The cost of setting goals at work: Repeated goal-setting, goal-failure, and detrimental effects on affect, motivation, and behavior

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Nina Keith
• Subject Area: Social Psychology, Industrial and Organisational Psychology
• Term: since 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 456272300

Goal-setting theory suggests that setting high and specific goals (e.g., measurable outcome goals at work) increases motivation and performance, as compared to low goals, no goals, or vaguely phrased goals. This basic assumption has been tested and supported in several hundred studies. Accordingly, goal-setting theory has become an inherent part of management education and organizational practice (e.g., management by objectives). In the past years, however, research is increasingly concerned with the dark side of goal-setting, that is, potentially undesirable effects that may result from extensive use of goal-setting, such as increased stress, demotivation, or unethical behavior. This project proposal focuses on some rarely explored aspects inherent in goal-setting, namely, the longer-term consequences of repeated goal-setting and the increased risk of goal-failure associated with high goals. In particular, while high goals may increase immediate performance, longer-term performance may suffer, as high goals also lead to more goal-failure which in turn detrimentally affects affect, motivation, and performance. In a short-term project, we conducted two experiments and one preliminary field survey that, on the one hand, underscored the feasibility of our ideas concerning goal-setting, goal-failure, and their potentially detrimental consequences. On the other hand, some questions remained unanswered and new questions arose, which are to be addressed in the presently proposed project, using a series of laboratory and online experiments as well as a combined interview and longitudinal survey study in the field. Specifically, the following questions shall be addressed: (1) Is there a paradoxical effect of goal-setting in that high goals simultaneously increase performance (direct effect) and decrease performance via increased goal-failure and associated demotivation (indirect effect)? (2) How can performance goals be reframed in such a way that goal-failure is not perceived as a threat to individuals' self-esteem, with potentially detrimental effects on their future motivation and performance? (3) Do detrimental effects of work-goal failure persist (or even exacerbate) over longer time periods or are they temporally confined to the period immediately after the goal is failed (i.e., a temporary reaction to goal-failure without longer-term consequences)? Insights from this research may inform organizational practice how goal-setting interventions can be designed and improved such that goal-setting benefits performance while taking longer-term organizational consequences and employee well-being into account.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants