Is defined as a persons desire to strive for and obtain challenging accomplishments?

Achievement goal theory

Achievement goal theories (Dweck, 1986; Elliot, 1999; Nicholls, 1984, 1989) are based on the notion that variations in the way in which individuals judge their own ability (i.e., perceptions of competence) and define successful accomplishments are critical antecedents for understanding young athletes’ motivational processes (Duda, 2001). According to Nicholls (1984), an individual’s internal sense of ability can be conceived as high or low in relation to his or her past performance, or judged as a capacity relative to others. These conceptions of ability underpin two contrasting achievement goal states (i.e., task vs. ego involvement), which determine how individuals define success in achievement settings (Harwood, Spray, & Keegan, 2008). Individuals who gain a sense of competence from improvements in personal mastery are considered task-involved, whereas individuals who gain a sense of competence from demonstrating superior performance in relation to others are considered to be ego-involved. From a theoretical perspective, achievement goals (i.e., task vs. ego involvement) within a specific situation are determined by a complex interaction between one’s dispositional goal orientations (intrapersonal level) and the wider motivational climate (situational level) created by key social agents (e.g., coaches, parents, peers).

At an intrapersonal level, Nicholls’ (1984, 1989) dichotomous model of achievement goals proposes that over time, individuals develop a dispositional proneness to conceive ability as task- or ego-oriented within achievement contexts (Nicholls, 1989; Smith, Cumming, & Smoll, 2008). There is considerable evidence to suggest that high levels of task orientation are associated with a wide range of positive cognitive, affective, and behavioral outcomes at an individual level, whereas high levels of ego orientation are associated with neutral or less optimal outcomes, particularly when perceptions of competence are low or not accompanied by task-based goals (Harwood et al., 2008).

Alternatively, at a situational level, Ames (1992) proposed two types of motivational climate that can influence an individual’s achievement goal state (i.e., task vs. ego involvement) in an achievement context (e.g., youth sport competitions). A mastery/task-involving climate is created when key social agents (i.e., coaches, parents, peers) are perceived to place emphasis on self-referenced improvement, effort, and cooperative learning, whereas a performance/ego-involving climate is created when there is a perceived focus on outcomes (i.e., winning), emphasis on outperforming others (i.e., social comparison), preferential treatment is seen to be given to other performers, and mistakes are punished (Seifriz, Duda, & Chi, 1992). Therefore, motivational climates are established by a pattern of normative influences, evaluative standards, rewards and sanctions, interpersonal interactions, and values communicated by social agents within achievement contexts (Smith et al., 2008). Considering this, it is perhaps not surprising that motivational climate research has become one of the most popular, and widely researched topics within the youth sport literature (Harwood et al., 2008).

2.1 Basic Tenets of the Achievement Goal Framework

Achievement goal theory holds that, when performing achievement-related tasks, individuals can fluctuate in their state of involvement directed toward task or ego goals. That is, they can be more or less task- and ego-involved at any point during task engagement. The likelihood of being task- and/or ego-involved is assumed to be influenced by dispositional tendencies regarding these states of goal involvement; i.e., people (once they have reached a particular level of cognitive development in late childhood and beyond) can vary in their degree of task and ego orientation. It is important to point out that these orientations tend to be orthogonal. Thus, with specific reference to goal setting, we are interested in how individuals who are high task/high ego, high task/low ego, low task/high ego, and low task/low ego might differ in the goals set, their processing of goal-related feedback, and the corresponding motivational processes and resulting behaviors. In the sport domain, two instruments with established validity and reliability have been developed to assess dispositional goal orientations, namely the Task and Ego Orientation in Sport Questionnaire and the Perceptions of Success Questionnaire.

Whether someone is striving to meet task- and/or ego-involved goal criteria during the goal setting process is also assumed to be dependent on the situationally and task-emphasized goals or the perceived motivational climate. In particular, the tasks involved and social environments surrounding individuals as they undergo goal setting vary in the degree to which they are more or less task- and/or ego-involving. With respect to the goal-setting process, these overriding climates are created by the type and level of the goals assigned, the nature of the feedback given, the evaluation criteria used to judge goal accomplishment, and the manner in which that goal accomplishment is recognized. If goal setting was undertaken in a task-involving climate, the goals set would be primarily improvement-focused and effort-dependent (i.e., process and performance goals), the feedback provided would be informational, self-referenced, and task-centered, the person himself/herself could be involved in the evaluation of goal accomplishment, and successful goal completion would be primarily tied to intrinsic satisfaction. The individual’s level of commitment, perspective on goal challenge, and input would be strongly recognized in a task-involving goal-setting program.

