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Instructions for Setting Goals College Essay Examples

Essay Instructions: Assignment: Building a Blueprint for Personal and Professional Growth Plan

As a graduate student and business professional in the 21st century, it is important that you learn to self-manage, self-monitor, and self-motivate to meet the multiple demands in your personal and professional life. The Blueprint for Personal and Professional Growth (BPPG) is designed to help you with establishing a habit or process of setting goals, analyzing and reflecting on benchmarks, and addressing strengths and challenges. The BPPG encourages you to consider, reflect, address, and develop successful skills and dispositions.

In a 3 page journal-type entry, summarize the following questions:

o What is the importance of management in today?s global society and how will you prepare to be effective as a manager? What kind of skills should you possess and what will you do to improve your skills? What resources will you consult for information?
o Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of Management by Objectives (MBO).
? How can this strategy be used to influence others?
? What negative responses could this theory elicit?
? In what ways can this theory bring about effective responses?

Briefly answer the following:

Discuss your strengths and weaknesses as both a leader and as a manager (example: conscientiousness, perfectionist) Explain how you would incorporate these into your manager-development strategy.
o Demonstrate critical-thinking skills that lead to ethical and reasoned decision making within a management context.
o Formulate sustainable solutions to practical management problems encountered in a complex global environment by synthesizing relevant data and information and applying systems thinking to problem solving.
o Assess opportunities to improve and sustain organizational performance through strategic thinking, the development of human capital, the allocation of physical resources, and the management of financial resources.
o Evaluate methods to develop people and manage teams to obtain the best performance in order to achieve goals and positive environments despite potential challenges imposed by a diverse workforce, cross-cultural differences, and virtual work settings.
o Propose negotiation strategies that will lead to positive, ethical outcomes and demonstrate scrupulous consideration of perceived points of conflict; differences in values, beliefs, and culture; or divergence of goals.
o Appraise techniques managers may use to facilitate change, examining the implications of culture, inertia, and uncertainty as well as the importance of understanding motivation and devising effective communications.
o Develop effective communications for various types of management scenarios, demonstrating awareness of audience needs, accepted standards of professional practice, correct grammar, and appropriate writing style.

Briefly answer the following:

o How would you rank these outcomes in the creation of a personalized manager-development plan?
o What outcomes would you add to this list?
o How will you achieve these outcomes? What personal goals could you could set for yourself based on the outcomes in this program and how will you achieve those personal goals?
o In what areas do you need to grow? What questions remain to be answered? How will you go about achieving growth and obtaining answers? How will you track your progress?

Do NOT include an introduction or conclusion; only discuss the questions listed above. Please run paper through a plagiarism checker.

Excerpt From Essay:

Title: Health Tips for Diabetes and for Preventing Heart Disease

Total Pages: 3 Words: 815 Bibliography: 0 Citation Style: MLA Document Type: Research Paper

Essay Instructions: WRITER REQUESTED: gabricinq

==================================

Hello gabricinq:

Great job last time. This time I need similar numbered lists on 3 different topics:

TOPIC #1: 5 Tips about the importance of setting goals and reaching them only as pertains to those who have DIABETES? why you want to record exercise, food, weight goals, etc.

TOPIC #2: 5 Tips about the importance of setting goals and reaching them only as pertains to those interested in avoiding HEART DISEASE ? why you want to exercise and record your progress, choose food carefully, weight goals, etc.

TOPIC #3: 5 Facts about how prevalent diabetes and heart disease (esp. in women) have become, a recognition of the signs, and the importance of recording and managing efforts to prevent/treat (should introduce some statistics, i.e. heart disease is #1 killer of women; diabetes will reach epidemic proportions by year xxxx).

SAME COPY FORMAT AND STYLE AS BEFORE, E.G.: Introductory headline "5 Tips for Recent Grads..." and numbered items as this (edited) example from last job you did, below:


=> 5 Tips for Recent Grads to Find Work Fast! (HEADLINE)

1) First, Take a Breath: Bask in the glow of your accomplishment. Take a few weeks for a special vacation. Reevaluate your life. Set some goals to focus your actions. Write them down in your planner to bring them into reality. Then shift into high gear again and kick-start the job search!

