struggle with. I have alot of ideal states and things I would like to accomplish but the actual acceptance of the goal seems hard to me. This step seems harder because once I actually accept a goal that generally means to start the goal and if I accept a goal but never meet that goal I would experience goal failure.
Goal setting is the goal directed thinking but goal striving is the goal-direction action. Without acting on a goal then an individual does not move to goal striving. To move to goal striving individuals have implementation intention which is the plan to carry out the goal. Therefore the first part of goal pursuit is implementation intention. Implementation intentions facilitate persistence and reengagement.
I'm sure some goal setting strategies and some goal striving strategies would work better for me than others. I think its hard to set an apropriately difficult goal. In the back of my mind I don't want to set a goal too hard that I would not achieve it. I think its also hard to obtain persistence in goal pursuit. Its really easy to give up after you receieve the first good results. This might be something I need to change so that I aim towards long term achievement instead of being satisfied at the first signs of success or achievement.
words: goal setting, goal striving, cognitions, cognitive perspective on motivation, cognitive action sequence, plans, incongruity, ideal state, present state, corrective motivation, discrepency, discrepency reduction, discrepency creation, goal setting, goal performance discrepency, goal difficulty, goal specificty, feedback, goal acceptance, long term goal setting, goal striving, implementation intentions, goal pursuit, persistence, performance, reengagement, goal failure
Chapter 8 was all about goals; why they exist, how they are thought about, and how they are achieved. To attain a goal it is necessary to have a plan and the reason plans are devise is to repair an incongruence between a current state and an ideal state. Sometimes plans are perfect and an ideal state is met, but sometimes plans need to be rearranged halfway through to ensure the correct results. The “TOTE” and corrective models both discuss how to attain an ideal state; both are similar however the corrective model includes increased flexibility for changing the original plan. Once a goal is set motivation for the goal needs to be established. This can be a difficult task since there is not always a clear reason to achieve more than status quo. In chapter 8, the book discusses creating a discrepancy between the current behavior and the ideal state. By doing this there is no longer congruence and the goal seems more necessary to have. Once a goal is established it is necessary that it be an appropriate difficulty. If a goal is too difficult it then the goal may be forgotten. However, if it is too easy there may be no reason to complete it because it is trivial. In addition, the goal must draw out feedback from other people or the environment. With no feedback a goal is lifeless and there is simply no reason to do it. Throughout the chapter goals were described in every detail, however there was an overarching thought. People who have goals usually perform better in life and achieve goals that they set for themselves. Therefore, it is practical to understand how to best achieve one goal because, in theory, by just achieving one goal, the next goal should then be easier to achieve.
The most interesting/surprising thing I learned in this chapter was that writing down goals predicts higher chances of following through with them. After reading this chapter I wrote down a goal for myself and I felt more confident immediately; possibly because I just learned this. However, this tool can also help me when working with counseling clients in the future. If a client is having particular difficulty moving forward on a particular counseling or personal goal, simply suggesting writing it down may be effective. In addition, I could see myself working together with a client to develop goals and sub goals, writing them down, and then mailing them out to the client 1-3 months after they have finished counseling so that they remember their commitment to themselves. Therefore, this is something that was really interesting to me, and it is also something I will be able to use to achieve my own/my clients goals.
Honestly, I think concrete strategies like writing down a goal will work better for me because then they are out in the world and away from my ability to just not think about them. Also, even if the piece of paper is not shared with anyone else, it is as if it is being shared with someone other than my subconscious. Simply putting something tangible out into the world makes me believe it more than if I simply encouraged myself to complete a goal. This is why I am addicted to post it notes, a slave to my day planner, and am obsessed with lists.
ME Terms: goals, achieve, plan, current state, ideal state, incongruence, rearranged, TOTE, corrective model, flexibility, discrepancy, current behavior, congruence, difficulty, feedback, environment, perform, concrete
Cognitive mental events such as goals and expectancies can function as a “spring to action.” The cognitive study of motivation concerns itself with the cognition->action sequence. The first element is a plan. People have knowledge of both their present and ideal states and any perceived incongruity between the two makes people uncomfortable enough to formulate and act on a plan of action to remove the incongruity so that the present state will change and become the ideal state. The incongruity provides energy and the plan provides direction. The TOTE model says that people test (compare the present with the ideal) and operate (planned sequence of action). This repeated process of test, operate, test will continue until the present state and the ideal state are the same. The plan action sequence views plans as fixed, static, and mechanical. However, current research would point to a more general “corrective motivation.” Corrective motivation activates a decision-making process in which the individual considers many different possible ways for reducing the present-ideal incongruity: change the plan, change behavior, or withdraw from the plan altogether. Corrective motivation is a dynamic process where one acts to achieve the ideal state but also is ready to change and revise an ineffective plan. Discrepancy is a core motivational construct. Two types of discrepancies exist. The first is discrepancy reduction, which is based on the discrepancy-detecting feedback that underlies plans and corrective motivation. The second type of discrepancy is discrepancy creation. Discrepancy creation is based on a “feed forward” system in which the person looks forward and proactively sets a future, higher goal. The second element of motivational spring to action is goal setting. A goal is whatever an individual is striving to accomplish. Researchers refer to the discrepancy between present level of accomplishment and ideal level of accomplishment as a “goal-performance discrepancy.” People who create goals for themselves and people who accept the goals others set for them perform better than those who do not create of accept such goals. Goals do not always enhance performance. Only those goals that are difficult and specific do so. Difficult goals energize the performer, and specific goals direct her toward a particular course of action. Performance also depends on factors that are not motivational, such as ability, training, coaching, and resources. Another variable that is crucial in making goal setting effective is feedback. The combination of goals with feedback produces an emotionally meaningful mixture: Goal attainment breeds emotional satisfaction, while goal failure breeds emotional dissatisfaction. In addition to goals needing to be (1) difficult and specific and (2) coupled with feedback, a third condition is necessary before goals translate into performance gains: goal acceptance. Only internalized (accepted) goals improve performance. Four factors determine whether an externally set goal will be accepted or rejected: perceived difficulty of the imposed goal, participation in the goal-setting process, credibility of the person assigning the goal, extrinsic incentives. To accomplish a distant goal, the performer first has to attain several requisite short-term goals. On interesting tasks, only long-term goals facilitate intrinsic motivation. There are some cautions and pitfalls involving goal setting. First, its purpose is to enhance performance, not necessarily motivation. Second, goal setting works best when tasks are relatively uninteresting and require only a straightforward procedure. Third, goals are sometimes administered in ways that are controlling, pressure-inducing, and intrusive and thus can undermine creativity and intrinsic motivation by interfering with one’s autonomy, cognitive flexibility, and personal passion for work. The third element of the spring to action is goal striving. Some people believe in “think it, be it.” Unfortunately, motivational processes are not that simple. The gap between goal-directed thinking and goal-direction action can be a wide one. To me, the most surprising thing in this chapter was that focusing one’s attention on the goal itself actually backfires as a motivational strategy. Focusing on how to accomplish the goal, however, does facilitate goal attainment. I would have thought that focusing on a goal would help. I realized by reading this chapter that I am fairly good at goal setting. I often have a running to do list in my head and set deadlines, however I seldom have a plan for how and when to get those goals accomplished. I think I could better myself by setting implementation intentions. This is a plan to carry out one’s goal-directed behavior-deciding in advance of one’s goal striving the “when, where, and how long.” I also might benefit by anticipating difficulties and having a backup plan for how to still meet my goal. Trying to balance all tasks involving school, work, home, and kids is a challenge for me. I would have to be careful using this tactic because my biggest roadblock to completing a goal is lack of time. I would need to build in an extra day or two for incidentals. I worry that I might slack off if I know that I have the extra time built in. Either way, having a plan to carry out my goal will motivate me to better manage my time.
Terms used: goals, expectancies, cognition->action sequence, plan, TOTE model, corrective motivation, discrepancy reduction, discrepancy creation, goal setting, goal-performance discrepancy, feedback, goal acceptance, extrinsic incentives, intrinsic motivation, autonomy, cognitive flexibility, goal striving, implementation
Blog on Chapter 8 on 3/1/11
Goal setting and goal strivings have become understood through studies. Some of the most interesting to me are through the cognitive mechanism of TOTE where the mind compares the present state to their perceived “ideal state.” This is the test and the first T in TOTE. The comparison between the ideal and the present state is important and if behavior is incongruent, the individual will act within their environment to move their behavior closer to their ideal perception and this is the essence of the “O” for operate in TOTE. A further state of evaluation is another test or T in TOTE. The E stands for exit that occurs when the ideal and present state match within the cognitive processing.
The most surprising aspect in this comparison is how we can increase or decrease behavior from one moment to another. This leads me to believe that much of our ideal perceptions are absolutely unconscious and adaptive within a situation. The text refers to this as a corrective motivation and this is surprisingly interesting to learn why a new job or task usually takes longer than you expected; which can fall short of your ideal, and then you feel frustrated or you experience a sudden flash of anxiety. This causes you to wonder if you are capable of completing the job. After some experience and familiarity with the job processes you then feel positive emotions such as enthusiasm and competence because the discrepancy is reduced.
At this point I can see an individual can use discrepancy creation to internally motivate you to set higher goals. This motivating behavior can be specific or in a general aspect and that is why timely feedback maximizes performance. It also makes sense that if the feedback is too critical of performance or if the critique comes from and individual who has not established credibility that the goal may not be accepted. Either way the situation will result in stress or frustration that may inhibit creativity and intrinsic motivation.
