Task and ego orientation

Learning and Individual Differences 12 (2000) 189 ± 208

Task and ego orientation The role of goal orientations in anticipated affective reactions to achievement outcomes$ Carolyn M. Jagacinskia,*, Oriel J. Stricklandb a

Department of Psychological Sciences, 1364 Psychology Building, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 479071364, USA b California State University, Sacramento, CA, USA

Abstract When approaching achievement tasks, people can focus on different types of goals, for example, task mastery (task orientation) and/or demonstrating one's superior ability (ego orientation). We investigated the extent to which dispositional task and ego orientations towards a personally valued activity predict anticipated affective reactions to a hypothetical situation involving the activity. College students were asked to think of a career-related activity or a competitive sport that was personally important to them. Half of the students were further told that the activity should be one that they enjoyed for its own sake, and the other half were told that the activity should be one at which they wanted to be outstanding. In the hypothetical situation, students imagined that they succeeded at the activity with much effort, but others succeeded with less effort. Task orientation predicted anticipated positive affect in the outstanding performance context, but was not significant in the enjoyment context. Ego orientation predicted anticipated negative affect in the enjoyment context, but was not significant in the outstanding performance context. The ego orientation effects only held for students with low perceived ability. Women scored higher than men on task orientation and anticipated more positive affect. Differences in the task value of competitive sports and career-related activities were also explored. D 2001 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved. Keywords: Motivation; Affect; Task involvement; Ego involvement; Achievement goals

$ A previous version of this paper was presented at the 1993 American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting, April, Atlanta, GA. * Corresponding author. Tel.: +1-765-494-6257; fax: +1-765-496-1264. E-mail address: [email protected] (C.M. Jagacinski).

1041-6080/01/$ ± see front matter D 2001 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved. PII: S 1 0 4 1 - 6 0 8 0 ( 0 1 ) 0 0 0 3 7 - 1

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1. Introduction Most theories of achievement behaviors (e.g., Eccles, 1984, 1987; Weiner, 1974, 1986) are derived from a traditional expectancy/value formulation, perhaps best exemplified in Atkinson's (1957) theory . Expectancy/value theories explain behavioral choices in terms of one's expectancy of success at the activity and the incentive value of success (or failure). Atkinson defined the incentive value of an achievement activity as the anticipated affective reaction to success or failure. He included both the anticipation of pride from success (incentive value of success) and the anticipation of embarrassment from failure (incentive value of failure) in his model of achievement motivation. Thus, anticipated affects help determine what achievement activities one might decide to engage in. Studies by Jagacinski and Nicholls (1984, 1987) have demonstrated that anticipated affective reactions to achievement outcomes depend in part on one's goal. Achievement goals are determined by the nature of the situation or context and by individual differences in goal orientations, which are viewed as personal dispositions (Dweck, 1986; Nicholls, 1984, 1989). In this paper, we examine the extent to which individual differences in goal orientations predict anticipated affective reactions to success in different achievement contexts for activities students define as personally important. To the extent that goal orientations predict anticipated affects, they influence the incentive value of achievement tasks and thus impact decisions to engage in the tasks. 1.1. Achievement goals Achievement goal theory has distinguished two types of achievement goals or goal states. The first type has been referred to as a learning goal (Dweck, 1986), mastery goal (Ames & Archer, 1988), or the state of task involvement (Nicholls, 1984). When we are task-involved, our primary goal is learning or mastery of the task for its own sake. Task involvement usually occurs when we are intrinsically interested in the activity. In task involvement, competence is judged in a self-referenced manner. There is a focus on improvement and, when we work hard and improve, we anticipate positive affects (Jagacinski & Nicholls, 1984). In a task-involved state, we are not concerned with how others perform at the same task. Social comparison information is not necessary to evaluate our competence. There is some evidence that the mere presence of social comparison information about the effort and performance of others does not have a major impact on anticipated reactions to our own accomplishments in taskinvolving states or contexts (Jagacinski & Nicholls, 1987). In addition, in task-involving contexts, students show greater interest in information about how to do the task than in normative performance information (Butler, 1992, 1993). The second type of goal has been termed a performance goal (Ames & Archer, 1988; Dweck, 1986) or the state of ego involvement (Nicholls, 1984). When we are ego-involved, we are concerned with demonstrating to ourselves or others our superior competence. In this goal state, we may also be interested in mastering the activity, but as a means to the end of demonstrating superior competence. Social comparison information plays an important role in ego involvement because we cannot really judge if our competence is superior without