2) Be Realistic and Do Your Homework: Did you major in philosophy or a similar intellectual field? Keep in mind that sometimes degrees in such cerebral fields don?t readily translate into relevant help wanted ads. Find a way to turn your abilities and intellect into cold hard cash. Ask others who?ve found themselves in the same position what they did to become financially viable.

3) ?Google? Your Skills! Put the research skills you learned in school by Google-ing your degree in combination with germane keywords, such as ?job,? ?employment,? ?career,? and ?occupation.? The number of hits you get may surprise you, and lead you to valuable information about where to find your dream job.

ETC.


It's important to keep each numbered item brief. Approx 3 short sentences each. Short, simple words.

PLEASE SEE HOW YOUR SUBMITTED COPY (BELOW) WAS EDITED AND COMPARE WITH FINAL COPY (ABOVE) to get a sense of pithy style desired.

==============
gabricinq COPY:

YOU HAVE THE DIPLOMA, SO WHERE?S YOUR DREAM JOB?

1. You need to take a breath.
You, the successful college graduate, deserve to bask a moment in the delightful glow of your accomplishment. Mom and dad are proud of you, and they believe your education was a wise investment. There are no more anxiety-filled all-nighters fueled by lattes and cold pizza in your immediate future. Take a couple of weeks for a special vacation (funded with all of those generous graduation gifts). Get ready to reevaluate your life. However, don?t allow your relaxed breathing exercises to turn into a coma-you have some important decisions to make.

2. Do your homework.
The idea of homework may be anathema to you at this point, but those study habits will come in handy during your job search. Maybe you chose to major in the intellectually invigorating field of philosophy. Sometimes degrees in such heady fields do not readily translate into a marketable position. It is incumbent upon you to find a way to turn your esoteric abilities and finely honed intellect into cold hard cash. Ask others who have found themselves in the same position what they did to become financially viable.

3.Google your skills.
Put the research skills you learned as a student to further use by Google-ing your degree in combination with germane keywords, such as ?job,? ?employment,? ?career,? and ?occupation.? The number of hits you get may surprise you, and you may learn valuable information about where to seek your dream job.
===========================

Edited example shows how 5 tips, if written concisely, should be able to fit on 1 page.

Thank you very much...

Excerpt From Essay:

Title: Stress wk2 2

Total Pages: 1 Words: 332 Sources: 0 Citation Style: APA Document Type: Essay

Essay Instructions: Request an article review of the below article and "related" sources to cite:



The Journal of Psychology, 2001, 135(4), 357?367
Managing Time: The Effects of Personal
Goal Setting on Resource Allocation
Strategy and Task Performance
ORIEL J. STRICKLAND
MARK GALIMBA
Department of Psychology
California State University, Sacramento
ABSTRACT. One key to understanding motivated behavior is examining the behavior of
individuals as they work on multiple tasks under a time constraint. This article is an explo-
ration of the influence of self-set goals on subsequent resource allocation to different
tasks. Participants were given a variety of tasks from which they were to choose how to
allocate their time and effort. Results indicated that the use of self-set goals structured the
work pattern, with less switching between tasks relative to the work pattern of a group of
participants who did not set goals. In addition, those who set goals reported less task-relat-
ed cognitive interference, indicating that they were not as distracted while they worked.
Participants who did not set goals, however, performed at a higher level on some of the
tasks. It is suggested that self-set goals may often be chosen at an easily attainable level,
creating a structured and focused work environment but not necessarily eliciting the moti-
vational properties typically associated with goal setting.
Key words: cognitive interference, goals, motivation, multitasking, strategy
?SO MUCH TO DO, SO LITTLE TIME? describes the plight facing many peo-
ple as they attempt to deal with the multiple tasks facing them, as there is often
an overwhelming number of jobs from which to choose. The strategies people
use to deal with these options are an integral part of understanding motivated
behavior. Although several strides have been made in the dynamic study of moti-
vation (Atkinson & Birch, 1986; Kuhl, 1985; Naylor, Pritchard, & Ilgen, 1980),
one of the criticisms of most current theories is that they center around behavior
on one task at one given time (Kanfer, 1992). Our purpose in the present study
was to examine how the process of setting performance goals may influence peo-
ple?s strategies as they work on multiple tasks.
Address correspondence to Oriel J. Strickland, Department of Psychology, California
State University, Sacramento, CA 95819-6007; (e-mail).
357