The most impacting elements of goal setting for me would be implementing my intention goals. I can set or plan to do homework but then it’s like I am distracting myself or avoiding the action of doing my homework. My favorite is to let an interruption (which occurs daily) distract the rest of my goal. I know I need to link my behavior with a specific time and place to better influence the action of doing my homework. I hope to make the situational cue more automated by turning off my cell phone and let the answering machine get the home phone. I could also a lot a certain amount of time for homework and if I am interrupted I just have to remind myself that I have to recover and resume my study time before I allow myself to do . . . Whatever else comes up.
Terms: goal setting and striving, cognitive mechanism, TOTE-test-operate-test-exit, moment to moment influences, corrective motivation, ideal, anxiety, positive emotions, discrepancy motivation, motivating behavior, timely feedback, maximized behavior, creativity, intrinsic motivation, Intentions, linking behavior with specifics of time and place, situational cue, automated action, recover, resume.
Summary: Goals essentially stem from incongrutiy/discripeancy that arise between a person's present state and ideal state (standard of excellence. the incongruity posses motivational properties. Plans are adjustable and subect to revison and arent rigid in nature. Corrective motivation activates a decision making process. Plans cause actions which need evaluations which lead to emotions though feedback. There are two types of discrepancy, discrepancy reduction which is feedback, plan based, reactive, and the enviroment illicits the standard such as a coach saying run a 7 minute mile. The second is discrepancy creation which is feedforward, goal setting , proactive and created by the person themselves.
goal perfomance discrepancy enhaces performances when the goal is straighforward and not interesting. However it does cause stress, oppportunites for failure, and hinders creativity and intrensic motivation.Goal acceptance is vital when pursuing goals issued by the enviroment, because goal acceptance breeds goal commitment. the more difficult the imposed goal is the less likely somone is going to follow through on it which is the opposite when the person creates there own goal. The person also needs to feel a sense of involvement in the goal setting, want the extrensic incentives and have credibility from the goal issuer. Only long term goals are idusive to intresic goals that are interesting as opposse to short term goals. Implementation intention is vital to goal striving because it is the when how where of it all that creates results.
What was the most surprising thing you learned? The most suprising thing I learned was how important actually establishing a goal was in realtion to outcome, throughout the book they gave many examples of how much better people do when they set specific and appropriately difficult tasks.
What elements of goal setting will you be able to use to strive to achieve your goals? Setting a goal that is specific and the right degree of difficulty , really focus on feedback because without the feedback there is noe emotionall involvement.
Why do you think some goal setting strategies will work better for you than others? Be specific. I thin that discrepancy creatiojn would work better for me because I dont really thrive on others goals, it has to be something I already want.
Terms used: Goal, planning, incongruency, standard of excellence, corrective motivation, discrepency reduction, discrepeancy motivation, short term goals, longterm goals, implmentation intetion. goal striving, goal performance discrepancy, feedback, goal acceptance,
Chapter eight is largely discusses the aspects of setting and accomplishing a goal. A goal is a phenomenon that is present in the cognitive perspective of motivation. It is cognitive because goals are thought based constructs. The chapter also discusses plans and how they are formed when we want to get to an ideal state instead of our present. The Tote model is the cognitive mechanism in which plans direct behavior.
Of the entire chapter, I would have to say that there are different levels of achievability in goals. For instance, two people can have the same goal of reading more, but they could have varying amounts of success. Their success could differ because of the goal difficulty, feedback, and acceptance. It is fairly easy to see how I would make a goal for myself now. For one, I would make sure my goal presented just the right amount of difficulty for me. It would not be too hard or too easy. I would also need some form of feedback so that I can evaluate how well I am doing and if I am actually working towards my goal. I would also have to accept my goal. The goal wouldn’t work if I rejected it or if I wasn’t okay with it. I would have to accept my own internal motivation or someone else’s external motivation for my goal to work. It would also help to be specific about my goal as well. That way I know exactly what I want to do, and there won’t be any vagueness to confuse me.
I can also use mental simulations to achieve goals I have set for myself. I would have more success if I focused on how to obtain the goal instead of the goal itself. I can also use implementation intentions to achieve a goal I have set for myself. It is essentially a plan on how to carry out a specific goal. With a plan, I can hopefully account for anything that may slow my progress of accomplishing a goal.
TERMS: goals, cognitive, Tote model, plans, difficulty, feedback, and acceptance, specifity, mental simulations, implementation intentions.
Chapter 8 is about goal setting and goal striving. One part of these two things is plans. The book defines the process of a plan as: people have knowledge of both their present and ideal states and any perceived incongruity between the two makes people uncomfortable enough to formulate and act on a plan of action to remove the incongruity so that the present state will change and become the ideal state. The incongruity in this whole things acts as the motivational factor. The test-operate-test-exit model is a cognitive mechanism by which plans energize and direct behavior. In this model test means to compare the present state with the ideal state. Operate means to act on the environment to realize the ideal state. The second test means to compare the present state with the ideal state. And lastly, exit means the present state is in congruency with the ideal state.
Next goal setting is talked about in the book. A goal is whatever an individual is striving to accomplish. Goals generate motivation by focusing people’s attention on the discrepancy between their present level of accomplishment and their ideal level of accomplishment. The discrepancy between the present level of accomplishment and the ideal level of accomplishment is known as the goal-performance discrepancy.
Goal difficulty is referred to how hard a goal is to accomplish. It has been found that as goal increase in difficulty, performance also increases in difficulty at the same rate. Goal specificity refers to how clearly a goal informs the performer precisely what he is to do. Only goals that are specific and difficult enhance performance. Difficult goals almost always energize behavior and specific goals direct attention and strategic planning. Feedback is also a crucial element in accomplishing goals. Without any feedback goals would be unimportant to the individual who is trying to accomplish the goal. Another critical element to a goal is goal acceptance. This means that in order for the goal to be successful in the end the individual who is given or makes the goal needs to accept the goal.
Goal striving seems to be a motivational intervention strategy for helping people accomplish the sorts of things they wish to accomplish. There are four sequential steps in the goal setting process. They are: 1. Specify the objective to be accomplished 2. Define the goal difficulty 3. Clarify the goal specificity and 4. Specify the time span when performance will be assessed. There are also four sequential steps within the goal striving process. They are: 1. Check on goal acceptance 2. Discuss goal attainment strategies 3. Create implementation intentions and 4. Provide performance feedback.
The most surprising thing I learned was that in order for a goal to be achieved you have to make sure to have all these sequential steps I just talked about involved. Otherwise, your goal is most likely not going to be achieved.
Now that I know the things you are supposed to do when setting goals I will be able to more successfully achieve my goals that I set for myself.
I think that some of the goal setting strategies will work better for myself than others because of the way I do things. I am a very laid back person. Even though I am very laid back if something is very difficult and I can’t figure out how to do it I get frustrated, as do most people. So I will just quit the task I am doing because I don’t know how to do it. This plays into goal acceptance. If I don’t want to do the task or don’t really understand how to do it I will more than likely not accept it.
Terms used: goal setting, goal striving, test-operate-test-exit model, motivation, feedback, goal specificity
Chapter eight discusses the mental processes that occur in goal setting, and factors that affect one's likelihood to complete that goal. The chapter begins by defining cognitions. It is labeled as an 'umbrella' construct in that it covers a wide variety of other traits. The textbook defines cognitions as a construct that unites together mental constructs such as beliefs, expectations, goals, plans, judgments, values and the self-concept under the single banner of mental events that function as causal determinants. In other words, cognition is the act that links our thoughts to our direct actions. All humans have a present state and ideal state. When one pictures themselves in an ideal state and realize it is not accurate to their current state, incongruence occurs. This is when one usually operates on the environment to be at the ideal state. After emitting a behavior to meet the ideal state, it is tested. If the person has met their ideal state, congruence occurs. If they have not yet, they continue to operate on their behavior. This is known as the TOTE model. Another topic discussed in this chapter is discrepancy (synonymous to congruence). There are two types of discrepancy: discrepancy reduction and discrepancy creation. Discrepancy reduction occurs when feedback shows performance is below goal level. This will cause the person to continue with their goal, but with increased effort. Discrepancy creation occurs when feed back shows performance is at or above goal level. This will make the person feel satisfied and cause them to make new, more difficult goals. Feedback is of utmost importance when attempting to meet a goal because the reinforcement aides the person's cognitions and behavior. When setting a goal, one must take note of the difficulty. The higher the difficulty, the higher the effort and persistence a person will put in to meet that goal. The goal must also be specific. This will increase attention to the goal and help with planning a lifestyle in order to meet that goal. Another crucial part to setting a goal is the acceptance of the goal. When a person sets a goal for themselves, they automatically accept the goal however, if someone else sets the goal for them, the person may not be as motivated. Perceived difficulty, extrinsic incentives and credibility of the person assigning the goal are all factors in whether or not a person will accept the goal. Not all goals are easily met. Long term goals are goals that require a long period of time to complete and may require several short term goals in the process in order to meet them. People often have a hard time meeting their long term goals however, because they are not reinforced enough to remain motivated.