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comparing ourselves to others. Working hard to achieve success is not sufficient to demonstrate competence. Instead, we must perform as well as others, but with less effort, or outperform others applying the same effort. Butler (1992, 1993) has reported that students are more interested in normative performance information in ego-involving conditions than in task-involving conditions. Jagacinski and Nicholls (1984, 1987) investigated the impact of social comparison information on students' anticipated affective reactions to successful performance in taskand ego-involving contexts. To create the different contexts, Jagacinski and Nicholls (Study 5; 1984, 1987) asked students to think of an activity that they enjoyed for its own sake (task-involving) or one that they wanted to be outstanding at and would feel terrible about if they were below average (ego-involving). Students were further asked to imagine that they selected a new project to work on. Some imagined they worked hard and succeeded, while others imagined they succeeded with little effort. Students who only received effort information anticipated more positive affective reactions from high effort rather than low effort regardless of the type of activity they were asked to name. However, half of the students were given social comparison information in addition to effort information. Those in the high effort scenario were told that others needed less effort to succeed and those in the low effort scenario were told that others needed more effort to succeed. The social comparison information was particularly detrimental to students who were asked to name an activity they wanted to excel at and to imagine they put forth a lot of effort to complete their project. These students anticipated feeling more embarrassed and less competent than students who imagined working hard to succeed on an activity that they wanted to excel at without any social comparison information. Among the students who were asked to name an activity that they enjoyed for its own sake, the addition of the social comparison information that others could do as well with less effort did not have much impact on their anticipated reactions. 1.2. Dispositional goal orientations Achievement goals are a function of both situational and individual difference factors. Research, which has manipulated the situation or context, has demonstrated that egoinvolving instructions, compared to task-involving instructions, lead to poorer performance (Elliott & Dweck, 1988; Graham & Golan, 1991; Hall, 1988), less intrinsic interest (Plant & Ryan, 1985; Ryan, 1982), less positive attitudes towards the task, and a preference for easier tasks (Treasure, 1993, reported in Duda, 1994). Other research has examined the correlates of personal goal orientations (e.g., Duda & Nicholls, 1992; Meece, Blumenfeld, & Hoyle, 1988; Meece & Holt, 1993; Nicholls, 1989; Nicholls, Patashnick, & Nolen, 1985; Thorkildsen & Nicholls, 1998). Goal orientations are viewed as general tendencies and are typically assessed with questionnaires concerning how individuals define success (e.g., Nicholls, 1989) or their reasons for engaging in the task (e.g., Midgley et al., 1998). In this paper, we will use the approach that assesses how the student defines success. Students with a task orientation feel successful when they apply effort and learn something new. Students with an ego orientation define success in terms of

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performing better than their classmates and demonstrating their superior ability to others. In most studies, the two types of orientation scales are not highly related (e.g., Duda & Nicholls, 1992, r =.21). Thus, students are as likely to be high or low in both task and ego orientation as they are to be high in one and low in the other. Different goal orientation scales have been developed to address specific areas (e.g., academics, mathematics, sports) and specific age groups (e.g., Duda & Nicholls, 1992; Nicholls, 1989; Nicholls, Cobb, Wood, Yackel & Patashnick, 1990). Research involving goal orientations has been field-based and correlational, typically conducted in academic settings concerning orientations towards academics in general or towards specific academic subject areas. These studies have reported positive relationships between task orientation and the following variables: performance (Meece & Holt, 1993); use of effective learning strategies (Ames & Archer, 1988; Greene & Miller, 1996; Meece et al., 1988; Nolen, 1988; Wolters, Yu, & Pintrich, 1996); positive attitudes (Archer, 1994; Meece et al., 1988; Nicholls, Cheung, Lauer, & Patashnick, 1989); and positive affective reactions (Vlachopoulos, Biddle, & Fox, 1996). Further, Duda (1994) reports that task orientation is consistently related to enjoyment and satisfaction in achievement domains. Studies typically report less strong (e.g., Archer 1994; Meece et al., 1988; Middleton & Midgley, 1997; Wolters et al., 1996) or nonsignificant relationships between ego orientation and these variables. A few recent studies have reported a positive relationship between ego orientation and grades (e.g., Elliot & Church, 1997; Elliot & McGregor, 1999). To date, no research that we are aware of has examined the relationship between dispositional goal orientations and anticipated affective reactions to negative social comparison information in different achievement contexts. How would we expect individual differences in goal orientations to relate to anticipated affective reactions in contexts that are typically task-involving or ego-involving? First, as found in previous studies, we would expect negative social comparison information to have more of an impact in an ego-involving context than in a task-involving context. We further expect the personal goal orientations to be most predictive of anticipated affects when they are in conflict with the achievement context. That is, in a task-involving context, students would typically focus on improvement through effort and anticipate positive affective reactions, pretty much ignoring negative social comparison information. However, in such a context, individuals who have a strong ego orientation would be expected to focus on the social comparison information and anticipate feeling embarrassed. Likewise, most individuals who are concerned with excelling at a task (ego-involving context) would attend to the negative social comparison information and anticipate some embarrassment. However, individuals who are high in task orientation may attend more strongly to the fact that they tried hard and succeeded and still anticipate positive affective reactions. In summary then, we expect the personal dispositions to direct the individual's attention to the information that is relevant for his or her conception of competence (e.g., effort information for the self-referent task-involved conception, social comparison information for the normative ego-involved conception). In effect then, we expect personal goal orientations to interact with achievement context in predicting anticipated affective reactions.

