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The relationship between views of ability and goal orientation, focusing on social comparison goals and mastery goals. Research suggests that individuals with an entity view of ability are more likely to pursue social comparison goals, while those with an incremental view prefer mastery goals. The document also discusses the implications of these goal orientations on performance and persistence.
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This thesis contains no material which has been accepted for the award of any other higher degree or diploma in any University, and to the best of my knowledge and belie~ contains no material previously published or written by another person, except where due reference is made in the text of the thesis.
Sarah Muskett
Statement Acknowledgements Table of Contents
Abstract Implicit Theories oflntelligence
Table of Contents
Literature Review
The Usefulness oflmplicit Views of Ability Assessment of Implicit Theories A Social-Cognitive Model of Motivation Goal Orientations
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Reactions to Setbacks or Achievement Failure: 'Helpless' or Mastery-Oriented Coping 10 Behavioural Correlates linked with Implicit Theory and Goal Orientation 13 Links with Confidence in Ability 14 Links to Self-Esteem 17 Affective Responses 18 Anxiety 18 Links with Attributions 19 Age 20 Gender 21 Links with Performance 22
Conclusion
Directions for Further Research Conclusion References Appendix A: State Goal Orientation Scale Appendix B: Performance Perceptions and Affective Reactions Appendix C: Simultaneous Discrimination Task Appendix D: Unicursal Task Appendix E: Goal Priming Advice
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Individuals have theories about intelligence that they are not able to articulate. As such they take the form of background assumptions or implicit theories. These implicit views held by individuals' can greatly affect achievement behaviours. It is thought that differences in how individuals view intelligence affect achievement behaviour especially
Henderson & Oweck, 1990). One influential model reJated to achievement behaviours is that ofDweck's social- cognitive model of motivation (1986; Dweck & Leggett, 1988). This model suggests that implicit theories regarding the stability of intelligence orient individuals toward
Although these theories, goals, and patterns are initially unreJated to achievement, they begin to predict achievement over time (Dweck, 1991) and as such are important to investigate.
Implicit Theories of Intelligence Dweck (Dweck & Bempechat, 1983) and Nicholls (1984) have both proposed that children tend to endorse one of two implicit theories of intelligence, conceptualising
~'incremental" view (Bempechat, London, & Dweck, 1991). According to Dweck (1996), individuals' holding these two types of implicit theories ("entity'' and ''incremental'') vary in their view of the stability of intelligence and the role of effort.
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quality that cannot be changed. Individuals endorsing this view believe that although people can learn new things, a person's general underlying intelligence remains the same
Literature Review
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with an incremental view of ability are said to view intelligence as a changeable quality that can be increased and cultivated through effort. It is this link to effort or preference for challenge that makes implicit views so important (Dweck, 1996). For instance, individuals with an incremental view of intelligence are more likely to be motivated in the face of setbacks and to increase their effort in an attempt to master a task or increase their knowledge (Dweck, Chiu & Hong, 1995a; Leondari & Gialamas, 2002). An individual with an entity view of ability is more concerned with performance as
there is risk of failure. People with an entity view of ability are more concerned with
1996). Dweck and Leggett (1988) summarise the cli:fierences between the two views of ability as either predicting, "whether individuals will be oriented toward developing their ability or toward documenting the adequacy of their ability'' (p. 263). Given that individuals with entity views of intelligence are less likely to exert effort on challenging
academic potential (Ablard & Mills, 1996).
Much of the research to date has focused on the detrimental effects of holding an entity view of intelligence. However, Dweck, Chiu and Hong (1995b) stress that both entity and incremental views of ability have potential costs and benefits. Research has found fewer costs for the individual who holds an incremental view of ability and fewer benefits for those adopting an entity view of ability (Dweck, Chiu & Hong, 1995b). In
ability compared to those with an incremental view often display less adaptive or effective functioning. For example, people with an entity view of ability can sacrifice
Literature Review
of the Implicit Views of Ability scale, developed by Hong, Chiu and Dweck (1995).