The second half of this chapter deals with goal striving. How one drives their focus towards a goal can affect how successful they will be in accomplishing it. A study showed that people who focused on the goal rather than focused on HOW to achieve the goal were less likely to complete the task. The positive emotions associated with this focus are known as mental stimulations. The chapter concludes with an organized model on how one should go about setting a goal and acting on it. It differentiates eight steps, four in goal setting and four in goal striving.
The most surprising part of the chapter to me was the section about the TOTE method. I rarely think about myself in the present state or ideal state consciously, but rather act on my thoughts without a real reason why. It makes sense that one's incongruence with their present state would motivate them to achieve a goal to reach their ideal state. The chart that illustrated the TOTE model was very interesting to me. When one test's their ideal state, and they have not yet reached their goal, they will likely work harder and operate on their present self more. I would think that after awhile, one would get sick of not being able to achieve the ideal state and become apathetic.
After reading this chapter, I am better prepared to set my own goals and ensure that they are do-able. When setting a goal, I'll remember to make it specific to the point where I could measure my progress. The goal will also be somewhat challenging. This will cause me to work harder at the goal. It is also very important that I can check up on myself, or have someone else check up on me to give me feedback so I can be aware of the progress I am making. Discrepancy creation and reduction are very important in the continuation of behavior. I must also put my focus on HOW to implement action to achieve my goal, rather than the goal itself.
I think the best strategy for me is to have someone else with credibility assess me a goal to achieve. I feel as though I would be more likely to accept the goal and be more motivated to receive feedback. While I myself would like to strive for an ideal state, it is too easy to drop a goal because of the lack of feedback.
Terms: goals, cognitions, incongruence, TOTE model, ideal state, present state, discrepancy [reduction & creation], feedback, acceptance, long term goals, mental stimulations
Chapter eight is all about setting and achieving a goal(s). What makes a goal and what can break a goal. Everything begins with cognition, which is a mental event. Cognition is also described as a way of thinking and also believing. This is where we get our plans, goals and values from. Having a plan is a good step to have when reaching for a goal. In this section of the chapter it talks about having an ideal vision or state of mind. An example would be a gift. You imagine the gift and try to match you image with reality. Incongruity is the definition for when your ideal and the present states or visions don’t match up. People don’t like incongruity, so they come up with a plan to get rid of it. We want our ideal to come into place, so we strive to get it, this is what we would call an operating. After operating, is testing, the comparison between the present and the ideal. Finally, is the exit. This is when the present and ideal match up. This process is called a TOTE model.
The plan then leads to a corrective motivation. The corrective motivation is the activator of the decision-maker process. The decision can be to change a current plan into a new plan or withdraw the plan. This usually ends up going back and forth between plans.
Discrepancy, from the way that I read it, is more or less a “wish”. A person wants to take the present state and turn it into their ideal state. There are two different types of discrepancy, reduction and creation. Discrepancy reduction is based off of feedback. The feedback is mostly about performance levels, weather it’s good or bad. Creation discrepancy is based from feed-forward. This is where a person will set a higher goal for the further. The ideal state does not exist in this persons mind, at least not yet anyway. Unlike reduction discrepancy, feedback is not needed.
The first step in the creation discrepancy is setting a goal! A goal is what we, as an individual, want to accomplish. Goals and planning are similar in a way. They both have a present and ideal state or vision, and both strive to get the ideal state. It’s like looking at the present, and looking forward to the future. The example of this that I like the most is selling Girl Scout cookies (back in the day I tried to out sell all the other girls in my troop). You start out with no boxes of cookies sold. In your ideal state you have 100 sold. Therefore, you try and reach that ideal state by making a, you guessed it, a goal! Goals have two different outlooks, difficulty and specificity.
Goal difficulty says it all; it’s how hard the goal is that someone is striving for. The harder the goal is, the more motivation they are going to have to accomplish that goal. Goal specificity is how clear the goal is. An example of this is how many sit ups you want to achieve in a minute. If a number is set for the goal, say 20 sit ups, the more likely you will reach, if not pass that goal. Studies even show that if you have a set number in mind you are more likely to get the goal done than those who do not set a number goal. In the book it states that difficult goals energize and specific goals direct.
Feedback is important in the goal process. In order to better or reach the goal you need to have feedback. Without feedback, the goal can seem less important and less motivating. Feedback can enhance a performer’s motivation to make the goal. Although, sometimes negative feedback might hurt the persons want to achieve the goal. They might withdraw with the goal while others will take that and turn it into information to help them out in the future.
Before you can start to work at your goal you have to get started! Getting started is easy. There is a goal that someone wants to achieve, so do it! Pick out what time would best work for you and a number to get you going. But, sometimes there are events and other things that can interrupt with the goal, this might make it so you either have to start over or withdraw from the goal. This is unfortunate, but it’s not the end! A new start is only a step away!
What I found to be surprising was the goal difficulty and specificity. When I come up with a goal to work toward I don’t think about how difficult it is or how clear it is. I just go for it. It’s usually something difficult, if it wasn’t I don’t think it would really be worth doing, but from now on I think I’m going to have to set up a time or a certain number, that way I have more of a change of reaching my goal.
I think I answered the next question of what elements of goal setting will you be able to use to strive to achieve your goals with my surprising findings. I will defiantly use the specific goal to help me with my future and present goals.
Terms: Goal, cognition, plans, incongruity, operates, test, exit, TOTE model, corrective motivation, discrepancy, discrepancy reduction, discrepancy creation, feedback, feed-forward, goal difficulty and specificity
This chapter talked mainly about different kinds of goals. Goal is defined as whatever an individual is striving to accomplish. These goals generate motivation by focusing people’s attention on the discrepancy between their present level of accomplishment and their ideal level of accomplishment. Goals can be applied to all areas of a person’s life. The book states that people who set goals generally enhance their performance in a certain area more so than those who don’t have goals. Although this may be true, there are some different types of goals that are important to remember. You should consider Goal Difficulty. The more difficult a goal is, the harder that person will work to attain that particular goal. Goal Specificity is also important. This is important because it draws attention to what needs to be done and when, plus it takes the ambiguity out of it. You also need to have Feedback. Feedback any result that you are getting that shows you are closer to achieving your goal. If a person set a reasonable, specific goal but never felt they were getting anywhere, they wouldn’t be very likely to stick with that goal. You can also have long-term goals. An example of this would be graduating college or starting your own business. Something that you are working towards, but don’t expect to happen right away.
One of the most surprising things I learned was about “Implementation Intentions”. This is plan to carry out one’s goal-directed behavior. This can be done is three ways” Getting Started, Persisting, and Resuming. Getting Started is keeping up on a goal despite any daily distractions you may be having. An example of this would be like making sure you continue your goal of working out everyday even though you have a bunch of homework that is distracting you. Persisting is continuing with your goal in spite of difficulties/setbacks. An example of this would be continuing to work out for an hour a day in spite of the soreness you feel from running. The third way is resistance. Resuming is to continue with your goal even when interruption occurs. An example of this would be if you got a phone call in the middle of working out that you had to take, but then you continue to work out when the phone call is done.
I think it will be really helpful for me now that I know my goals should be fairly difficult (enough so that I actually have to try and achieve them) and they should be specific. By just stating a very “open-ended” goal, I will be more likely not to follow through with it. I need to learn to be more specific and detailed when stating goals I have.
Everybody probably works different under different pressures. So, some people may need to set really difficult goals so that they have the motivation to work hard and achieve that goal. Others may just need to set little, smaller goals at a time because they may feel overwhelmed with a big/difficult goal. Either way, you have to find out what works best for you and how you can become better at achieving goals you have set for yourself.
TERMS: goal; goal difficulty; goal specificity; feedback; long-term goals; implementation intention; getting started; persistence; resuming;
Chapter eight is about goal setting and striving. Everyone has plans and goals but there are different ways to understand them. The book discussed the TOTE model that shows how plans energize behavior. T stands for test. Test means that you compare the present state to ideal state. A person’s ideal state is how/what they want to be or do. When a person’s present state and ideal state have a discrepancy, or inequality, the person does some kind of behavior to reach their ideal state. An example of “test” is shopping for a birthday dress. You realize that nothing you have is good enough for your ideal state, so you progress to the next part of TOTE; operate. To operate is to do some sort of action to reach the ideal state. For example, you have a picture in your mind of what you want the dress to look like and you test various dresses to see if it matches your ideal state. Each time you try on a dress, you’re starting TOTE over by testing your present state to ideal state and then operating by finding another dress. This is the second t in TOTE, which stands for test. Once you reach your ideal state (finding the perfect dress), you’ve reached the e part of TOTE which means exit. Discrepancy is important because it tells you you’re currently unhappy with the situation and you need to emit some type of behavior to change it. There are two types of discrepancy: reduction and creation. Discrepancy reduction is when you’re motivated to reach an ideal state because some external force is telling you to. An example is cleaning your room because if you don’t, your parents will ground you. Discrepancy creating is when you’re motivated to reach an ideal state because of something intrinsic. Emitting a behavior isn’t done because you have to. An example is raising your GPA from 3.0 to 3.5 because you feel more competent after reaching that goal.
