REDUCING SELF-DISCREPANCIES OR MAINTAINING SELF-CONGRUENCE - UNCERTAINTY ORIENTATION, SELF-REGULATION, AND PERFORMANCE

Reducing discrepancies between performance and goals was predicted to motivate uncertainty-oriented people, but maintaining congruence was p redicted to be more motivating for certainty-oriented people. Being mo tivated should lead to better performance when a person is focused on positive outcomes, or to worse performance if he or she is focused on negative outcomes (success-oriented vs. failure-threatened in Studies 1 and 2, ideal vs. ought discrepancy in Study 3). Three studies tested these hypotheses: an experiment that used bogus performance feedback, a field study of examination performance as a function of prior discr epancies from desired grades, and an experimental priming of standards associated with a discrepancy or with no discrepancy. All 3 studies r evealed the predicted interaction, supporting the hypothesis that ther e are individual differences in motivation as a function of goal discr epancy or congruence.