358 The Journal of Psychology
Various explanations have been provided for the robust effect of specific and
challenging goals on performance. From the goal setting theory literature, the
focus has typically been on the direct mediating mechanisms through which a
goal may exhibit its effects (Locke & Latham, 1990). As commonly recognized
(Mitchell, 1982), motivational processes act through increasing effort, persistence, and direction of attention to the task. Likewise, goal-setting theorists have
examined each of these potential mediators as they help to explain the goal?performance relationship, and support has been found for each (Bandura & Cervone,
1983; Rothkopf & Kaplan, 1972; Sales, 1970).

Another somewhat more controversial mediating mechanism is the development of task strategies following goal setting. Terborg (1976) found that participants assigned goals were more likely to engage in remembering strategies than
participants not assigned goals. Earley, Wojnaroski, and Prest (1987) demonstrated that participants given specific, difficult goals were more likely to develop plans for idea generation than participants given a ?do your best? goal. These
researchers suggested that task planning may be one of the ways in which goals
exhibit a positive effect on performance, although subsequent research indicates
that this effect may hold only for relatively simple tasks (Earley, Connolly, &
Ekegren, 1989; Gist, Bavetta, & Stevens, 1990).

In research somewhat related to the idea of strategy development, Ilgen,
Salas, Shapiro, and Weiss (1988) suggested that goals may affect individuals by
providing structure to ambiguous situations. Individuals who set their own goals
may have a higher level of intrinsic motivation, which, in turn, has a positive
effect on performance. Intrinsic motivation refers to behavior that is performed
for its own sake (Deci, 1975). Erez, Gopher, and Arzi (1990) found that performance was greater in self-setting goal conditions than when participants were
assigned goals on dual tasks. Intrinsic motivation is connected to goal setting in
that people are more apt to attain higher levels of performance on tasks when
their perceived control is not affected by external influence.

The purpose of this article is to present research investigating the impact of
goals on strategy development in situations of multiple tasks and time constraints. Kernan and Lord (1990) examined the impact of multiple tasks and goal
setting under varying incentive conditions. These authors noted the lack of
research in this area, although they cited suggestions that multiple goals lead to
a rction of task conflict via development of priority systems for ordering their
goals. Kernan and Lord speculated that people use situational cues such as indicators of goal importance and the magnitude of perceived goal discrepancies.
When importance cues, such as incentives, are present for one task, the associated goal will have priority over the other goal. However, when this information is
not present, people rely on perceived goal discrepancies to develop their priority
system. The authors speculated that ?one essentially lowers the priority of the
task with the higher discrepancy, a response that parallels what is known as disengagement from control systems in the social psychology? (p. 195). This


Strickland & Galimba 359
response is said to be adaptive in a work environment and enables people to cope
with conflicting pressures.

Actually, this approach seems to be contradictory to that suggested by work
in control theory (Campion & Lord, 1982). These authors found that participants?
degree of dissatisfaction was larger when the goal?performance discrepancy was
larger. Thus, if people do operate on a hedonistic basis (an assumption of several
prominent motivation theories), it is a bit surprising that they would elect to widen
a discrepancy in one area rather than minimize discrepancies across areas. The
idea that it is organizationally adaptive to sacrifice one task for another also seems
questionable. If no cues have indicated that one task is considered more important
than another, it would seem preferable to have some degree of preparation across
all tasks. This strategy would minimize the probability of looking incompetent if
information regarding a particular task was requested by a supervisor.

With regard to behavior under multiple tasks, we predicted that the use of
self-set goals would lead to different strategies and performance than would be
observed in the absence of self-set goals. To explore this hypothesis, we compared two groups, one of which was given instructions to set personal performance goals and the other of which was not given any instructions. We predicted that the process of setting goals for the tasks would result in a strategy of
sequentially working on each task, with minimal switching between tasks.