There are several aspects that are important in setting a goal and high performance. One of them is the difficulty of the goal. The book explains how easy goals produce low performance, medium goals produce medium performance, and difficult goals produce maximum performance. This means that in order to perform your best and have a better success rate of reaching your goal, the goal has to be difficult. Another aspect is specificity. It’s not enough to simply tell someone to do a good job. You have to tell them to get an A on a test, for example. This is also required for personal goals. You can’t tell yourself to lose weight. You need to have a goal, like 10 lbs, so you have a specific goal to work towards. Feedback is another aspect of reaching a goal. Feedback is important because it tells us how we’re doing with our performance. If we don’t receive feedback, which is a positive reinforcer, then the performance becomes unimportant. Being satisfied by feedback helps us to continue reaching for the goal. It’s also crucial to accept the goal. That may seem obvious but if you can’t accept the goal and everything it comes with, you won’t be able to reach it. There are four factors that determine if a goal will be rejected or accepted: perceived difficulty, participation in the goal-setting process, credibility of the person assigning the goal, extrinsic incentives. I think it’s important to discuss the credibility of the person assigning the goal because if the person assigning you the goal isn’t supportive or you don’t like them, it’s going to be difficult working towards something only they want. When someone is assigning a goal, they must be supportive and show how the goal can be intrinsically rewarding, even if there is an extrinsic incentive.
There are two types of goals: long-term and short-term. Both are important in reaching a goal. Long-term goals are goals that can’t be reached for an extended amount of time. Because long-term goals can’t be accomplished for awhile, the people with these goals may give up because they aren’t receiving feedback. That’s why you also need to have short-term goals to accompany the long-term goal. Short-term goals are smaller goals that can be reached in a smaller amount of time, but work towards reaching the long-term goal. They’re like steps to the long-term goal.
Goal setting is a process on its own, but without striving for a goal, it can’t be accomplished. One crucial aspect of goal striving are implementation intentions. Implementation intentions are plans to “carry out one’s goal-directed behavior”(222). It’s when you decide when, where, and how long before the goal is carried out. Implementation intentions help you to continue trying to reach your goal even when there are distractions and difficulties. Once you have a plan (implementation intention), you have to start the process to reaching your goal. It helps to decide when and where you will start trying to reach the goal. The next step is carrying out the decisions you’ve made to reach the goal, which includes working through the difficult times and sticking to the implementation intention.
There are four steps in the goal-setting process and four steps in the goal-striving process. The steps for the goal-setting process are: 1. Specify the objective to be accomplished. 2. Define goal difficulty. 3. Clarify goal specificity. And 4. Specify the time span when performance will be assessed. After these steps have been followed, you move onto the steps for the goal-striving process, which are as follows: 1. Check on goal acceptance. 2. Discuss goal-attainment strategies. 3. Create implementation intentions. And 4. Provide performance feedback.
The most surprising thing I learned was about implementation intentions. I found this surprising because there were so many studies done to show that if you do this, you’re much more likely to complete your goal. It does make sense, though. If you’re trying to complete a task or goal and something is distracting you, you need to use your will power to tell yourself to keep working through it. This happens with both long and short-term goals. One example I can think of is working out. The short-term goal (in my opinion) is to get through each work out. Sometimes I feel sore or tired and don’t feel like working out, but I tell myself to push through it and once I finish the work out, I’ll feel better. Another short-term goal is during the work out, I can get really tired or be in pain, but I tell myself that it’s only a few more seconds or reps and then it’ll be over. Telling myself that really helps me to finish that short-term goal. For a long-term goal, I want to lose at least 5 lbs by my birthday in May. I know that this means I need to constantly work out and eat healthier. Although this is difficult for me because I’ve never had this goal in my life, I tell myself it’ll be worth it and that ignoring the aversive aspects of it will help me to continue my goal.
I think the element of implementation intentions is one that I feel I’ll be able to use a lot, as I know I already use it in my goal for losing weight/getting in shape. Another element I’ll use is long-term goal setting. I feel that this has been a problem of mine in the past when I’ve made goals for myself. I’m an impatient person so I like to see results right away but I’ve learned that with some goals, that can’t be the case. Although short-term goals are important and help achieve long-term goals, I feel that maintaining a long-term goal will help me to reach that goal.
Because everyone is different, everyone has to have different strategies to do things like complete goals. Some people complete goals better when they have extrinsic motivators and some do better with intrinsic motivators. Some people feel that having many short-term goals is easier and some like to have and work towards a long-term goal (without so many short-term goals). I think the strategies I discussed in the previous paragraph will work better for me because I know the type of person I am. I’ve tried different strategies throughout my life and found that they aren’t as successful as the strategy I’m implementing right now. It’s important to understand your behaviors and motivations in order to figure out the best way to meet your goals.
Terms: goal setting, goal striving, TOTE model, test, ideal state, discrepancy, operate, present state, exit, discrepancy reduction/creation, motivated, external, intrinsic, difficulty, performance, specificity, feedback, acceptance, extrinsic incentive, long-term/short-term goal, implementation intentions, four steps in goal-setting/striving process
Chapter 8 is about goal setting and goal striving. It is the first of three chapters involving cognitive perspectives on motivation. People often have mental representations of what their ideal states of behavior could or should be. They also know what their actual or “present” state of behavior is and the mismatch between the two causes an incongruity which is motivational. People want to formulate plans to remove the incongruity also known as the discrepancy. These plans are energized by the cognitive mechanism of the TOTE model (test-operate-test-exit).
The TOTE model can be applied any time you want to see if the present matches the ideal, for example, you look in the mirror to check your appearance (test) and you don’t like how your makeup looks. You go back to your vanity table, add some blush (operate) and then you go back to the mirror to check the results (test). You are now satisfied that you look the way you wanted to so you leave the mirror (exit). The test/operate portion of the TOTE model can be circular so someone can always test, operate, test, operate, test, operate as many times as needed until the present plan matches the ideal plan.
Goal setting is also a plan-action sequence. Goals are whatever someone is trying to accomplish. Individuals who have goals are more energized and more likely to succeed than individuals who do not have goals. Goal setting enhances performance, however, only if the goal is difficult and specific. The difficulty energizes the performer and the specificity directs the performer. With goals, a performer usually only quits the task once the goal has been reached. For example, two people are exercising and one sets a goal to do 50 sit-ups and the other just wants to do as many sit-ups as she can. The person with the goal is more likely to succeed because the goal is difficult and it is specific.
Feedback is very important to goal performance because it provides knowledge of results so people can keep track of progress towards the goal. Without feedback, goals can be very emotionally unimportant and uninvolving. Goal acceptance is also critical in goal setting and four factors determine whether the goal will be accepted or rejected. These are 1) Perceived difficulty of the imposed goal 2) Participation in the goal setting process 3) Credibility of the person assigning the goal and 4) Extrinsic incentives.
It is important when setting goals to recognize that long term goal setting is good, however, it is more successful when long term goals are accompanied by many short term goals that serve as series of stepping stones to achieve them. For example, if a student wishes to become a doctor then they should set other short term goals to reach the end result such as getting good grades while they are an undergrad, graduating with a bachelor’s degree, entering grad school, becoming a resident, etc.
A surprising thing that I learned when reading this chapter was that goal setting works best when tasks are fairly uninteresting and require pretty straightforward procedures. For example, someone who works on an assembly line may find it easier to reach a goal than an artist whose work is based on creative inspiration.
I think I could utilize mental simulations in my goal setting. By doing this I could visualize the various steps I will take to reach a goal which will direct my attention more than just focusing on the goal. For example, I want to get an A on my Biopsychology test on Thursday. I can obviously see myself receiving my test back with an A grade on it but what could be more helpful would be using process simulation which I could use to visualize the steps I will take to reach the goal such as re-reading the chapter, writing down notes as I read it, writing my notes from class onto index cards, getting up early and studying before the test, etc.
I feel like this strategy along with setting short term goals would be very beneficial to me in achieving my larger and more long term goals. These will work for me because I have already discovered that my success rate in achieving goals is higher when I have a specific plan or strategy to reach that goal. Just staying “I want to get an A on the test” is not enough. I have formulate a plan on how I will get that A and then make a mental checklist as I cross the various steps in order to achieve it.
TERMS USED: goal setting, goal striving, planning, ideal states of behavior, present states of behavior, TOTE model, test, operate, exit, cognitive mechanisms, plan-action sequence, goals, feedback, goal acceptance, perceived difficulty, credibility, extrinsic incentives, participation, long-term goals, short-term goals, mental simulations
The focus of this chapter was on goal setting and goal striving. The first contemporary study of motivation began with how plans motivate behavior. These studies concluded that any mismatch that is perceived between one’s present state and their ideal state results in incongruity, which has motivational properties. The cognitive mechanism that energizes and directs behavior is known as the TOTE (test-operate-test-exit) model. This theory eventually led to the idea of corrective motivation. Corrective motivation activates a decision-making process in which the individual considers many different possible ways for reducing the present-ideal incongruity: change the plan, change behavior, or withdraw from the plan altogether. Researchers eventually found a larger construct known as discrepancy. Two types of discrepancies exist: discrepancy reduction and discrepancy creation. Discrepancy reduction captures the essence of plans and corrective motivation, whereas discrepancy creation captures the essence of goals and the goal-setting process. Goals are the objectives people strive to accomplish. Goals that are both difficult and specific generally improve performance, and they do so by producing motivational effects. Difficult goals mobilize effort and increase persistence, while specific goals direct attention and promote strategic planning. There are two conditions that must be met before goals will enhance performance: feedback and goal acceptance. Feedback allows a person to evaluate their own performance as being at, above, or below the level of the goal standard. Goal acceptance is the process in which someone accepts another person’s assigned goal as his own. Something that helps often helps a person achieve a goal is something called implementation intentions. Implementation intentions specify a plan as to when, where, how and for how long someone must act to achieve their goal. People who set implementation intentions in advance of their goals are significantly more likely to attain or complete their goals than are people who do not set implementation intentions. Goal striving is often difficult for people to achieve because of volitional problems such as getting started, persisting in the face of difficulties, and resuming goal-direction actions once interrupted. The goal-setting process includes-specify the objective, set goal difficulty, clarify goal specificity, and decide when performance will be assessed. The goal-striving process includes-check on goal acceptance, discuss goal attainment strategies, formulate implementation intentions, and provide performance feedback.