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We should point out that, recently, some researchers have included a third goal orientation, an avoidance orientation (Elliot & Church, 1997; Midgley et al., 1998; Skaalvik, 1997). The task and ego orientations studied in the past and in this study both represent approach orientations. The avoidance orientation is characterized as a need to try to succeed in order to avoid looking incompetent. Research suggests that the avoidance orientation is negatively related to self-efficacy (Midgley et al., 1998; Skaalvik, 1997), self-esteem, and self-concept (Skaalvik, 1997). These scales were not available at the time we collected our data. However, given that we asked the students to name activities that they found personally important and they either enjoyed or wanted to excel at, there is no reason to expect avoidance orientation to have a large role. We expect the approach orientations to be more likely to dominate. We expect that the avoidance orientation is more likely to come into play when students have no choice about participating in an activity, which is often the case in academic contexts. 1.3. Perceived ability According to achievement goal theory, the individual's perceived ability relative to others plays an important role in ego-involving situations, but not in task-involving situations (Elliott & Dweck, 1988; Nicholls, 1984). Perceived ability involves an assessment of how good one is at the activity relative to others (Nicholls, 1984). Thus, perceived ability incorporates social comparison. The theory predicts that when individuals with low perceived ability start to fail in ego-involving situations, they become anxious and their performance deteriorates. Individuals with low perceived ability have been found to make disparaging comments about their ability and to express negative affect when they experience failure in an ego-involving situation (Elliott & Dweck, 1988). This is not predicted to happen when individuals with high perceived ability experience some failure in an ego-involving situation. Dweck and Bempechat (1983) reported that children who are confident of their abilities simply redouble their efforts when difficulties are experienced. Furthermore, perceived ability should not play a major role in reactions to difficulties in task-involving situations. Although there is some experimental evidence that manipulated perceived ability has a role in performance in task- and ego-involving conditions (Elliott & Dweck, 1988; Hall, 1988), little is known about the influence of perceived ability on anticipated reactions to performance outcomes. Achievement goal theory does not make a specific prediction concerning the influence of perceived ability on anticipated affective reactions. However, based on the theory, we might anticipate that perceived ability would interact with ego orientation and achievement context in predicting anticipated reactions to negative social comparison information. First, ego orientation may play a stronger role for those with low perceived ability. We expected ego orientation to have a stronger influence in a task-involving context than an ego-involving context. Perceived ability may qualify this predicted interaction such that it only occurs for those with low perceived ability. On the other hand, perceived ability may not play a major role when we examine activities students define as personally

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important, because students then are likely to name activities for which they have high perceived ability. 1.4. Gender differences We were also interested in determining if men and women would differ in goal orientations and anticipated affective reactions. There is already evidence of gender differences in goal orientations. Bouffard, Boisvert, Vezeau, and Larouche (1995) found that, in a college sample, women scored higher than men in task orientation. Research on children in the fifth and sixth grade has also reported higher task orientation among girls than boys (Meece & Holt, 1993; Thorkildsen & Nicholls, 1998). In addition, Thorkildsen and Nicholls (1998) reported that fifth-grade boys were more ego-oriented than fifth-grade girls. However, all of these studies have involved goal orientations for academics. The pattern may differ when orientations are assessed for activities that students find personally important. Several researchers have noted that men tend to be more competitive than women (Spence & Helmreich, 1983; Urdan, 1997; Veroff, 1977). Other research suggests that women are more attentive to information about their effort than are men. Zuckerman (1979) found that women are more likely than men to attribute success to effort, whereas men are more likely to attribute success to ability. In addition, Koestner, Zuckerman, and Koestner (1989) found that girls respond more positively than boys to effort-focused praise. Women may be less influenced by negative social comparison information in a hypothetical scenario than men if the situation involves success achieved through high effort. 1.5. The present study The purpose of the current research was to examine the extent to which personal task and ego orientations relate to anticipated reactions to success when students imagine that they try very hard at an activity and succeed, but find out that others did not need as much effort to achieve the same level of performance. This situation is of interest because it contrasts the two different ways of defining success found in task involvement and ego involvement. In the case of task involvement, this situation should be clearly defined as success and should lead to positive reactions because the individual succeeds through high effort. The social comparison information should have little impact. However, in the case of ego involvement, this situation would not be interpreted as successful because others can do as well with less effort. The social comparison information implies that the individual has less ability than others. In order to provide students with a personally relevant and familiar task, we used the same procedure as Jagacinski and Nicholls (1987) in which students are asked to name a skillbased activity that is important to them personally, and then imagine themselves in a specific situation involving that activity. Other research on goal orientations has examined relationships when students consider academics in general. In this experiment, we examined relationships in the context of activities that students personally value. The two different achievement contexts were created based on the nature of the activity the student was asked to