Initially, the goal-setting process is thought to clarify an ambiguous situation
and lead to the development of a planning strategy for the multiple tasks (e.g., I
will reach X amount on the first task, then move to the second to reach Y). Once
the first task has begun, goals are predicted to operate in their highly documented fashion by directing attention to that task at the expense of others, by increasing effort on the task, and by increasing persistence on the task until the goal is
reached. Thus, in total, the process of setting a goal under multiple tasks would
result in a more planned approach to the tasks, with less switching between them.
Thus, our first hypothesis was that participants who set performance goals would
switch between tasks less frequently than participants who do not set performance goals.

In addtion to strategy differences, we investigated potential performance differences between those who set goals and those who do not. Boyce (1992), Hall
and Byrne (1988), and Lee and Edwards (1984) each conducted studies investigating goal setting and found significant differences between groups with goals
(assigned and self-set) and the control group (no goal). They did not find significant differences between the groups with goals, either assigned or self-set. Erez
et al. (1990) found that participants who self-set goals and did not receive monetary rewards had the highest levels of performance and that performance
decreased when monetary rewards were connected.

We predicted that the use of self-set goals under multiple tasks would
increase total performance in two ways. First, we expected the typically demonstrated increase in performance due to effort (the motivational impact of goals).


360 The Journal of Psychology
Second, a side-effect of the decrease in switching between tasks should also
increase performance. Often in real work settings, as in the current experiment,
a fair amount of time is required to acquaint oneself with a given task. In these
cases, it would not be advantageous to switch tasks frequently. In the current
experiment, we imposed a 5 s ?penalty? for switching tasks, in which information about performance on the previous task is displayed. This, in addition to
cognitive adjustments made as a result of switching, should contribute to a total
performance advantage for the goal-setting group relative to the no-goal group.
Thus, our second hypothesis was that participants who set performance goals
would perform at a higher level than those who do not set goals.

We also explored the role of perceptions of cognitive interference as the participants attempted to work in the multiple-task environment. Cognitive interference
can be referred to as the intrusive thoughts that distract an individual and
direct attention away from a task (Sarason, Sarason, Hayes, & Shearin, 1986).
These intrusive thoughts may either be task related (questions to one?s self relating
to the task on hand) and task unrelated (inner talk that is not related to the task). In
this study, we used the task related Cognitive Interference subscale from the Cognitive Interference Questionnaire developed by Sarason et al. Our third hypothesis
was consistent with the idea that goals provide structure to an ambiguous situation.
Thus, cognitive interference would be higher for participants who do not set performance goals than for participants who do set performance goals.

Method

Participants

Participants were 116 undergraduate university students (73 women, 43
men) who participated in the study for course credit. Participants? average length
of time at the university was 4 semesters, with a range of 1 to 11 semesters.

Task and Materials

We used the QuickBASIC programming language to generate a program that
would allow participants to switch among three tasks. The experiment was run
and responses were made on personal computers. Recorded output included
demographic information, a practice trial score for each task, performance goals
for each task chosen (in the appropriate condition), the time spent on each choice,
and self-report information regarding task preferences.

We developed the three tasks to approximate the type of diversity that people experience in daily work. In fact, we hoped that the abilities needed for the
various tasks would require different types of thought processes. In this way,
switching from one task to another would result in a decrement in total performance because of the time needed to reacquaint oneself with a given task.


Strickland & Galimba 361
One task consisted of solving anagram puzzles, which presumably tapped
into verbal abilities. A scrambled nonsense word was presented for the participant to unscramble to a common English word. For example, the nonsense word
?ybo? was displayed, to be solved by typing ?boy.? Pilot data revealed that the
initial four-letter anagrams were too difficult for participants (relative to the other
tasks) and that some items could be arranged to form more than one English
word. To align this task with the other two, we used only three-letter words, and
we checked the items used in this study to ensure that there was only one proper solution.

Another task, thought to depend on numeric ability, consisted of solving
simple algebraic equations for an unknown variable, x. For example, the expression ?20/x = 4? was presented, and participants were to solve it by typing ?5.?
Equations contained a roughly equal amount of multiplication, division, subtraction, and addition problems. The solutions always consisted of integers to ensure
that the items did not differ dramatically in terms of difficulty.