One of the things that surprised me was that you need a difficult goal to actually enhance your performance of a task. The chapter says that difficult goals give people energy to achieve their goal which seems counter intuitive to me. I would think that a difficult goal would reduce a person’s motivation to accomplishing the goal.
I think that understanding the implementation intentions aspect of goal setting will allow me to strive to achieve my goals. The aspects of implementation intention, deciding in advance the when, where, and how long, of goal-directed action will help me overcome the volitional problems. Getting started, persisting, and resuming once an interruption occurs has always been a problem for me and understanding this concept more will greatly help my goal setting strategies.
ME Terms: plans, goal setting and goal striving, incongruity, ideal state, cognitive mechanism, corrective motivation, discrepancy, discrepancy reduction, discrepancy creation, feedback, goal acceptance, implementation intentions, volitional problems
Chapter 8 was all about goal setting and goal striving. There were three specific topics discussed: plans, goal setting, and goal striving.
Researchers when studying about plans state that people have mental representations of ideal states of their behavior, environmental objects, and events (what you wish you were doing) but are also aware of their present state (what you are currently doing). When there is a mismatch between ideal and present states, it is known as incongruity, and a plan is formulated to get rid of this incongruity. This incongruity acts as a motivational "spring into action" (provides energy) and the plan becomes a means of organizing behavior toward pursuit of ideal state (provides direction). This process can be explained with the TOTE Model (Test-Operate-Test-Exit). In the test stage, people compare their present state with their ideal state. If it is incongruous, they move the operate stage where they act on the environment to realize ideal state. They run a test again; if it is still incongruous, they return to the operate stage, and if it is now congruous, they can move to the exit stage where their present stage is in congruity with their ideal stage. This model follow the plan --> action sequence. Contemporary researchers are now saying that plans are adjustable and subject to revision. Corrective motivation activates a decision-making process in which an individual considers many different possible ways for reducing incongruity: change the plan, change the behavior (increase effort), or withdraw from the plan entirely. This new view involves emotions; a person's subsequent evaluations of progress generate emotions. The basic idea of discrepancy (same as congruity) is that it can be represented by the magnitude of the arrow that shows the difference/mismatch between present and ideal states (PS IS). Discrepancy creates a sense of wanting to change the present state so that it will move closer to the ideal state. There are two types of discrepancy: discrepancy reduction and discrepancy creation. Discrepancy reduction is based on discrepancy-detecting feedback that underlies plans and corrective motivation. The environment brings some standard of excellence (ideal state) to a person's awareness. Discrepancy creation is based on a "feed-forward" system in which a person looks forward and proactively sets a future, higher goal.
Goal-setting is the next part of the chapter. A goal is whatever an individual is striving to accomplish. Goal-performance discrepancy explains that a person that has or accepts a goal is more likely to perform better than someone who does not have one. Two aspects of a goal will determine the success in achieving it: difficulty and specificity. Goal difficulty is how hard a goal is to accomplish. The chapter states that the higher the difficulty, the higher the performance. Goal specificity is how clearly a goal informs the performer precisely what he/she is to do. This reduces ambiguity of thought and variability in performance. Difficult, specific goals enhance performance. Being difficult provides energy and being specific provides direction; this increases effort and persistence and directs attention and strategic planning. Something to keep in mind is that there is not a 1-1 correspondence between a goal and performance because there are other factors involved (i.e, skill). A third crucial variable in the goal-setting process is feedback. Feedback is the information provided when documenting progress (i.e, the scale is giving you feedback while having the goal of losing weight). Without feedback, performance can be uninteresting and uninvolving. Only in the context of a goal can feedback be utilized. This produces a emotionally meaningful mixture. When satisfaction is felt, discrepancy creation is a result; when dissatisfaction is felt, discrepancy reduction is a result. Another aspect of goal-setting is when you don't set the goal yourself. When one person attempts to provide another with a goal, goal acceptance is involved. Only internalized (i.e, accepted) goals improve performance; goal acceptance leads to goal commitment. There are four factors that determine whether an externally set goal will be accepted or rejected: perceived difficulty of the imposed goal (the higher the difficulty, the lower the acceptance), participation in goal-setting process (prefer and are more successful when self-set or negotiated), credibility of person assigning the goal (more credibility = more acceptance), and extrinsic incentives (the more incentives, the higher the chance of acceptance). With all of this positive information, there are some criticisms. Goal-setting theory states that sometimes the individual is more about enhancing performance than enhancing motivation. Goal setting aids performance on uninteresting, straightforward tasks and not really on interesting ones. There are three pitfalls that limit its utility in applied settings: stress, opportunities for failure, and putting creativity and intrinsic motivation at risk. Setting goals is for both the short-term and the long-term. When setting goals for the long-term, a person first has to attain several requisite short-term goals. However, there are many people that give up on their long-term goal because of the task itself or the length of time until that goal is reached. Goal proximity affects persistence and intrinsic motivation. On uninteresting tasks, short-term goals create opportunities for positive feedback, experience of making progress, and means of nurturing a sense of competence, which leads to an enhancement of intrinsic motivation. On interesting tasks, only long-term goals facilitate intrinsic motivation.
The third major topic of goal striving is the means one uses to attain a goal. Mental simulations were discussed and the conclusion to these were that a person should focus on how to reach the goal, not the goal itself, to attain that goal. A person should partake in process rather than outcome mental simulations. Implementation intentions are a plan to carry out one's goal-directed behavior - deciding IN ADVANCE of one's goal striving the "when, where, how long" that underlies one's forthcoming goal-directed action. A key reason people fail to attain their goals is that they often fail to develop specific action plans for how they will attain their goals. Once a goal is set and committed to, volitional problems are arise: getting started, despite daily distractions; persisting, in spite of difficulties and setbacks; and resuming, once an interruption occurs. It is a good idea to link goal-directed behavior to a situational cue (i.e, when and where). The chapter ends with goal pursuit on how to get started, to persist, and to finish. They also end with all the steps of the goal-setting process put into a table.
What was the most surprising thing you learned?
There were two things that surprised me. When self-setting a goal, you will have higher performance with higher difficulty; however, when someone else provides you with a goal, the higher the difficulty, the less likely you are to accept that goal. The other thing that surprised me was the key reason people fail to attain their goals was because they didn't plan out their specific action. I didn't think that was actually why people don't complete their goals, but I guess so.
What elements of goal setting will you be able to use to strive to achieve your goals?
I will definitely start being more specific in my goals to achieve. I will also take any feedback (positive or negative) and use that to move forward in striving my goals. I will also focus more on how I am going to reach my goal rather than the goal itself.
Why do you think some goal setting strategies will work better for you than others? Be specific.
With goal difficulty, I feel like it would be harder for me to have a goal higher in difficulty because whenever I tend to put off the harder tasks and focus on things I can get done in a timely fashion. However, I shouldn't shoot down the idea until I try it. Goal acceptance is also a difficult concept for me because I am more likely to want to accomplish a goal if I made it myself. I especially put off goals that other people put on me if I felt obligated to take that task. Focusing on short-term goals before the long-term goal is hard for me to do because I am a very future-oriented person (although I also focus on the present). Finally, implementation intentions don't work very well for me. Even though I am a huge planner and I am all about figuring out how to get a goal accomplished, there are some goals that I have tried to do this with and still gave up on the goal or decided it wasn't worth my focus at that time.
ME Terms: Plan, ideal state, present state, incongruity, TOTE Model, corrective motivation, discrepancy (reduction and creation), goal, goal-performance discrepancy, goal difficulty, goal specificity, feedback, goal acceptance, goal-setting theory, long-term goal setting, goal striving, mental simulations (outcome and process), implementation intentions, volitional problems
Chapter 8 discusses the processes of goal setting and goal striving.
The first major section discusses plans. Plan are developed an initiated by people who are experiencing incongruity between their present state and their ideal state which gives them a sense of discomfort or frustration. When an individual’ s present state and ideal state do not match up, the incongruity acts as the motivator giving that person energy and direction to change their present state into their ideal state. This can best be illustrated using the TOTE (test-operate-test-exit) Model. The test portions occur when the person compares their present state against their ideal state. If these two states are not congruent, the individual moves on to the operate stage in which they act on their environment to realize their ideal state. Next comes the test stage again. If the person’s present state and ideal state match up, they stop planning and finding ways to change. If incongruity still exists, the person goes back into the operate stage and continues this process until their present state and ideal state become congruent with one another. I found this model to be interesting as I applied it to things I do everyday such as do my hair, do my makeup, pick out an outfit, etc. This process illustrates that plans are not set in stone; in fact, they are flexible and can be revised which the authors describe as being “corrective motivation”. One thing within this section that I thought was pretty interesting was the paragraph about how corrective motivation deals with emotions. For example, when people advance toward their ideal states at a rate equal to their expectations, they feel little emotion. If people’s rate is slower than they expected they experience negative emotions. Finally, if people’s rates are faster than they expected they experience positive emotions. The book also discusses two different types of discrepancy or incongruity: discrepancy reduction and discrepancy creation. Discrepancy reduction relates to plan-based corrective motivation and is more reactive whereas discrepancy creates relates to goal-setting motivation and is more proactive.
