Self-Regulation Theory

Goals and Goal Setting

The most fundamental aspect of self-regulation theory is the idea that much of human behavior is directed toward accomplishing goals. Indeed, it is the pursuit of goals that forms the focus of much of selfregulation theory. The term goal takes on a fairly broad meaning in this context, referring to desired future states that individuals wish to attain.

Goals can differ from one another in many ways. For example, they may be assigned by others (e.g., by one's supervisor), they may be self-set by the individual, or they may be determined by some combination of the two (e.g., participatively set). Goals can vary in both difficulty and specificity, as well as content. They can be near-term (proximal) goals or long-term (distal) goals. Goals can even vary in the extent to which one is consciously aware that the goal is guiding behavior. All of these characteristics have important influences on cognition, affect, and behavior.

One of the most consistent findings (although it is not without exception) is that difficult, specific goals often result in high levels of performance. Although this finding has great practical benefit by itself, selfregulation theorists seek to understand precisely how, when, and why such goal-setting effects are obtained. This increased understanding of goal-related processes provides valuable information about how motivational interventions can best be implemented.

Feedback and Self-Monitoring

Feedback plays a critical role in self-regulatory processes. In this context, feedback refers to information concerning an individual's progress toward attaining a goal. By comparing feedback to goals, an individual can determine the level of success he or she is having in pursuing the goal. If the feedback indicates that he or she is not making sufficient progress, then changes are often undertaken, such as investing more effort, trying different approaches to meet the goal, or even abandoning the goal altogether.

Feedback need not come from outside sources (e.g., one's supervisor)—indeed, such external feedback is often unavailable. Thus, individuals often rely on self-monitoring to evaluate their progress toward achieving their goals. Unfortunately, individuals are notoriously flawed in making such self-evaluations, typically perceiving their progress to be better than it really is. As a result, without sufficiently frequent and specific external feedback, individuals often make poor decisions in the pursuit of their goals, such as investing less time and effort than is truly necessary for success and persisting with ineffective strategies.

Goal Hierarchies

Most theories of self-regulation propose that goals are arranged hierarchically in a series of means–ends relationships. For example, a car salesperson may have a goal to obtain a pay raise. To accomplish this goal, the individual must get a positive performance evaluation from his or her supervisor during the annual performance appraisal. To get a positive evaluation, he or she must sell at least eight new cars per month, and so on.

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