TASK INVOLVEMENT AND SATISFICING WITH MOTIVATIONAL SCALES

Three measures related to motivation to perform a rating task accurate ly were obtained from 49 students, who also performed goal-attribute r atings. Less motivated students surpassed more motivated ones on sever al indices of rating bias. Previous evidence for differential relation ships among goal attributes was clearly replicated only with the ratin gs of more motivated subjects. These findings suggest that many respon dents may strive for ''satisfactory'' rather than optimal goal ratings (''satisficing''), that this tendency is a strong potential source of error with such data, but that individual differences related to sati sficing may be used to examine such effects and partially bracket them out. It is suggested that measures of subjects' motivation or other r elated personality characteristics be routinely gathered when multiple ratings from subjects are required.