The second major section discusses goal setting. A goal is anything a person wants to accomplish. Just as with plans, people focus their attention on the incongruity between their present and ideal states, in this case their present accomplishment level versus their ideal accomplishment level. This is also referred to as “goal-performance discrepancy”. One thing that I thought was interesting in this section was that easy goals encourage little effort, medium goals encourage moderate effort, and difficult goals encourage high effort; therefore, I wasn’t surprised to read that only difficult and specific goals enhance someone’s performance. The chapter also discusses how feedback and goal acceptance relate to goal performance. An individual needs to have a goal, be given feedback, and accept the goal in order to obtain maximum performance.
The third major section discusses goal striving. This section discusses how thinking about a goal and actually doing something to obtain that goal can be difficult to do. One thing that surprised me in this section was that focusing one’s attention on the goal itself might negatively affect a person’s motivational strategy. Instead, the authors suggest that focusing on how to accomplish the goal does help with goal attainment.
After reading this chapter, I think there are a few elements of goal setting that can help me achieve my goals. Overall, I think I do a good job setting goals and achieving those goals. I usually have a mental list of things I want to get done and I also write down a lot of that stuff too. As for long-term goals in particular, I always try to think of the bigger picture. For example, I want to obtain a Master’s degree in Forensic Psychology so throughout my undergrad career I set goals such as getting good grades, getting and maintaining a high GPA, volunteering, and building up my resume in other ways. The section about how only difficult and specific goals enhance someone’s performance will keep me going as I try to obtain all the goals (both short-term and long-term) that I have set for myself. Of course, I need to remember not to have unrealistic goals and try to do things outside of my abilities.
Terms Used: plans, TOTE (test-operate-test-exit) Model, corrective motivation, emotion, discrepancy reduction, discrepancy creation, goal setting, goal, goal-performance , accomplishment, goal-performance discrepancy, feedback, goal acceptance, goal striving
In chapter 8, the focus is on goal-setting in order to reach an achievement. There are many different strategies to employ when attempting to reach a goal, as outlined in this chapter. The TOTE (test-operate-test-exit) model follows a flow chart pattern to take the individual through the steps of evaluating the current situation, taking action to change the current situation, re-evaluating the current situation, and then either repeat the operate step or exit the goal-reaching activity.
Current state - ideal state discrepancy seems like a very effective way to assess goals and the steps needed to reach those goals. If the current state is not the ideal state, steps must be made to assimilate the two. Goal-performance discrepancy is another model that assists a goal-setter in achieving set goals. If the performance doesn't meet the set goals, things must be changed in order to mend the gap.
Similarly, without feedback, a person doesn't know if or when a goal has been reached. An assignment without verbal feedback or a numerical score doesn't further a student because, without that information, the student doesn't know if she is learning the material she should be learning. The same goes for any other way of performance. If there is no response or comment on the end product, there isn't a chance for improvement or reflection on the job done.
In life, long term goal setting is very important. If someone doesn't have a direction to their life, then it is impossible to know if that person is doing what he or she should be or wants to be doing. For instance, I have no idea what I'll be doing at any point in the future past the end of this semester, but I know that I want to work with kids in some capacity, preferably in a creative movement and dance setting, but daycare work is always a good option. With that as a goal for as long term as I can foresee, I can then begin to make smaller goals in order to reach my ultimate place in life.
Nothing sticks out as surprising to me in this chapter. It all seems very straight-forward. That's not to say that the information isn't new; it just makes very good sense and doesn't seem out of the ordinary. I think that current state-ideal state discrepancy is my favorite strategy for goal achievement. It is very straight forward, it simplifies the whole process without completely excluding the nuances of everyday life, and it lays out exactly what needs to be done. For instance, right now, my current state is that I am a college student with a low-paying job in childcare, and my ideal state is a college graduate with an adequate-paying job in childcare or creative dance. Some steps that I need to take to mend that gap are finish my classes, graduate, apply for jobs, and actually get a job that I want. These will all take time and effort, but the current state and the ideal state are sitting there in black and white to remind me where I am and where I want to be.
TOTE model
current state-ideal state discrepancy
goal-performance discrepancy
Feedback
Long term goal setting
The chapter begins by discussing how motivation and mental processes cause action. The model that they use to describe this situation is the cognition action sequence. This breaks this connection down into four steps: plans, goals, implementation intentions and mental simulations.
Plans and goals are primarily motivated by cognitive discrepancies. This is when a person is able to assess their current situation and realizes that it does not meet their ideal situation. There are two types of discrepancies: reduction and creation. Reduction deals more with corrective motivation and creation deals with goals and goal-setting. People will seek to reduce the discrepancy between their ideal and present situation. This stimulates discrepancy reduction through corrective motivation. The way corrective motivation is carried out is through the goal setting process. Corrective motivation also causes people to persist or give up when faced with hardship depending on their perception of how well they are progressing toward their goals.
Goals are something people strive to do or accomplish. They allow people to overcome resistance in pursing their goals. Two things are necessary for this to happen. The goal has to be in a form that is able to give feedback. One has to be able to assess how they are doing, if their performance is satisfactory, or not satisfactory. The other requirement is that the goal has to be accepted as the performer’s own.
The chapter ends by talking about the goal setting program and the different steps that are used to implement the ideas in this chapter. They are specify the objective, set goal difficulty, clarity goal specificity, decide when performance will be assessed, check on goal acceptance, discuss goal attainment strategies, formulate implementation intentions, and provide performance feedback.
Not the most surprising, but the most interesting was the point about noticing the differences between ideal states and current states. Then the two ways of mitigating that difference were taking actions to move the current state to the ideal state, and switching thought patterns to allow the ideal state to fall into line with the current state. I feel that most people don’t often think of the latter.
The take away from the chapter that will help me in the future is the goal structure. The two requirements for a goal to be effective: feedback and acceptance. This will help me structure my goals as well as be more aware of why I am meeting or not meeting them.
It will be harder for me to be specific about what I am looking for in my goals because most of the time, I have not discovered it myself. However, I do think that once I am able to set the specific goal, the last four steps will be my strength.
Chapter eight explains setting goals, striving for goals, and the methods by which one would actually achieve these goals. Accomplishing a goal is a very complex system. It is not as easy was saying, “My goal is to graduate.” One reason people set goals is because they realize that they are not in their ideal state. Everyone has a present state and an ideal state. When these do not align it is called incongruity. A lot of the time environmental ques or events force us to see that we are in a state of incongruence. This incongruity is what gives an individual their motivation to make a change, set a goal. There are two types of incongruity or as the book refers to them as discrepancies. Discrepancy reduction occurs when an individual receives feedback from the environment/others. Discrepancy creation is when an individual decides to set a goal without experiencing the incongruity but creating incongruity.
The individual is then motivated to set a goal. There are four important factors in play when setting a goal which can determine whether or not that individual succeeds. The first is the goal’s difficulty. The more difficult the task the more effort the individual puts into this task. This is true as long as the individual has set this goal and not another individual. The goal has to be specific so that individual has direction and clearly understands how they can achieve this goal. The goal also has to provide feedback. If there isn’t feedback that individual will lose interest and give up because they do not have any idea of their progress. Finally that individual has to accept the goal. If the goal is from another individual there are four more factors that are important to consider in order to succeed. The more difficult the goal is the less likely that the individual striving for this goal will succeed. This is the very opposite if the individual is setting the goal themselves. The person striving for the goal also has to participate in setting the actual goal. The person assigning the goal has to be credible and provide extrinsic motivation.
Goal striving is setting into motion. Mental simulations can contribute to success however one must visualize how to attain that goal versus the success itself. Implementation intentions are also necessary in order to carry out the goal striving process. That individual must be prepared to handle distractions, setbacks, and interruptions. You should never expect your plan of action to go accordingly because as soon as you run into a road bump you’ll give up. This is why an individual should have steps for “in case” situations.
The most surprising thing that I learned is actually the complexity of the goal setting/striving process. A specific surprising topic was long term goals. At first I was confused because I had assumed that a goal would mean extrinsic motivation therefore undermining that goal. However for interesting tasks long term goals, and only long term goals create intrinsic motivation. Short term goals for interesting tasks are too excessive.
For my individual goals I believe that I do set specific goal. One method that I would benefit from is visualizing how to attain that goal versus just visualizing the goal and success itself. When I set goals that are extremely difficult I feel that I am discouraged and give up as described when someone else actually sets the goal. I also need to focus more on implementation intentions. I need to be prepared for distractions and setbacks.