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name. In one context, the activity was something the students enjoyed doing for its own sake and, in the other context, the activity was one at which they felt that it was important to be outstanding (taken from Jagacinski & Nicholls, 1984, 1987). Past research suggests that students are more sensitive to social comparison information in the outstanding performance context (Jagacinski & Nicholls, 1987). We were interested in examining activities that the students are familiar with and contexts that are natural. The two contexts, enjoyment of an activity for its own sake and wanting to excel at an activity, were not expected to represent pure states of task or ego involvement. We expected that students would be more likely to be task-involved than ego-involved when performing tasks that they enjoy for their own sake, but ego involvement could still contribute to enjoyment. We also did not expect the activities that the students wanted to excel at to engender pure states of ego involvement, although we would anticipate greater ego orientation for these activities than for those that the students enjoy for their own sake. Thus, our primary goal was to investigate the impact of personal goal orientations on anticipated affective reactions in these different achievement contexts. Jagacinski and Nicholls (1984, 1987) did not collect data on personal goal orientations and, thus, only examined the impact of the context on anticipated affective reactions. We summarize here our predictions concerning anticipated affects: Hypothesis 1: Task orientation will interact with achievement context in predicting anticipated positive affective reactions in the following way: Task orientation will correlate significantly and positively with anticipated positive affects (i.e., competence, satisfaction, and sense of accomplishment) in the outstanding performance context, but will not be significantly related to anticipated positive affects in the enjoyment context. Hypothesis 2: Ego orientation will interact with achievement context in predicting anticipated negative affect (embarrassment) in the following way: Ego orientation will be significantly positively correlated with anticipated embarrassment in the enjoyment context, but will not be significantly related to anticipated embarrassment in the outstanding performance context. Hypothesis 3: Perceived ability will interact with ego orientation and achievement context in predicting anticipated embarrassment. The interaction predicted in Hypothesis 2 will be significant for those with low perceived ability, but not for those with high perceived ability. Hypothesis 4: Women will anticipate more positive affective reactions to the hypothetical situation than will men. In order to shed greater light on the factors contributing to enjoyment or a need to excel, in a more informal part of the study, we asked the students to briefly explain why they enjoyed their activity or why they wanted to excel at it. We wanted to see what themes would arise from these open-ended responses and how they might reflect different aspects of incentive value. Eccles (Eccles, 1987; Parsons & Goff, 1980) has suggested that there are different components to the incentive value of a task, such as attainment value (importance of

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attainment to one's self-concept), interest value (intrinsic enjoyment), and utility value (value of performance for future goals). The students in the Jagacinski and Nicholls' (1987) study who named activities that they wanted to excel at tended to name academic or vocationally relevant activities. In writing about their activity, these students tended to emphasize the importance of the skills for career goals (utility value) and meeting personal standards of excellence (attainment value). In contrast, students who named activities that they enjoyed for their own sake were unlikely to mention academic or career-related activities. These students were more likely to name sports and artistic activities (e.g., art and music) and to write about the interest value of the activity. In a comparison of students who named competitive sports in the enjoyment context with those naming competitive sports in the outstanding performance context, Jagacinski (1992) found similar themes mentioned, although there was greater emphasis on skill development among those in the enjoyment context. In the current study, we wanted to see if competitive sports and career-related activities would evoke similar themes when they were mentioned in the same achievement context (enjoyment or outstanding performance). 2. Method 2.1. Participants Participants consisted of 296 students (129 men, 167 women) enrolled in an introductory psychology class at a large Midwestern university. Participation in the experiment partially fulfilled a course requirement. 2.2. Procedure Students participated in group sessions in which they were asked to name an activity involving a skill that was important to them personally. The instructions further stated, ``If possible, think of some activity related to your future career goals or a competitive sport.'' Half of the students read instructions indicating that the activity should be one that they enjoy for its own sake. The other half of the students were instructed that the activity should be one that they feel it is important to be outstanding at. Students naming an activity that they enjoy were asked to briefly describe why they enjoyed the activity and the rest of the students were asked to describe why it was important to be outstanding at their activity. Students were also asked to classify their activity as career-related, a competitive sport, or some other type. Forty-four of the students classified their activity as ``other'' and were not included in the data analysis, reducing the sample size to 252. There were two other questionnaires that the students completed. One questionnaire described a hypothetical situation and asked the students how they thought they would react. The other questionnaire included manipulation check items, goal orientation items, and items to measure perceived ability. The order of these two questionnaires was counter balanced across the achievement contexts (enjoyment and outstanding performance).

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The hypothetical situation was described in the following way: ``Imagine that you select a new project or task in this activity. Your new project proves to be very challenging for you and requires a lot of effort. Others who choose the same project do not need to work very hard to master it. You master your new project with much effort. What would your reaction be?'' Students rated the extent to which they would feel (a) a sense of accomplishment, (b) competence, (c) embarrassment, and (d) satisfaction. These items were taken from Jagacinski and Nicholls (1987), and we used the same seven-point Likert-type response scales ranging from not at all (1) to extremely (7). The ratings for sense of accomplishment, competence, and satisfaction were averaged to form a positive affective response scale (a =.83). Embarrassment was the only negative affect examined. Jagacinski and Nicholls included guilt as one of their affects but found it to be primarily related to low effort. We did not use guilt with this scenario because everyone was imagining high effort. The other questionnaire included manipulation check items, general task and ego orientation items, gender, and items to measure perceived ability in the normative sense for the named activity. To ensure that students were following the instructions, they responded to the following two manipulation check items: ``I really enjoy this activity'' and ``It is very important to me to be good at this activity.'' Students indicated how strongly they agreed or disagreed with the statements on a five-point Likert scale. General items were developed to assess task and ego orientations for any type of skillrelated activity, based on the items for academics and sports found in Duda and Nicholls (1992). Students indicated their agreement or disagreement with these items using a fivepoint Likert scale as was used by Duda and Nicholls. A principal component analysis confirmed that the items written for each scale did form two independent factors. The items are listed in Table 1. For the five-item task orientation scale a =.66 and for the six-item ego orientation scale a =.75.