Goal setting in an ego-conducive manner, on the other hand, would entail a preoccupation with normatively referenced goals (the majority would probably be outcome-oriented), the feedback given would be more judgmental and marked by social comparison, evaluation of goal accomplishment would make the person particularly aware of and concerned about his or her relative ability, and the sources and nature of the recognition offered when goals are met (or not met) would help couple the individual’s sense of self to successful (or unsuccessful) goal completion. Further, personal volition and the participant’s contribution to the process would most likely take a back seat in an ego-involving goal-setting program.

Pertinent to sporting contexts, assessments have been developed to tap the perceived motivational climate created by the coach (e.g., the PMCSQ-2) and parents (e.g., the PIMCQ), in the view of athletes. Researchers have also pulled from the TARGET taxonomy formulated by Epstein to analyze the dimensions underlying the climates manifested in sport. The particular structures encapsulated in this taxonomy are the nature of the task, source of authority, bases and form of recognition, structure and focus of groups in the setting, criteria for evaluation, and use of time.

The motivational climate from an achievement goal theory perspective

Drawing from the major tenets of AGT (Ames, 1992; Nicholls, 1989), variability in the degree to which individuals tend to judge their competence and define success utilizing task- and/or ego-involved criteria is assumed to impact how they interpret and respond to achievement-related activities. With respect to task-involved criteria, emphasis is placed on exerting effort, experiencing improvement and/or witnessing mastery. An ego-involved conception of competence and subjective success is tied to the demonstration of superiority. In terms of the central features of the social environment, not surprisingly AGT points to the ramifications of motivational climates marked by more or less task- and/or ego-involving characteristics. Via interactions with athletes, a task-involving coach indicates that he/she places value on individuals working hard and working together to do their best (Newton, Duda, & Yin, 2000). In contrast, a strongly ego-involving coach-created climate is characterized by differential treatment of athletes based on levels of ability, and a focus on outperforming one’s competitors (and perhaps even one’s teammates) and punishment for mistakes (Newton et al., 2000).

There have been numerous AGT-based studies addressing the correlates of these two dimensions of the coach-created environment. Overall, the findings point to the benefits of participating in a task-involving climate for sport participants as perceptions of such an environment have corresponded with a variety of positive outcomes (eg, intrinsic motivation, positive emotions, beliefs about the value of trying hard, greater “sportsmanship” and reported use of problem-solving coping strategies; see Duda & Balaguer, 2007, for a review of earlier work). Recent studies have added to this compelling literature and have revealed perceptions of a task-involving coach-created climate to positively predict athlete engagement (Curran, Hill, Hall, & Jowett, 2015), enjoyment (Jaakkola, Ntoumanis, & Liukkonen, 2015), and team cohesion (García-Calvo et al., 2014).

Athletes’ perceptions of an ego-involving atmosphere have been linked to negative or maladaptive responses (such as heightened anxiety, compromised moral functioning, and dropping out) (Duda & Balaguer, 2007). Research has revealed positive relationships between a coach-created ego-involving team environment and athletes’ reporting of psychological difficulties and use of avoidance/withdrawal coping strategies (Kim, Duda, & Gano-Overway, 2011).

Motivational Climate

The construct of motivational climate is based on the achievement goal theory (Ames, 1992) and is the social situation created by the coach and/or the other athletes with regard to achievement goal orientations (Duda & Balaguer, 2007). These goal orientations can be divided into two different factors, a mastery climate (also task oriented motivational climate), and/or an ego-oriented motivational climate. Within a mastery climate, the task to be performed is the goal for the athletes, so the focus is on exerting effort and improving personally in a specific task. High values of an ego climate would indicate that the focus is mostly on demonstrating superior performance compared to other athletes (Duda & Balaguer, 2007). Creating a mastery climate within a group has positive effects on performance (Balaguer, Duda, Atienza, & Mayo, 2002), but also on other group processes like peer relationships (Ommundsen, Roberts, Lemyre, & Miller, 2005).