Terms; ideal state, present state, incongruity, plans, goals, goal difficulty, goal specificity, goal acceptance, long term goals, mental simulations, implementation intentions
Chapter 8 covers three concepts, plans, goal setting, and goal striving. A plan is defined as the means of organizing our behavior toward the pursuit of the ideal state. Plans can be long or short term motivations. An example of a short term plan is making it to motivation and emotion class on time. An example of a long term plan would be the desire to learn Italian. An individual uses corrective motivation to achieve the ideal state but also be ready to change and revise and ineffective plan. This basically means an individual works towards perfecting the plan to reach the ideal state or change the plan if it is ineffective. The next part of the chapter covers goal setting. A goal is whatever an individual is striving to accomplish. Goals motivate people by focusing people’s attention on the discrepancy between their present level of accomplishment and their ideal level of accomplishment. This is referred to as goal-performance discrepancy. According to the chapter, goals that are difficult and specific increase motivation and enhance the performance level of the individual in question. Also, when the individual receives feedback while pursuing the goal it increases performance as well. Feedback is defined as the knowledge of results, which will help the individual to keep track of how well or poor they are doing in the pursuit of their goal. Goal striving is the last part of the chapter. In the book, it appears in order to achieve a goal the individual must be able to focus on how to accomplish the goal. The chapter finished by listing an effective goal-setting program (1. Specify the objective that is to be accomplished. 2. Define the goal difficulty. 3. Clarify goal specificity. 4. Specify the time span when performance will be assessed. 5. Check on goal acceptance. 6. Discuss goal-attainment. 7. Create implementation intentions. 8. Provide performance feedback.)
The most surprising thing that I learned is that visualizing yourself having completed the goal interferes with goal achievement. I was shocked to learn that if you do this you have less of a chance to accomplish the goal then if you visualized yourself accomplishing the things necessary to achieve the goal.
There are two elements of goal setting that I will implement into future goals that I set, how difficult the goals are and the specificity of the goal. An issue that I have had in the past is making my goals too easy and not stretching myself to achieve them. This leads to stagnation in my goal striving and eventual formation of a new goal. Goal specificity has been an issue as well because I don’t give myself a specific enough time frame and I don’t narrow the goal down to exactly what I want to accomplish and especially how.
I think that combining the new difficult and specific goals will bring my performance level up along with the probability that I will accomplish the goal by the deadline I set. An example would be that I want to finish my book report for motivation and emotion before spring break because it would challenge me to set aside the time to accomplish it.
plans, goal setting, and goal striving, motivation, corrective motivation, goal-performance discrepancy, Feedback
Chapter eight is about goals and how to go about obtaining them in the best possible way. The chapter is titled, “Goal Setting and Goal Striving”. Cognitions, or mental constructs such as plans, judgments, goals, beliefs, and values, are the mental events that determine actions. Plans motivate behavior because people have mental representations of how something ought to be (ideal behavior) and they strive to make their present situation (present behavior) to be more like the ideal. The difference between these two things is incongruity or discrepancy. People are uncomfortable with discrepancy and that is why a plan of action is formed. The model the book provides to see if a plan works is called TOTE, in other words, test, operate, test, and then exit. For plans that are long term, it is best to have multiple short term goals in order to receive some sort of small reward to keep the long term goal in view. For example, graduating from college may seem like a long term goal for someone who just graduated high school; however, if they set up multiple short term goals such as applying for scholarships, applying for college, saving money, getting good grades, etc. it will keep the long term goal of graduating college in view and they will be more likely to obtain that goal and perform better while doing so. Corrective motivation is a process where someone will consider a variety of different ways to reduce incongruity by changing their behavior or the initial plan or withdraw from the plan entirely. Creating a plan and revising it so it works for you is the first half of this goal striving battle; the other half is actually carrying out the actions of the plan. When setting a goal, the book describes goals that are difficult and specific as having more energized and direct behavior to enhance the person’s performance. Without feedback of these performances one would have no knowledge of the results. Feedback provides information of the progress one has made. If an external goal is to be accepted (such as a coach telling you what to do) there are four main factors to consider:
1. Perceived difficulty of the imposed goal
2. Participation in the goal-setting process
3. Credibility of the person assigning the goal
4. Extrinsic incentives
Finally, implementation intentions are deciding when where and how long the goal directed action will take place.
To be honest nothing really surprised me in this chapter; however, the most interesting thing I learned was about discrepancy and how it makes us uncomfortable. Upon reading about incongruity, it reminded me of cognitive dissonance.
Of the elements of goal setting, I will be using the strategy described on page 219 about long term goal setting. I often get frustrated about working a part-time job and doing the same thing every day (work, class, sleep, etc) but if I stop ONLY looking at my long term goal of being a licensed counselor in Colorado, I should be able to see more of the rewards for my hard work.
I think some goal setting strategies will work better for me than others simply because everyone is at different places in their lives and different incentives and strategies for obtaining their goals.
Terms: goal setting, incentives, goals, plans, discrepancy, incongruity, implementation intentions, feedback, TOTE
Chapter 8 is about goal setting and striving. The first thing the chapter discusses is how plans motivate behavior. People know what is ideal for them, and then they have their current situation. People can have ideal behaviors, environmental objects, and ideal events. Any difference between their ideal and their current state causes incongruity. People then make plans to remove the incongruity. The person then goes through the test-operate-test-exit (TOTE) model. They test, which is comparing the present state with the ideal state, and then they operate, which means they change the current state to resemble the ideal state. They then test again, and this test determines which path they take. It their current state is the same as their ideal state, they exit. If there is still incongruous, they continue to test and operate until it is. Corrective motivation activates a decision-making process so the individual can decide what’s the best way to eliminate any differences between the ideal and present states. In this, people must be able to act to achieve the ideal state and be prepared to change and revise a plan that’s not working. There are also emotions involved when the person progresses faster or slower than they planned. There are 2 different types of discrepancies. Discrepancy reduction is based on feedback by something or someone in the environment. Discrepancy creation is based on goals the person sets themselves. Goal-performance discrepancy is the discrepancy between present level of accomplishment and ideal level of accomplishment. It has been found that people who create goals themselves or accept others’ goals perform better than those without goals. Goals are energizing if they are difficult and direct if they are specific about what to do. Feedback is needed in goal setting because it allows people to keep track of their progress. Without feedback, performance can be emotionally unimportant and uninvolving. People must also accept the goal that other people have given them in order for it to be effective. Four factors determine whether the person accepts or rejects the goal. They are perceived difficulty of the goal, participation in the goal-setting process, credibility of the person assigning the goal, and extrinsic incentives. There are also some criticisms of goal setting. Goal setting is meant to enhance performance rather than motivation. It works better when tasks are uninteresting and just need a straightforward procedure. Goal setting also has three pitfalls: stress, opportunities for failure, and intrinsic motivation and creativity are at risk. Long term goals are also a difficult topic. It is more effective and provides more intrinsic motivation if it is a series of short term goals to reach the final long term goal. Long term goals typically are complex cognitive structures and can be illustrated with a goal lattice structure. Focusing on the goal can improve the chances of reaching them, and it’s important to remember that setting a goal does not necessarily mean you achieve it. Once a goal is set the person must focus on actually getting started with daily distractions, persisting in spite of challenges, and continuing after an interruption. There are 8 steps in an effective goal setting program. 1. Specify the objective to be accomplished. 2. Define goal difficulty. 3. Clarify goal specificity. 4. Specify the time span when performance will be assessed. 5. Check on goal acceptance. 6. Discuss goal-attainment strategies. 7. Create implementation intentions. 8. Provide performance feedback.
What was the most surprising thing you learned?
I found the TOTE model interesting and surprising. Though it makes sense to me, I thought maybe there should be an addition. After doing the T-O-T-O-T-O-T-O for so long, I would assume that the person may choose to exit without actually completing the goal. It surprised me that something wasn’t in this model about not reaching the final goal but exiting because it is too challenging.
What elements of goal setting will you be able to use to strive to achieve your goals? Why do you think some goal setting strategies will work better for you than others? Be specific.
I think visualizing the goal will be helpful to me. I tend to believe that I can’t do it, and this showed the true power of believing. I also tend to have long term goals, and I see that it may be more effective to set several short term goals to reach an ultimate long term goal. I think my biggest difficulty is getting back to track after an interruption, and I need to work more on this area. I think goal strategies vary, because people vary in so many other areas. We see that people learn in different ways, and I think this is also true with goal setting. I am a “list person”. I write everything down and get excited when I get to cross things off my list, so for me, short term goals are most effective. Also, I realize that I do not need to reward each of my goal accomplishments, because crossing them off the list does that for me.
Provide a list of terms at the end of your post that you used from the chapter.
Goal setting, goal striving, ideal state, current state, incongruity, TOTE model, operate, discrepancies, discrepancy reduction, goal-performance discrepancy, feedback, perceived difficulty, extrinsic incentives, intrinsic motivation, short term goals, long term goals
Chapter 8 is all about setting goals and striving to achieve those goals. The first important step is a plan which is first accomplished by accepting what knowledge they may or may not have. An incongruity occurs when there is a difference in one’s present state and one’s ideal state. Understanding this concept leads to understanding why it is important to try your goal, adjust your goal, and try your goal until it is complete.
Next, corrective motivation is discussed which is the activator of decision making. This is a dynamic process that will go back and forth. Emotion is involved with corrective motivation, or another way to say this is plans motivate actions. Whenever the present state does not match the ideal state, there is a discrepancy. The more of a difference, the more of a discrepancy. There are two types of discrepancies, first is “discrepancy reduction” which is based on feedback related to plans and corrective motivation. This relates to the self awareness and the standard of excellence. The second type is “discrepancy creation” which provides motivation for action.