Table 1 Items from the task and ego orientation scales Task orientation scale I feel most successful at this activity when . . . I learn a new skill by trying hard. I work really hard at it. I finally master a task I find difficult after much effort. I learn a new skill and it makes me want to learn more. I do my very best. Ego orientation scale I feel most successful at this activity when . . . I can perform better than others. I can do better than my friends. I'm the best. I master a task more quickly than other students. I show people I am very good at it. I can master a new task with little effort.

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Three items were written to assess students' perceived ability in the normative sense for the activities they named (e.g., How would you rate your ability at this activity compared to other students? rated as 1 = One of the worst to 5 = One of the best; a =.85). 3. Results 3.1. Preliminary analyses Students in the enjoyment context were more likely to name competitive sports (n = 86) than career-related activities (n = 34). The opposite pattern was found in the outstanding performance context; 76 named career-related activities and 57 named competitive sports [c2(1, N = 253) = 21.31, p < .001]. An additional 44 students classified their activity as ``other'' and were not included in the analyses. Analysis of the manipulation check items suggested that students were following the instructions. Students in the enjoyment context were more likely to agree that they enjoyed their activity (M = 4.73) than were students in the outstanding performance context [M = 4.47, t(251) = 3.06, p < .01]. However, it is clear that students in the outstanding performance context did agree that they enjoyed their activity. Students in the outstanding performance context were more likely to agree that it was important to them to be good at their activity (M = 4.47) than were students in the enjoyment context [M = 4.09, t(251) = 4.32, p < .001]. We also checked to see if men and women differed on the measured scales because previous research had reported gender differences in goal orientations (Bouffard et al., 1995). Women scored higher than men on the task orientation scale [t(251) = 2.02, p < .05, M's = 4.38 and 4.26, respectively]. However, no gender differences were found for the ego orientation scale or perceived ability. Correlations among the task and ego orientation scales, perceived ability, anticipated positive affects, and anticipated embarrassment can be found in Table 2. As has been found in previous research, the task orientation scale did not correlate significantly with the ego orientation scale. However, both the task and ego orientation scales tended to correlate Table 2 Correlations among goal orientation scales, perceived ability, and anticipated affective reactions (n = 252) Mean (1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

Task orientation Ego orientation Perceived ability Positive affect Embarrassment a

Five-point scale. Seven-point scale. * p < .05. ** p < .01. b

a

4.32 3.74a 3.83a 5.57b 3.11b

(1) 1.00 0.05 0.25** 0.30** 0.07

(2) 1.00 0.41** 0.18** 0.14 *

(3)

1.00 0.04 0.04

(4)

1.00 0.44 **

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positively with perceived ability. Duda and Nicholls (1992) also reported significant relationships between task and ego orientation and perceived ability for academics and sports. In general, the students had high perceived ability for the activities they named (M = 3.83 on a five-point scale). We conducted 2 (Order)  2 (Context)  2 (Gender) unweighted means ANOVAs to check for order effects on the goal orientation scales and anticipated affects. Only one significant effect was found involving order. Students anticipated less embarrassment when they responded to the scenario before (M = 2.83) rather than after completing the goal orientation scales (M = 3.34) [ F(1,245) = 6.63, p < .05]. This main effect for order may reflect the fact that the ego orientation items call attention to social comparison information (e.g., I feel successful when I master a task more quickly than other students). Thus, completing the goal orientation items first may have primed the students for social comparison information. Order did not interact with achievement context or gender in any of the analyses. We decided to include order as a control variable in the subsequent analyses. 3.2. Predicting anticipated affective reactions with orientation scales We conducted regression analyses to test Hypotheses 1-4. One analysis was conducted on the average of the positive anticipated affects (competence, satisfaction, and sense of accomplishment) and another analysis was conducted on anticipated embarrassment. The following predictors were included in the basic model: task orientation, ego orientation, Table 3 Regression coefficients for predicting anticipated positive reactions to the achievement situation Independent variables Task orientation Ego orientation Perceived ability Gender Achievement context Activity type Order Task orientation  Achievement context Ego orientation  Achievement context Perceived ability  Achievement context Ego orientation  Perceived ability Ego orientation  Achievement context  Perceived ability

b

t(239) .254 .170 .033 .207 .013 .016 .017 .145 .091 .004 .011 .070

3.97*** 2.62** 0.49 3.38*** 0.20 0.24 0.28 2.32* 1.41 0.06 0.18 1.08

b = Standardized regression coefficient, multiple R =.44, F(12,239) = 4.80, p < .001. Ego orientation, task orientation, and perceived ability were centered. Contrast coding for other variables was as follows: gender: + 1 = men, 1 = women; achievement context: + 1 = enjoyment, 1 = outstanding performance; activity type: + 1 = career-related, 1 = competitive sport; order: + 1 = scenario reaction first, goal orientation questions second, 1 = goal orientations first, scenario reaction second. * p < .05. ** p < .01. *** p < .001.

