How Does Goal Orientation and Motivation Effect Performance?
What is the most effective way to incorporate goal setting to improve performance?
Some teams introduce competitive goals, prioritizing performance in a social comparison context versus teammates. For example, “make more free throws than your teammates to get out of running.”
Other teams introduce mastery goals, which suggest personal development and learning over competition. For example, “make more free throws than you did last practice.”
Both of these approaches represent valid ways to approach goal setting in athletic environments. Which one is more effective at improving performance?
In their article titled, “How do goal orientations and motivational climate interact to affect short-term performance and self-confidence in sport? A test of the matching hypothesis across three studies” Philyaw et al. (2024) looked to determine the most optimal goal setting practices.
Achievement Goal Theory (AGT) is a psychological motivational theory which argues that the effectiveness of goals come from their interaction between individual disposition and motivational climate.
The “matching hypothesis” of AGT predicts that motivation is optimal when the disposition and climate match. Disposition can be broken down into an ego orientation (performance based goals centered around outcome metrics) and a task orientation (mastery based goals which focus on learning and development). Motivational climates also include ego orientations (competition) and task orientations (personal improvement).
Therefore, the matching hypothesis states that goals will be the most effective when ego dispositions are matched with ego climates or task dispositions are matched with task climate.
How accurate does the matching hypothesis play out in professional, collegiate, and recreational athletes participating in track and basketball?
The authors found the that the matching hypothesis did not hold true for professional track athletes or collegiate basketball players. Alternatively, there was support for the matching hypothesis in recreational track athletes.
However, there are unique implications that we can glean from this article.
Balance the use of long term task goals to promote motivation, confidence, and enjoyment with short-term ego goals during training.
Ego goals help facilitate athletes to give maximum effort.
Athlete interpretation of the goal is paramount to the success of the goal, in both an ego and task orientation.
As a whole, this article has yielded valuable insights into the nuance of the matching hypothesis for a variety of athletes. Balancing the line between task and ego oriented goals serves as a primary implication for coaches and practitioners utilizing goal setting interventions. Furthermore, recognizing and incorporating athletic identity and personality into the goal setting process provides more powerful outcomes.
TLDR, what does this mean for you? Goal setting is a popular intervention used by coaches and practitioners. Ego oriented goals which value competition seem to be more beneficial for high confidence athletes in achieving maximum effort. Alternatively, task oriented goals which value personal development serve to be more beneficial for recreational or low confidence athletes. Ultimately, balancing the uses of the two types of goals while managing athlete interpretation will produce the most powerful effect on performance.
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Philyaw, K., Covey, J., & Smith, D. T. (2024). How do goal orientations and motivational climate interact to affect short-term performance and self-confidence in sport? A test of the matching hypothesis across three studies. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 37(3), 370–388. https://doi.org/10.1080/10413200.2024.2428649