2.4 Achievement Goal Theory

In contrast with both E-V and attribution approaches, achievement goal theory focuses on the kind of motivation that operates in achievement settings. The emphasis on the role of cognitions is similar, however. Achievement goal theory focuses on students' constructions of the meaning of success, and thus of the goals they strive to achieve. In a direct critique of McClelland and Atkinson, who in his view defined need achievement mainly as a drive to succeed more than others, Nicholls (1989) proposed that there is more than one way of defining success. Initially, theorists distinguished between ego or performance goals that orient students to demonstrate competence by showing superior or masking inferior ability versus task or learning goals that orient students to define success as learning, and to strive to develop competence by acquiring worthwhile skills and understandings (Dweck, 1986; Nicholls, 1989). Although the terms ego versus learning goals best capture the difference between strivings to prove versus improve competence emphasized in this chapter, so as not to confuse readers familiar with this literature, I shall use the more common “performance” and “mastery” labels. Influenced in part by Atkinson's distinction between motives to achieve and to avoid failure, some researchers subsequently proposed that strivings to prove superior ability and strivings to avoid failure and the demonstration of poor ability reflect distinct performance-approach versus performance-avoidance goals (e.g., Harackiewicz, Barron, Pintrich, Elliot, & Thrush, 2002).

Mastery and performance goals constitute distinct motivational systems that are associated with qualitatively different antecedents, processes, and outcomes (for a review, Butler, 2000). In present terms, mastery goals orient students to try and to improve—to attribute outcomes to effort, to define and evaluate competence relative to task demands or prior outcomes, to construe difficulty as diagnostic of the need for further learning, and to respond by increasing effort, trying different strategies, and seeking help and information that can support learning. Performance goals orient students to prove—to define and evaluate competence relative to others, to attribute outcomes to ability, to construe setbacks as diagnostic of low ability, and to avoid exposing inadequate ability by asking for help. Debates continue whether these rather negative processes are associated only with performance-avoidance or also with performance-approach goals. Both kinds of performance goals, however, are maladaptive when students do poorly, whereas mastery goals are more likely to orient students to maintain motivation and effort even if they are not at the top of the class (Butler, 2000).

In keeping with their social-constructivist approach, achievement goal theorists posit that students construct goals in large part in response to instructional emphases on the importance of learning and progress or of demonstrating superior levels of performance and achievement. Despite evidence that girls tend more to mastery and boys to performance goals, researchers in this tradition rarely focus on the far-reaching implications for understanding gender and motivation in educational settings.

4 The Motivation to Cheat: Achievement Goals as a Determinant of Moral Action

The most promising avenue to investigate moral functioning and action in sport has been to use achievement goal theory. This framework assumes that achievement goals govern achievement beliefs and guide subsequent decision making and behavior in achievement contexts. It is argued that to understand the motivation of individuals, the function and meaning of the achievement behavior to the individual must be taken into account and the goal of action must be understood. It is clear that there may be multiple goals of action rather than just one. Thus, variation of behavior might not be the manifestation of high or low motivation per se; instead, it might be the expression of different perceptions of appropriate goals. An individual’s investment of personal resources, such as effort, talent, and time in an activity as well as moral action, may be dependent on the achievement goal of the individual in that activity.

The goal of action in achievement goal theory is assumed to be the demonstration of competence. In 1989, Nicholls argued that two conceptions of ability manifest themselves in achievement contexts: an undifferentiated concept of ability (where ability and effort are perceived as the same concept by the individual or he or she chooses not to differentiate) and a differentiated concept of ability (where ability and effort are seen as independent concepts). Nicholls identified achievement behavior using the undifferentiated conception of ability as task involvement and identified achievement behavior using the differentiated conception of ability as ego involvement. The two conceptions of ability have different criteria by which individuals measure success. The goals of action are to meet those criteria by which success is assessed. When task involved, the goal of action is to develop mastery or improvement and the demonstration of ability is self-referenced. Success is realized when mastery or improvement has been attained. The goal of action for an ego-involved individual, on the other hand, is to demonstrate normative ability so as to outperform others. Success is realized when the performance of others is exceeded, especially when little effort is expended.

