The Impact of Situational and Dispositional Achievement Goals on Performance

Achievement goal theorists propose that both situational factors and individual differences influence which type of achievement goals individuals adopt. That is, instructions can be used to make a situation task-involving or ego-involving, but individuals also have dispositional tendencies to approach achievement tasks with task and/or ego orientations. In this experiment we investigated the independent and interactive effects of situational and dispositional achievement goals on performance. College students performed a brainstorming task after receiving neutral, task-involving, or ego-involving instructions. General task and ego orientations toward achievement tasks were assessed before the students tried the task, and perceived ability was assessed after a practice trial. Consistent with the predictions of achievement goal theorists, perceived ability was more strongly related to performance when students were given ego-involving rather than task-involving instructions. In addition, task orientation was more strongly related to performance when task-involving rather than ego-involving instructions were given. The results demonstrate that dispositional and situational factors may interact to predict performance.