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incremental view responses as justification (Dweck, Chiu & Hong, 1995a). The three items are: (1) "You have a certain amount of intelligence and you can't really do much to
on a 6-point Likert scale, where 1 is "strongly agree" and 6 is "strongly disagree". The
Typically studies have shown that 42.5% of respondents to the questionnaire agree
Approximately 15% have unclear or mixed theories and are generally excluded from
A review of data from six validation studies by Dweck, Chiu and Hong (1995a) found
establishing the questionnaire's validity, the implicit theory measure was found to be independent of participants' sex, age, political affiliation and religion. They also found
self-esteem (Dweck, 1996). The most frequently used implicit theory measure appears to be a reliable measure of its construct.
Literature Review
A Social-Cognitive Model of Motivation Goal orientation theory has been used widely by researchers to understand different cognitive and motivational patterns within the achievement domain (Ames, 1992; Dweck, 1986). Two contrasting goals have proven to be helpful in understanding adaptive and maladaptive patterns of behaviour: "social comparison" goals and
developing their ability and skills, whereas, when oriented towards social comparison goals individuals are concerned with demonstrating their ability (Dweck & Leggett, 1988; Kaplan & Midgley, 1997). The model proposed by Carol Dweck and colleagues (Dweck & Elliott, 1983; Dweck & Leggett, 1988) suggests that individuals' implicit theories of intelligence are linked to particular goal orientations and it is these goals that bring about different types of cognitive, affective and behavioural patterns. More
of their ability compared with others, resulting in maladaptive learning patterns that are more vulnerable to failure, such as helplessness (Dweck & Leggett, 1988).
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Tollefson, 1991). Dweck and Leggett (1988) argue that there is no direct relationship between implicit theory and behavioural response. Rather the relationship is moderated by the type of goal orientation assumed by the individual (Roedel & Schraw, 1995). Therefore there are three aspects to this proposed theory: (1) The implicit view of intelligence (or other domain, such as social or moral) is directly linked to the type of goal orientation an individual is likely to endorse, (2) The type of goal orientation
Literature Review
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risk of :fuilure. On the other hand more than 60% of children with an incremental view of ability selected mastery goal tasks, with less than I 0% choosing the easy task (Dweck, 1996). Using an aduh population Roedel and Schraw (1995) also attempted to test the validity of this hypothesis by using a 25-item Likert-style questionnaire almost identical to Roedel, Schraw and PJake's (1994) Goals Inventory, identifying mastery or social comparison orientations. They predicted a correlation between implicit view scores and scores on the inventory. They found that believing intelligence to be a fixed entity (entity theory) was correlated with the social comparison goal orientation, thus lending further support to Dweck and Leggett's model Dweck ( 1996) further explains the differences between the two types of goals by indicating that individuals oriented towards social comparison goals are primarily interested in obtaining positive evaluations of their ability while trying to avoid negative ones (Miller, Behrens, Greene & Newman, 1993). They would rather receive a positive
on a more challenging task, hence their preference for the easier task when given a choice. Linked to this is the finding that the more effort an individual expends, the more
(Dweck, 1996). On the other hand those oriented towards mastery goals are more concerned with acquiring new skills or improving their knowledge, even if it means they make some mistakes on more challenging tasks while they are learning (Miller, et al., 1993). Considerable research has examined the second part ofDweck and Leggett's (1988) theory that goal orientation is related to behavioural responses and have generally documented that a mastery goal orientation is associated with more adaptive patterns of behaviour, cognition and affect than is a social comparison orientation (Ames & Archer,
Literature Review
1988; Anderman & Midgley, 1997; Dweck & Leggett, 1988). For instance, using self- report measures, Archer (1994) found that college students oriented towards mastery goals reported greater use of effective learning strategies, more positive affect and were more likely to choose harder tasks than students oriented towards social comparison goals, thus lending further support to previous research. In relation to goal orientation and task selection (either selecting similar and easier tasks or more challenging tasks) as an indicator of behavioural responses, Roedel and Schraw (1995) found support for Dweck and Leggett's model. They found choosing a more challenging task to be marginally related to mastery goals, but unrelated to social comparison goals. This study, as with others (e.g., Leondari & Gialamas, 2002; Miller, et al., 1993), found mastery and social comparison orientations to be independent, suggesting that individuals may be high or low on both goal orientations simultaneously (Roedel & Scbraw, 1995).
