The interplay between self-evaluation, goal orientation, and self-efficacy on performance and learning

Conference item

Objective Self-awareness Theory (Duval and Wicklund, 1972) proposes that self-evaluation increases an individual’s awareness of any discrepancy between their current performance and an internal goal. In the current study we prompted self-evaluation throughout an intelligence test (Analysis-Synthesis Test – AST) using confidence ratings (CR). AST performance, the extent to which participants incidentally learnt task-relevant rules (learning rules was unnecessary because they were provided), self-efficacy, and goals, were assessed. The results indicated an effect of performing CR on both performance and rule learning, but the effect depended on self-efficacy. Compared to matched controls (n=45), participants who performed CR (n=41) and had high self-efficacy performed better on the AST but learnt fewer rules. Performing CR had no effect on participants low in self-efficacy. This suggests that selfevaluation interacts with self-efficacy to modify participants’ goals, specifically CR appear to shift individuals high in self-efficacy from a mastery goal to a performance goal

Authors: Double, K; Birney, D

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Cognitive Science Society
• Host title: Proceedings of the 39th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, London, July 26 - July 29th, 2017
• Journal: CogSci 2017: London, July 26 – July 29th, 2017
• Pages: 1943-1948
• Publication date: 2017-07-01
• Acceptance date: 2017-04-12
• ISBN: 9780991196760