The other task was a spatial-relations task, which was thought to tap into
spatial and perceptual abilities. Here, participants saw three pairs of letters that
were displayed in randomly generated locations on the screen. To solve an item,
participants were to type in the letter that corresponded to that having the furthest
distance between pairs. For example, participants saw

AC
BA
CB

and they were to respond to this display by typing ?C? as being the pair furthest
apart. As in the previous two types of problems, the program was written such
that there were no ties so that only one answer was correct.

Procre

Participants were randomly assigned to either a goal-setting condition or a
control condition and were seated in small cubicles containing a desk and a personal computer. They were given a brief overview of the experimental procres and then were allowed to begin. Initially, demographic information (gender, semester in school) was requested. Participants were then given 2-min
practice trials on each of the tasks, presented in a random order to prevent ordering effects. As participants worked on each task, a display in the right hand corner of the screen communicated the remaining time and the number of correct
responses made by participants. When each 2-min practice period was complete,
participants were again reminded how many correct answers thay had given for
each of the tasks.

The next part of the experiment consisted of a 10-min working period, in
which participants were allowed to switch among the three tasks as they desired.


362 The Journal of Psychology
Instructions read:

Now you are to pretend that all 3 of these tasks are on your agenda of things to do.
There will not be enough time to complete any of them, but you must try to decide
how to spend your time on them during the next 10 minutes. A real life example of
this situation would be that you have to: (1) clean your apartment, (2) study for a psychology exam, and (3) do your chemistry lab. However, you only have 1 hour before
dinner. How are you going to spend your time among tasks? This is what you are to
decide in this part of the experiment. You must spend the next 10 minutes working
on some or all of the 3 tasks. You may move back and forth between tasks for any
length of time that you want to. In other words, you may work on any task at any time
that you would like.

At this time, participants in the self-set goal condition were asked to set performance goals. They were asked to indicate the number of correct responses
they intended to reach for each task. The only difference between the experimental conditions was that half the participants were asked to provide performance goals, whereas half did not provide these goals.

As participants worked on the three tasks, a display in the upper right hand
corner of the screen indicated the number of items that they had correctly
answered and the time remaining in the 10-min period. A display in the upper left
hand corner reminded participants that they could switch tasks by typing the
word ?switch.?

At the end of the experimental session, participants answered a questionnaire assessing their cognitive interference. When the work period was complete,
participants were debriefed and thanked for their participation.

Measures

Switching between tasks. Each time the participant typed ?switch? in order to
change tasks, this choice was recorded.

Performance. Final performance was measured as the number of items correctly
answered on each of the three sections (anagram, numerical, and spatial).

On-task cognitive interference. Five items (a = .90) assessed the extent to which
participants experienced on-task cognitive interference: ?I thought about how I
was doing?; ?I thought about how much time I had left?; ?I thought about how I
should work more carefully?; ?I thought about how others have done on this
task?; ?I thought about the difficulty of the problems.?

Results

We first compared pre-experimental performance for each of the experimental conditions to ensure that there were no initial group differences. Results


Strickland & Galimba 363
TABLE 1
Means for Switching, Cognitive Interference, and Performance Scores,
by Experimental Condition
Scores Self-set goals No goals
Switching 3.52 5.03
Cognitive interference 3.75 4.31
Performance 2.04 2.32
showed no significant differences in spatial performance, t(114) = .04, ns;
numerical performance, t(114) = .86, ns; or anagram performance, t(114) = .98,
ns. Thus, we concluded that the groups did not initially differ in the extent to
which they could complete the tasks.

The primary hypothesis regarding switching between tasks was supported,
t(114) = 4.32, p < .05. Participants who self-set goals switched tasks significantly less often (an average of 3.52 times) than those who did not set goals (an average of 5.03 times). These results are presented in Table 1.

Cognitive interference was also explored as support for the idea that self-set
goals provide a sense of structure while people work. The hypothesis that the
process of setting goals would result in lower on-task distracting thoughts was
supported, t(114) = 2.78, p < .05. Participants who set goals reported thinking
about on-task concerns, on average, less frequently (3.75) than those who did not
set goals (4.31).

We also hypothesized that the more structured approach to the multiple tasks
(i.e., less switching) would give the self-set goal group a performance advantage
over the no-goal group. This hypothesis was not supported. In fact, participants
in the no-goal condition performed at a significantly higher level, t(114) = 2.45,
p < .05, than those who did set goals (see Table 1).