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perceived ability, achievement context, gender, questionnaire order, and activity type (competitive sport or career-related). In addition, the following interaction terms were included in the model: Task orientation  Achievement context, Ego orientation  AchieveAchievement context, Perceived ability  Achievement context, Ego orientation  Perceived ability, Ego orientation  Achievement context  Perceived ability. We included the interactions that were necessary to test the hypotheses. For completeness, we included the triple interaction in the analysis of the positive anticipated affects even though we did not predict a triple interaction for that variable. Task orientation, ego orientation, and perceived ability were centered to reduce multicollinearity with the interaction terms (Aiken & West, 1991). The other variables were contrast coded such that one level was coded + 1 and the other level was coded 1. Specifics of the coding are included in Tables 3 and 4, which contain the results of the regression analyses. Hypothesis 1 predicted that task orientation would be significantly related to anticipated positive affects in the outstanding performance context, but not in the enjoyment context. Thus, we predicted an interaction of task orientation and achievement context. Table 3 contains the results of this analysis. For predicting anticipated positive affects, task orientation had a statistically significant beta weight (b =.254), as did the Task orientation  Achievement context interaction (b = .145). In order to investigate the interaction of task orientation and achievement context, we calculated simple slopes for task orientation with the context fixed at enjoyment or outstanding performance using a procedure described by Aiken and West (1991). Consistent

Table 4 Regression coefficients for predicting anticipated embarrassment to the achievement situation Independent variables Task orientation Ego orientation Perceived ability Gender Achievement context Activity type Order Task orientation  Achievement context Ego orientation  Achievement context Perceived ability  Achievement context Ego orientation  Perceived ability Ego orientation  Achievement context  Perceived ability

b

t(239) .105 .164 .002 .069 .009 .005 .183 .033 .145 .119 .010 .128

1.55 2.38* 0.03 1.07 0.13 0.07 2.90** 0.50 2.12* 1.64 0.15 1.87

b = Standardized regression coefficient, multiple R =.31, F(12,239) = 2.13, p < .05. Ego orientation, task orientation, and perceived ability were centered. Contrast coding for other variables was a follows: gender: + 1 = men, 1 = women; achievement context: + 1 = enjoyment, 1 = outstanding performance; activity type: + 1 = career-related, 1 = competitive sport; order: + 1 = scenario reaction first, goal orientation questions second, 1 = goal orientations first, scenario reaction second. * p < .05. ** p < .01.

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with Hypothesis 1, task orientation had a significant positive beta in the outstanding performance context [b =.398, t(239) = 4.99, p < .001], but not in the enjoyment context [b =.109, t(239) = 1.11, p > .10]. It should also be noted that ego orientation had a statistically significant negative beta weight in predicting anticipated positive affects (b = .170). Thus, the more ego-oriented the students were, the less they anticipated positive affects. Hypothesis 2 predicted that ego orientation would be significantly related to anticipated embarrassment in the enjoyment context, but not in the outstanding performance context. As can be seen in Table 4, for predicting anticipated embarrassment, ego orientation had a significant positive beta weight, .164, and the interaction of ego orientation and achievement context was also significant, b =.145. The simple slopes relating ego orientation to anticipated embarrassment in each achievement context revealed a significant positive coefficient in the enjoyment context [b =.310, t(239) = 3.08, p < .01], but not in the outstanding performance context [b =.018, t(239) = 0.188, p >.10]. This pattern of results supports Hypothesis 2. Hypothesis 3 predicted that the interaction in Hypothesis 2 would only hold for students low in perceived ability. We tested this prediction with the triple interaction of Ego orientation  Achievement context  Perceived ability. This interaction was not statistically significant [b =.128, t(239) = 1.87, p < .07], so Hypothesis 3 was not confirmed. Given that this was an a priori prediction, we decided to see if the interaction of Ego orientation  Achievement context would be significant when perceived ability was set high (one standard deviation above the mean) and low (one standard deviation below the mean). When perceived ability was set high, the Ego orientation  Achievement context interaction was not statistically significant [b =.041, t(239) = 0.49, p >.10], but when perceived ability was set low the interaction was significant [b =.250, t(239) = 2.69, p < .01]. This pattern was consistent with our prediction. We examined the simple slopes for ego orientation predicting anticipated embarrassment in the different achievement contexts with perceived ability set low. The simple slope was significant in the enjoyment context [b =.406, t(239) = 3.11, p < .01], but not in the outstanding performance context [b = .096, t(239) = 0.72, p >.10]. Finally, Hypothesis 4 predicted that women would anticipate more positive affective reactions than men. In Table 3, it can be seen that gender had a significant negative beta weight, .207, demonstrating that women anticipated reacting more positively than men to the hypothetical scenario. 3.3. Reasons for enjoying the activity or for wanting to be outstanding Students named a variety of activities that they classified as competitive sports or careerrelated activities. For competitive sports, the most frequently mentioned activities in the two contexts were similar: in the outstanding performance context, swimming (14%), tennis (10.5%), soccer (10.5%), and baseball/softball (10.5%); and in the enjoyment context, tennis (14%), basketball (12.8%), volleyball (10.5%), and baseball/softball (10.5%). For the careerrelated activities, in the outstanding performance context, 18.4% of the students mentioned academic tasks such as studying, taking tests, or getting good grades. Another 14.5% of the students named communication or public speaking and 7.9% mentioned leadership skills. Most of the career-related activities mentioned in the enjoyment context were unique.

