The goal setting theory states that high goals lead to higher performance than easy goals.
We discovered empirically that the best goal measure was: "What is the minimum score you would be satisfied with?" (An untested alternative would be, "What is the lowest score you would not be dissatisfied with?").
Goal research showed that goal mediators include choice/attention, effort, and persistence. [...] Having relevant strategies for goal attainment is a fourth mediator.
Feedback is critical to goal effects because it enables people to track progress so that effort and strategy can be adjusted to attain the goal. Goals and feedback work better together to increase performance than either one alone. A second moderator is goal commitment. A goal that one is not committed to attain will not affect that person’s actions. [...] Commitment is especially important when a goal is difficult to attain because the goal requires more effort and persistence when setbacks are inevitably experienced. Commitment is affected by values, including incentives, and self-efficacy. A third moderator, which as noted is also a mediator, is ability, namely knowledge or skill. People cannot attain goals if they do not know how to do so. [...] Situational factors, a fourth moderator, affect the goal-performance relationship. Goal-directed action may be facilitated or hindered by environmental factors and the degree of support an individual receives (e.g., people, money, facilities).
[E]xperiment on assigned and participatively set goals showed that performance, [...] was the same if goal difficulty was held constant as long as the rationale or logic for the assigned goal was provided. [...] A mediation analysis revealed that the quality of the strategies that are used is responsible for the high performance of the individuals who participate in the goal-setting process. [P]articipation’s benefits were based on knowledge exchange.
When participants were given a task that exceeded their knowledge or ability, a moderator in the goal setting theory, participants with a do-your-best goal had higher performance than those assigned performance goals. People who were given high goals under time pressure typically failed to explore alternative strategies. The best procedure here is to assign specific, challenging learning goals.
[I]t is as applicable to goals primed in the subconscious as it is to consciously set goals. A context-specific primed goal has been shown to lead to higher job performance than a general one. On a task that is complex for people, a primed learning goal led to higher performance than a primed performance goal.
[I]t is widely believed that intrinsic motivation includes achievement motivation. It does not. [...] In psychology, intrinsic motivation properly means loving an activity just for its own sake, regardless of how well one performs it (e.g., walking) or just for the sake of contemplation (e.g., music). It means loving what one is doing. The goal setting theory is based on achievement motivation, which involves striving to meet a standard of excellence; it means not just doing but also doing something well (e.g., attaining a sales objective).