PERSONAL GOALS AND EMOTIONAL WELL-BEING - THE MODERATING ROLE OF MOTIVE DISPOSITIONS

Two studies examined the importance of motive dispositions in determin ing the extent to which the pursuit of personal goals accounts for int erindividual differences in emotional well-being. Within the domains o f agency and communion, motives were assessed with a picture-story tes t, whereas self-report measures were used to assess goal attributes. S tudy 1 found that progress toward motive congruent goals, in contrast to progress toward motive-incongruent goals, accounted for students' d aily experiences of emotional well-being. Study 2 found that the combi nation of high commitment to and high attainability of motive-congruen t goals predicted an increase in students' emotional wellbeing over 1 semester. In contrast, high commitment to motive-incongruent goals pre dicted a decline in emotional well-being. Results are discussed with r eference to a 2-system approach to human motivation.