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However, four students (11.8%) mentioned computer programming. Some of the other activities mentioned include: interior design, stress analysis, construction work, working at a day care, physical therapy, flying, and singing. It is interesting to examine the types of themes that emerged from the paragraphs students wrote explaining why they enjoyed the activity for its own sake or why it was important to be outstanding at their activity, in order to examine the nature of the incentive value. We developed a list of themes derived in part from the work of Csikszentmihalyi (1975) in which people described their reasons for enjoying activities such as rock climbing, composing music, or playing basketball. We also read through the paragraphs written by the 44 students not included in the analysis to look for additional recurring themes. Several of the themes capture the different task values described by Eccles (1987) and Parsons & Goff (1980) including interest value (The process is fun), utility value (The skill is important for achievement of future career goals), and attainment value (Meeting your own standards). Table 5 Percentage of participants naming career-related activities and sports in the enjoyment and outstanding performance contexts mentioning various themes in their reason for enjoying the activity or wanting to be outstanding at it Achievement context Enjoyment CR

Outstanding performance Sport

CR

Sport

Themes

n = 34

n = 86

n = 76

n = 57

Enjoyment of learning, skill development, improvement Enjoyment of competition and/or beating others The process is fun; enjoyment of using the skill Relaxing, release of tension, escape from problems Personal physical benefit: staying healthy, fit, keeping weight down The skill is important for achievement of future career goals Meeting your own standards, being the best you can be, personally important to do well Meeting challenges, enjoying challenges I am good at it Meeting people, working with people, team work, helping people, working with kids Sense of accomplishment, pride, gratification

12%

7%

0%

5%

3

40

1

25

35

43

8

35

6

24

0

0

3

38

1

4

41

3

75

4

3

0

16

30

12 9 44

15 7 30

1 4 3

0 11 4

15

10

3

7

CR = Career-related; percentages were calculated within column, but do not sum to 100 because each participant could mention more than one theme.

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Table 5 presents the 11 most frequently occurring themes that were coded. Two independent coders read each paragraph and indicated which of the themes were present. In principle, any one paragraph could be coded as having none of the themes or all of them. Coding disagreements were resolved through discussion. Table 5 indicates the percentage of respondents naming career-related activities and competitive sports in the two achievement contexts who mentioned each theme. Cohen's k was calculated for each theme to check for reliability. The calculated values were generally in the .80s and .90s except for two cases. The first theme, ``enjoyment of learning,'' had a k of .63 and the theme involving ``meeting your own standards; being the best you can be'' had a k of .49. The latter theme primarily occurred in the outstanding performance context and did not distinguish career-related activities from competitive sports. Our main interest here was to see if the type of activity would lead to the mention of different themes. We computed chi-square statistics to compare career-related activities and competitive sports within each achievement context. Because of the number of comparisons conducted, we adopted a conservative a level (.001). Only significant chi-square values will be discussed. In the enjoyment context, students naming a career-related activity were more likely to mention that ``the skill is important for achievement of future career goals'' than were students naming competitive sports [c2(1, N = 120) = 25.45, p < .001], whereas students naming competitive sports were more likely to mention ``enjoyment of competition'' [c2(1, N = 120) = 15.79] and ``personal physical benefit'' [c2(1, N = 120) = 15.06]. For career-related activities, the three most frequently mentioned themes in the enjoyment context were ``meeting people/working with people,'' ``the skill is important for future career goals,'' and ``the process is fun.'' For competitive sports, they were ``the process is fun,'' ``enjoyment of competition,'' and ``personal physical benefit.'' The results of comparisons of career-related activities and competitive sports in the outstanding performance context were similar to those in the enjoyment context. Only two themes were mentioned by more than 10% of the students naming career-related activities: ``the skill is important for achievement of future career goals'' and ``meeting your own standards,'' consistent with previous findings (Jagacinski, 1992). For competitive sports, the three most frequently occurring themes were: ``the process is fun,'' ``meeting your own standards,'' and ``enjoyment of competition.'' Students naming career-related activities were more likely to mention that ``the skill is important for achievement of future career goals'' than were students naming competitive sports [c2(1, N = 133) = 67.45, p < .001]. Students naming competitive sports were more likely to mention ``enjoyment of competition'' [c2(1, N = 133) = 17.59] and that ``the process is fun'' [c2(1, N = 133) = 15.31] than students naming career-related activities. The pattern of results demonstrated some interesting differences in the incentive value of the activities. There was a greater emphasis on utility value for career-related activities than sports in both contexts. Interest value was important for sports in both contexts, but was only highly mentioned in the enjoyment context for career-related activities. The incentive value of competitive sports seemed less dependent on the context than that of the careerrelated activities.