A post hoc decision was made to explore whether on-task cognitive interference mediated the effect of the experimental condition on performance. That
is, is it possible on these simple tasks that the increase in on-task thoughts
(although perhaps stressful), also helped to motivate the no-goal participants?
The full mediation analysis (described by Baron & Kenny, 1986) was halted
when the proposed mediator (on-task interference) was not significantly related
to performance, r(115) = ?.09, ns.

A subsequent analysis of the self-set goal values provided some potential
insight into the performance results. Anchoring from the practice trials, the time
per task increased by 67%; however, the levels of self-set goals increased by an
average of only 57%. Thus, participants in the self-set goal condition chose performance levels that were slightly lower, on average, than the performance they
had reached during the practice trial.


364 The Journal of Psychology
Discussion

Our main purpose in this study was to examine individual behavior under
conditions in which multiple tasks were to be performed. Research in goal setting has shown that goals can affect strategy formation and the planning of task
behavior, and it has been suggested that goals can exhibit effects by structuring
an ambiguous situation. Our primary hypothesis was that setting personal performance goals would result in a more systematic approach to the multiple tasks.
Strategy use, the structuring effects of goals, and the motivational components
typically activated during goal setting were all thought to contribute to this effect.

The data supported our hypothesis that participants who set performance
goals switched tasks less frequently than did participants who were not asked to
set goals. Therefore, this study has provided an important contribution to the
motivational literature by documenting a relationship among self-set goals, cognitions, and strategy development in a multiple task environment. Prior to this
study, it had merely been speculated that people may employ goal setting to
rce the ambiguity and potential stress associated with multiple tasks and time
constraints.

Our findings support this idea and point to the role of self-set goals in a
rction in on-task related cognitive distractions. Thus, it appears that self-set
goals may provide a structure that is associated with fewer switches between
tasks and a stronger focus on the task at hand relative to concerns such as how
one is doing, what one should be working on, and so forth.

However, our prediction that participants who set goals and switched tasks
less frequently would outperform the participants who did not set goals was not
supported. Our prediction that more time required to switch tasks and reacquaint
oneself with a new task would result in performance decrements for participants
who switched tasks more often was not supported.

It may be that performance increments are directly associated with goal difficulty. In fact, participants set goals that were fairly easy to complete in the 10min period, considering their performance during the practice period. This finding is consistent with the work of Hinsz (1995), who found that individuals often
set goals at a level they feel confident they can achieve. Thus, although self-set
goals may provide a structuring function and a rction in on-task stressful cognitions, they might not have the same motivational functions typically associated
with assigned goal setting (Locke & Latham, 1990).

The experimental simulation presented in this research has many strengths.
First, it responds to criticisms directed at much motivational research in which
behavior is examined for only a single task. The problem with single-task
research is that it does not approximate the types of daily pressures that most
people experience, in which there are many tasks that they must choose between
for their motivational resource allocation.

Another strength of this study is in the methodological rigor of the labora


Strickland & Galimba 365
tory simulation. Participants were randomly assigned to experimental conditions
and were not aware of the differences between the conditions, thus rcing the
potential impact of participant effects. In addition, the experimenter had minimal
interaction with the participants and was not aware of the hypotheses of the
study. Therefore, the potential for experimenter effects was also minimized.

The measurement of the variables was another strength of the current study.
The primary strategy and performance variables were collected unobtrusively
and with little room for measurement error. The cognitive interference variable
also reflected good measurement properties. In total, the methodological rigor of
this study indicates that internal validity was a major strength of the study.

As with many laboratory simulations, an important limitation of this study
lies in the lack of external validity. It is not clear that the types of goals the participants set match the types of goals that are set in real life. Here, only quantitative performance goals were set, and each task was fairly simple. It is unknown
whether complex or creative tasks would yield the same results. In addition, the
short time frame of this study did not allow for goal abandonment, which may
occur in real life when the goals become incompatible, or a new opportunity is
presented. Failure to attain goals in a multiple-task environment may actually
lead to increased stress and on-task distractions. Thus, several external validity
considerations limit the generalizability of the findings.