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Research into academic goal orientations has consistently found mastery goals to have adaptive consequences. However some inconsistencies have been documented regarding social comparison goals, which are sometimes found to be adaptive and sometimes maladaptiv~ learning strategies (Leondari & Gialamas, 2002). Previous studies have almost universally found mastery goals to be positively related to academic achievement (Meece & Holt, 1993; Midgley & Urdan, 1995). However social comparison or performance goals have sometimes been found to be positively related to achievement (Archer, 1994; Midgely & Urdan, 1995), and sometimes either unrelated or negatively related to academic achievement (Meece, et al, 1988; Schraw, Horn, Thorndike-Christ, & Bruning, 1995). As mentioned earlier, no such inconsistencies exist in the mastery goal orientation (Miller, et al., 1993). It has been suggested that these inconsistencies have arisen due to
Literature Review
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was measured by the time discrepancy between their upper limit during the training and retest phases of the Tower of Hanoi task. For fifth-graders, children with an entity view of ability took significantly longer than children with an incremental view of ability to complete problems after failure, despite having no significant difference on the initial training measures. For third-graders, no significant differences were observed. Dweck and colleagues (Dweck, 1986; Dweck, Chiu & Hong, 1995a) have consistently maintained that students' implicit theories of intelligence, moderated by goal orientation, affect their use of adaptive strategies and behavioural responses in achievement situations. For example, one well-documented phenomenon is that on encountering failure or achievement setbacks, individuals seem to respond in one of two ways; either in an adaptive mastery-oriented fashion; characterised by the seeking and enjoyment of challenge, persistence, and the generation of effective problem-solving strategies or in a 'helpless' way; characterised by risk avoidance, self-denigrating thoughts, negative affect, lack of persistence, and poor perfonnance following failure (Dweck, 1996).
children through to adults. It is important to note that the individuals displaying these two patterns do not differ in actual ability, but in their level of achievemen~ especially following achievement setbacks (Cain & Dweck, 1995; Chiu, Hong & Dweck, 1994). A study by Henderson and Dweck ( 1990) linked individuals' views of ability directly to the mastery-oriented or helplessness pattern. Dweck, Hong and Chiu's (1993) review of several studies measuring students' theories of intelligence and using them to predict
They found that people with an entity view of ability displayed a more helpless pattern
Literature Review
behavioural persistence. For example, fewer people with an entity view of ability than with an incremental view of ability chose to work on the same task following failure feedback (Chiu, Hong & Dweck, 1994).
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Henderson and Dweck's (1990) study assessed children's implicit theories of intelligence and used this measure to predict academic performance over the transition from grade school to junior high. As predicted children with an incremental view of ability tended to show a mastery-oriented pattern and children with an entity view of ability a helpless pattern. Clark and Tollefson' s (1991) study of 116 gifted high school
showed support for the predicted differences between the implicit theories of intelligence held by mastery-oriented and helpless students. An additional body of literature again based on Dweck and Leggett's (1988) social· cognitive model links goal orientation with the mastery-oriented and 'helpless' reactions. This is based on the theory that individuals' implicit view of intelligence orients them
comparison goals to the helpless response.
response has been tested in a number of ways. In an early study, Elliott and Dweck
either by heightening the evaluative aspects of the situation or emphasising the value of the task to be learned in order to examine differences in goal preferences and their
students to adopt either social comparison or mastery goals, and found that pursuing social comparison goals produced vulnerability to helpless behaviour, while pursuing
Literature Review