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4. Discussion Many theories of achievement motivation stress the importance of anticipated affective reactions to performance (incentive value) in decisions to engage in achievement tasks. The current study demonstrates that anticipated affective reactions are partially a function of personal goal orientations. Personal goal orientations were found to have their greatest impact on anticipated affective reactions when they were in conflict with the achievement context. Task orientation was in conflict with the outstanding performance context. In the outstanding performance context, we expected the negative social comparison information to dampen anticipated positive reactions of students unless they were high in task orientation. We expected students high in task orientation to focus on the improvement through effort as a source of positive affect. Our expectations were confirmed. In fact, task orientation was positively related to anticipated positive affect when students were asked to name activities they wanted to excel at, but the relationship was not significant when students were asked to name activities that they enjoyed for their own sake. This result is consistent with previous research, which has found task orientation generally positively related to intrinsic interest and positive attitudes towards school. Task orientation was not significantly related to anticipated embarrassment. We expected ego orientation to be more predictive of anticipated affective reactions in the enjoyment context because the definition of success espoused by those high in ego orientation is in conflict with the definition typically adopted in enjoyment contexts. However, our predictions for ego orientation were more complicated because perceived ability is predicted to play a role with ego orientation, but not task orientation. Achievement goal theory predicts that ego-oriented students low in perceived ability are more vulnerable to the possible negative implication of social comparison information than are ego-oriented students high in perceived ability. In the enjoyment context, then, we expected students who were low in perceived ability, but high in ego orientation to anticipate greater negative affect (embarrassment) because these students would be sensitive to the negative social comparison information. Again, our expectations were confirmed. Ego orientation was not significantly related to anticipated embarrassment for those high in perceived ability. This would suggest that high perceived ability provides some protection from the possible negative impact of social comparison information. However, it is important to note that ego orientation was negatively related to anticipated positive affects regardless of context or level of perceived ability. This is consistent with our expectations, but goes beyond them. The result is somewhat qualified by the fact that students in this experiment generally anticipated positive reactions to their performance Ð the overall group means were in the range of agreeing that they would react positively. However, the full range of responses (i.e., 1±7) was represented in the students' ratings of anticipated affects. Past research (Ames, 1992; Jagacinski & Nicholls, 1984, 1987) has suggested that making situations more task-involving will foster the motivation of all students. However, our results suggest that students who are high in ego orientation will still tend to focus on social comparison information if it is present, which may have implications for their participation in achievement activities. Our results suggest that differences in personal goal orientations direct

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students' attention to different types of information. Students who are more task-oriented pay more attention to information about effort and performance. However, students who are more ego-oriented place more importance on social comparison information. Thus, the mere presence of negative social comparison information may be detrimental for some students. Some interesting gender differences also emerged from the present study. Women scored higher than men on the task orientation scale, which is consistent with the results of other studies using college samples (e.g., Bouffard et al., 1995; Elliot & Church, 1997). In addition, women anticipated greater positive affect than did men. Women may be more sensitive to the effort information in the situation and may place more emphasis on effort than on the social comparison information in judging their anticipated reactions. The women's focus on effort is consistent with Veroff's (1977) contention that women more than men are concerned with the process of achievement. Some interesting differences were found based on the type of activity the students named. Whether students named an activity they enjoyed for its own sake or one at which they wanted to be superior, they tended to name activities that they were good at and in which they were relatively task-oriented. The overall average rating on the task orientation scale was 4.3 on a five-point scale. Students in the enjoyment context were less likely to name careerrelated activities than students in the outstanding performance context. Students naming competitive sports were more likely to mention enjoyment of competition in their written paragraphs than students naming career-related activities in both achievement contexts. The results suggest that competition is a more important and integral part of sports than of careerrelated activities. This is partially because we asked students to think of competitive sports, but many of them ignored the competitive aspect of the sport in writing their paragraphs. In the outstanding performance context, students were more likely to mention that they enjoyed the process if they had named a competitive sport than if they had named a career-related activity (35% vs. 8%). With the competitive sports, two of the most frequently mentioned themes were ``the process is fun'' and ``enjoyment of competition'' in both achievement contexts. Thus, the achievement context had little impact on the nature of the incentive value of the sports that the students described. Both the types of sports mentioned and the themes that emerged from the paragraphs about sports were similar in the two contexts. The similarity in the concerns expressed is exemplified in two quotes from students who selected tennis as their activity. The student in the enjoyment context wrote, ``I enjoy tennis because it has always been fun for me. I have played competitively for seven years now and there is always something new to learn and ways to improve. Even though I take my game very seriously, I still enjoy it very much.'' Another student writing about the importance of being outstanding at tennis mentions similar issues: ``Because it's something I really enjoy doing and I think I have the abilities to get better and better all the time. Maybe it's also because I'm so dedicated to it, and others know it, I have to prove myself to them.'' The greater emphasis on enjoyment of competition and having fun with sports than career-related activities may be due to the fact that these are voluntary activities for the students. J. Eccles (personal communication, May 23, 1998) has found that interest value plays a more important role in avocational activities than in vocational activities.

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The types of career-related activities that students named were somewhat different in the outstanding performance context than in the enjoyment context. There was a tendency to name academic tasks in the outstanding performance context, but not in the enjoyment context. Students seem to realize that the university is competitive and that if they are successful in their studies it will help them in their future careers, but when they think of career-related activities they enjoy, the skills required to succeed at the university do not immediately come to mind. In addition, students do not seem to enjoy the competitive aspects of their career-related activities. Enjoyment of the process did not spontaneously appear very often in the paragraphs written about career-related activities at which students wanted to be superior. However, these activities were seen as important for attainment of future career goals. According to Eccles et al. (1983), this would imply high utility value for the activities, which contributes to motivation to perform them. In conducting this study, we were interested in how goal orientations operate in the real world with activities that are personally important to students. The results suggest that to understand achievement behaviors, we not only need to consider the situation, but also the individual's personal goal orientations. This study shows that individuals' personal goal orientations not only make a difference, but they make a difference in a way that is both systematic and complex.

Acknowledgments We would like to thank Joan Duda, Jennifer Hurt, Richard Schweickert, and Howard Weiss for comments on an earlier version of this manuscript.

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