As a first step, however, this study has many implications for future research.
For example, research could address the pros and cons of using self-set goals.
The primary findings suggest that people who set goals in their daily lives may
be more focused and may use a strategy in which they work on each task sequentially. Intuitively, it seems that this approach would be advantageous in many
cases, as less time would be wasted adjusting to new tasks each time a switch is
made. On the other hand, there may be situations in which this strategy could
lead to gross deficiencies on some tasks relative to others. Further research
should address these questions.

Another area for future research is the effect of self-set goals on intrinsic
motivation to perform a task. Some researchers have compared self-set goals to
goals imposed by others, with the suggestion that individuals who set their own
goals have a higher level of intrinsic motivation (Erez et al., 1990). Intrinsic
motivation is likely to be highest when perceived control is not affected by any
external influence (Deci, 1975). The finding that monetary rewards actually
decreased the intrinsic value of self-set goals (Erez et al.) suggests that the rction of cognitive interference observed in the present study might not occur if
self-set goals are seen as an external, or controlling, influence (vs. a structuring
influence). Future research could address this proposition.

Finally, a worthwhile area for future research that was not investigated in the
current study is need for achievement (McClelland, Atkinson, Clark, & Lowell,
1953). Need for achievement is a variable that describes a person?s drive to excel
and to set personal goals that are challenging but attainable. McClelland (1961)


366 The Journal of Psychology
documented the relationship between the number of achievement ideas in textbooks and the economic growth of countries, thus suggesting the role of the environment in shaping need for achievement. Given the potential link between need
for achievement and goal-setting behavior, further research could explore the role
of need for achievement in people?s use of goal setting within a multiple-task
environment and how this might affect the level of goals set and performance
achieved.

In summary, future research could provide interesting insights regarding the
impact of personal performance goals in situations containing multiple tasks.
These scenarios seem to capture a real-life component of motivated behavior that
is often missed in empirical research. For example, it is quite likely that some
people employ goals during their progress through daily tasks, whereas others do
not. However, little is currently known about what causes people to set goals
spontaneously (Wright, 1990), or of the differences between people who adopt
different strategies. It also seems likely that the practice of setting goals to structure one?s work day has ramifications for task strategy, performance, and perhaps
even job satisfaction. Further work in this area should provide useful information
regarding this underrepresented aspect of human motivation.

REFERENCES

Atkinson, J. W., & Birch, D. (1986). The dynamics of achievement-oriented activity. In J.
Kuhl & J. W. Atkinson (Eds.), Motivation, thought, and action (pp. 16?48). New York:
Praeger.

Bandura, A., & Cervone, D. (1983). Self-evaluative and self-efficacy mechanisms governing the motivational effects of goal systems. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,
45, 1017?1028.

Baron, R. M., & Kenny, D. A. (1986). The moderator?mediator variable distinction in
social psychological research: Conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 1173?1182.

Boyce, B. A. (1992). Effects of assigned versus participant-set goals on skill acquisistion
and retention of a selected shooting task. Journal of Teaching in Physical Education,
11, 220?234.

Campion, M. A., & Lord, R. G. (1982). A control systems conceptualization of the goal-
setting and changing process. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 30,
265?287.

Deci, E. L. (1975). Intrinsic motivation. New York: Plenum Press.

Earley, P. C., Connolly, T., & Ekegren, G. (1989). Goals, strategy development and task
performance: Some limits on the efficacy of goal setting. Journal of Applied Psychology,
74, 24?33.

Earley, P. C., Wojnaroski, P., & Prest, W. (1987). Task planning and energy expended:
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Received March 14, 2000

Excerpt From Essay:

Title: First Year Out and Optometric Employment

Total Pages: 4 Words: 1234 References: 4 Citation Style: MLA Document Type: Research Paper

Essay Instructions: "First Year Out and Optometric Employment".
please use the text Im sending you or if you can locate the book, Book is called " Business Aspects of Optometry" and specifically chapter 2 and 5 and any other source you think that will help.



It must include and discuss at least three options for optometric employment.


You must list at least two items that should be specified when setting goals and why goal setting is important.


List at least two sources for locating job opportunities.


Include at least three items to include on a resume

Please include all references


There are faxes for this order.

Excerpt From Essay:

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