Goal setting is looked at next. We know that a goal is what a person is striving for and when someone takes action to reach that goal, they are goal setting. The difference between one’s present level of accomplishment and one’s ideal level of accomplishment is referred to as goal discrepancy. Another important element is goal difficulty. As the goal’s difficulty increases so does the performance. It is important to have a specific goal so that it is clear what is needed to accomplish it. But it is not necessarily true that the harder the goal the harder someone works. If the goal is simply unattainable, effort declines. Other factors including coaching, training and resources affect motivation.
Feedback is the knowledge of the results. If there was no feedback, the motivation would become emotionally unimportant and uninvolving. A combination of goals and feedback lead to successful accomplishments. Goal acceptance is another important key element and this is one person accepting another’s advice to attain such goals. if the goal sounds acceptable and attainable, performance increases.
When setting long term goals, it is often made up of smaller, shorter goals. One stays more motivation when a small goal is accomplished which ultimately leads to the bigger, more long term goal. An implementation intention is a plan to carry out one’s goal-directed behavior. A common reason for a failed goal is the lack of plans for accomplishing such goals. once goals are set, implementation intentions stop the interferences from crushing the goal.
Some tips for accomplishing your goals are when getting started plan the when, what and where out. Even writing this information down will increase the odds of success. Next is the persistence and finishing. With implementation, one is more likely to overcome obstacles because they are expected. It is helpful in “blinding” the person from such distractions. It’s very important to take the time needed to accomplish goals.
The most surprising thing I learned was related to idea of feedback. It was more astonishing to me to really think that we accomplish more with a pat on our back. The task could be easy and the feedback could be small, but in the end it is crucial. Personally, I feel more confident in my goal setting abilities now because it makes more sense. If I sit down, write out what I want to accomplish and by when, I will be more likely to stick the plan. Very obvious, but often overlooked. I think that long term goals will always have to be made up of short term goals. I like the feeling of accomplishment and if I were to continuously work at something and not hear feedback, I would lose interest.
ME terms: Plans, discrepancy, goal discrepancy, goal difficulty, goal specificity, feedback, goal acceptance, goal striving, implementation intentions, goal persistence.
Chapter 8 is about goal setting and goal striving. Cognitions are the mental events that function as causal determinants to action. Cognitions are based on a person's beliefs, expectations, goals, plans, judgments, values, and self-concept. People have mental representations of the ideal states of their behavior, environmental objects, and events. If there is a discrepancy between a person's idea of how things should be and the present state of how they are, it can motivate the person to come up with a plan to change the situation and work towards meeting their ideal state. There are two kinds of discrepancy: discrepancy reduction and discrepancy creation. Discrepancy reduction is reactive to feedback that detects discrepancy and underlies plans and corrective motivation. Discrepancy creation is when a person intentionally sets a higher goal for themselves that they would like to attain in the future. To maximize motivation, goals must be specific and difficult. It is imperative that feedback is available as a person is working towards a goal to stay motivated. When one person tries to set a goal for another, it is necessary that the goal-assigner is credible and trustworthy and that other person is fully accepting of the goal for the goal-setting process to begin. The goal-attainer then must decide to actively participate in working towards the goal. Implementation intentions are very useful to those working towards reaching a goal. The chapter ended with eight steps in an effective goal-setting program which are: specify the objective to be accomplished, define goal difficulty, clarify goal specificity, specify the time span when performance will be assessed, check on goal acceptance, discuss goal-attainment strategies, create implementation intentions, and provide performance feedback.
I think of creating goals as something positive so I was surprised to learn that there are criticisms to goal setting. The three main cautions of goal setting are stress, opportunities for failure, and potentially putting creativity and intrinsic motivation at risk. I think the most important thing I learned that I can use for striving to achieve my own goals is clarifying goal specificity. I think this strategy will work well for me because in the past the goals that I haven't ended up accomplishing have been very vague such as “getting an 'A' in math” instead of breaking down steps as to how I will reach that goal to keep me striving to continue with it.
Terms: congnitions, goal setting, goal striving, motivation, discrepancy reduction, discrepancy creation
Read chapter 8. Summarize the chapter.
Chapter 8 focuses on goal setting and striving. The book first gives a cognitive perspective on motivation. It says that cognitive sources of motivation revolve around a persons way of thinking and believing. In the 1960 a trio of psychologists investigated how plans motivated behavior. They found that people have ideal images of what things should be and what their current ideals are. When peoples current ideals and imaged ideals dont match up they experience incongruity, which contains motivational properties. In other words when things dont match up between what it is and what it should be people are motivated to come up with a plan (means of organizing behavior toward and ideal state) on how to match things back up. In order to energize and direct behavior people us the TOTE model. TOTE stands for test, operate, test, exit. In the tote model people may need to go back and forth between the test and operate stage before they are finally able to exit. Plans are both sort term and long term and are recognized between both internal and external events.
Corrective motivation activates a decision-making process where the individual finds several ways to fix incongruity and pick the easiest route. Corrective motivation also activates emotion. Something happening slower then expected will cause a person to be depressed, but if an outcome is happening faster than expected people become very happy.
Discrepancy, aka incongruity, has two types. The type is discrepancy reduction, which underlies plans and corrective motivation. It gives you feedback on weather you are above or below the line of where you expect to be. The second type is discrepancy creation, which is when a person deliberately sets a future, higher goal.
When setting a goal people generate motivation by focusing their attention on the discrepancy and refer to it as goal-performance discrepancy. In general people with goals perform better than those without, but how well you perform depends on the difficulty of the goal, how hard the goal is to accomplish. The higher your goals the better your performance. This is because the harder the goals that people make the more effort they put into it.
when setting a goal people should be specific in what they want and not just say "do your best." Being specific in your goal helps draw attention to what you need to do and reduces ambiguity and variability. Setting a more difficult goal helps you to be energized and being specific in you goal helps you direct your behavior, and both enhance your performance.
In the effort to achieve a goal people must get feedback. Feedback, knowledge of the results, documents the performers progress in relation to the goal. It allows people to keep track of progress. Without feedback performance can seen unimportant.
The last thing a person needs when setting a goal is goal acceptance, to reject or accept the goal, and this is determine by four factors: perceived difficulty of the imposed goal, participation in the goal setting process, credibility of the person assigning the goal, and extrinsic incentives. Depending on how you feel about your position in each of these factors will determine if you will try to accomplish said goal or not.
Goal setting not only has advantages but it has also been linked to some disadvantages. Many people feel that it is more associated with performance and not motivation, and that it only works well with tasks that are uninvolving and straight forward.
There are many different types of goals for people to set and on of them is long term. When people set a long term goal they must set a series of short term goals that provided consistent feedback and reinforcement to achieve that long term goal.
When striving for a goal one should not focus on the goal itself but rather how to achieve it. Implementation intentions are an important part of understanding motivation when setting goals because it is simple to set a goal but not as simple to accomplish it. The key to implementing your goal is to ling goal-directed-behavior to a situation so that the goal-direct behavior is carried out automatically without conscious deliberation or decision making. Implementation intentions facilitate goal directed behavior in two ways; getting started and finishing. The best way to start a goal and continue to do it is to create a strong link between the particular situations and particular behavior in order to create a habit. In order to finish a goal you need to anticipate a difficulty and know what to do in that situation so you can stay on track with your goal.
What was the most surprising thing you learned?
It really surprised me how many steps and components there are to goal setting.
What elements of goal setting will you be able to use to strive to achieve your goals?
Focusing on the action and not the particular goal. When I set goals I focus on more the goal itself on the how to achieve it.
Why do you think some goal setting strategies will work better for you than others? Be specific.
Getting organized on how to achieve my goal. I need to be organized before I can do anything, so it is the same way with setting a goal. Many people can vaguely do this and not have to have things in perfect order but I do.
Having a weekly goal. Some people may need to go on a day to day basis with things, but I have many days where I can get called into work or I have to do something else that was unplanned so setting a weekly goal will be better for me because I have a couple days to catch up what I missed one day.
Terms: Incongruity, plan, TOTE, corrective motivation, discrepancy reduction, discrepancy creation, goal setting, goal difficulty, feedback, goal acceptance, goal striving, implementation, goal pursuit,
Summarize the chapter. Chapter 8 discusses the objectives, plans and aspirations that people seek, how they are represented mentally as drawing up plans paa people achieve their goals, the difficulties encountered and the formulas to be followed to successfully achieve its objectives.
What Was The Most Surprising Thing You Learned? For me it's interesting to see how people think about their long-term goal setting, and how desist or persist in their goals, that is, sometimes people think about losing weight, and at first their desire is very strong but if they see rapid progress many people abandon their plans, we need positive reinforcement to make us see that the efforts we are doing has meaning and a final purpose, although not at first see clearly the awards we receive along the way we remember it.
What elements of goal setting will you be Able to use to STRIVE to Achieve Your Goals?
Feedback and criticism are for me the two most important, the first that shows us we do well and we need to change to achieve our goals, and second because we need to be aware of our mistakes if we reach the end successfully.
Why do you think Strategies Some goal setting will work for you Better Than Others?
I am very persistent, so the long-term goal setting is not a strategy you need. Instead I think to do something well you need as much information as possible, so that the feed-back is definitely a staple for my goals. Internalize our purposes is something that ultimately will lead us to success, so our purpose to take it personally when they arrive will make the difficulties we will not surrender. External incentives can sometimes be important when working on something that is not difrutar but more importantly for me is the internalization.
Terms: 1) Plans 2) Extrinsic incentives3) 4) Goals 5) Goal Difficulty 6) Criticism 7) long-term goal setting 8) feed back