EFFECTS OF GOALS AND PERCEIVED PROBABILIT IES OF GOAL ATTAINMENT ON SELF-ASSESSMENT

This study examined effects of explicitness of achievement goals and p erceived probabilities of goal attainment on self-assessment. Subjects were 251 undergraduate students. They were first asked, as measure of explicitness of goals, if they hope to acquire good capability in sci entific research, and second how they perceived their probabilities of goal attainment. Self-assessment behavior was measured by task choice and task preference for four tasks which differ in diagnosticity. The main results were as follows. (a) The most diagnostic task was chosen for more often by the subjects who both had an explicit goal and perc eived the probability of goal attainment high, and those who didn't ha ve an explicit goal and perceived the probability low. (b) On task pre ference, the effects of goal explicitness and perceived probability we re not found. These results suggest that self-assessment be done for f uture self-enhancement.