EXPECTED EVALUATION, GOALS, AND PERFORMANCE - MOOD AS INPUT

Research indicates that effortful performance are reduced when partici pants cannot be evaluated, relative to when they can be evaluated. It was hypothesized that mood would interact with goals to attenuate such reductions in performance. As predicted when participants' goal was t o do as much as they could, those in negative moods put forth more eff ort and persisted longer than those in positive moods and performed eq ually well whether or not they could be evaluated. In contrast, as pre dicted, when participants' goal was to continue until they no longer e njoyed the task, those in positive moods put forth more effort and per sisted longer than those in negative moods; no-evaluation and evaluati on conditions did not differ. For those in positive moods asked to do as much as they could and those in negative moods asked to continue un til they no longer enjoyed the task, no-evaluation participants perfor med worse than evaluation participants.