Whether one is engaged in a state of ego or task involvement is dependent on the dispositional orientation of the individual as well as situational factors. Consider the dispositional aspect first. It is assumed that individuals are predisposed to act in an ego- or task-involved manner. These predispositions are called achievement goal orientations. An individual who is task oriented is assumed to become task involved, or chooses to be task involved, so as to assess demonstrated competence in the achievement task. The individual evaluates personal performance to determine whether effort is expended and mastery is achieved; thus, the demonstration of ability is self-referenced and success is realized when mastery or improvement is demonstrated. In contrast, an individual who is ego oriented is assumed to become ego involved in the activity. The individual evaluates personal performance with reference to the performance of others; thus, the demonstration of ability is other-referenced and success is realized when the performance of others is exceeded, especially when little effort is expended.

Achievement goal theory holds that the state of motivational goal involvement that the individual adopts in a given achievement context is a function of both motivational dispositions and situational factors. An individual enters an achievement setting with the disposition tendency to be task and/or ego oriented (goal orientation), but the motivational dynamics of the context will also have a profound influence on the adopted goal of action, especially for children. If the sport context is characterized by a value placed on interpersonal competition and social comparison, the coach emphasizing winning and achieving outcomes, and a public recognition of the demonstration of ability, a performance climate prevails. This reinforces an individual’s likelihood of being ego involved in that context. If, on the other hand, the context is characterized by learning and mastery of skills, trying hard to do one’s best, and the coach using private evaluation of demonstrated ability, a mastery climate prevails. An individual is more likely to be task involved in that context. Therefore, being task or ego involved is the product of an interaction of personal dispositions and the perceived motivational climate. However, in the research literature, investigators typically look at one aspect or the other are rarely look at them in combination.

Shields and Bredemeier argued that situational influences may have a great effect on an athlete’s moral action. Competitive ego-involving structures may focus the individual’s attention on the self and, in the case of team sports, on those comprising the in-group as well. This may reduce the player’s sensitivity to the welfare of opposing players. Extensive involvement in competitive contexts may reduce the person’s ability to show empathy, thereby reducing consideration for the needs of others faced with a moral dilemma. Indeed, several studies have shown that participation in competition is associated both with reduced sportspersonship and prosocial behavior and with increased antisocial behavior, hostility, and aggressiveness. However, it is argued here that it might not be competition in and of itself that induces sociomoral dysfunction on the individual and group levels. Rather, it might be the perceived motivational climate that may shape an athlete’s moral functioning. Indeed, moral development theorists, such as Rest, agree that moral behavior is intentional motivated behavior. Thus, to predict sociomoral perceptions and actions, one must consider the motivational characteristics of the situation. First, dispositional influences on cheating are examined.

Person and Contextual Influences

As in other areas of self-regulation, help seeking has been extensively studied within the framework of achievement goal theory, which differentiates between mastery-focused and performance-focused approaches to learning (Arbreton, 1998; Butler, 1998; Butler and Neuman, 1995; Karabenick, 2003, 2004; Newman, 2002; Pintrich, 2000; Ryan et al., 1997; Ryan and Pintrich, 1997, 1998). At the individual level, studies have consistently shown that instrumental/adaptive help seeking is more likely among mastery-oriented students, who tend to construe seeking help within the broader goal of understanding and self-improvement (i.e., developing competence). Theirs is a learning orientation, which lends itself either to seeking help adaptively, or to working independently when that would be more effective (Butler, 1998). Adaptive help seeking is less likely, however, for students who are concerned about appearing incompetent (i.e., a performance-avoid orientation). If such students do seek help, it is often in the form of expedient or executive help seeking (e.g., Karabenick, 2004; Karabenick et al., 2005).

Students' achievement goals at any point in time are a function both of past experiences and features of the contemporaneous learning context. Achievement goal structure refers to how students construe their classrooms and courses of study in terms of the contextual emphasis on mastery and/or performance goals (Ames and Archer, 1988; Midgley, 2002). Studies using hierarchical modeling consistently have found that students' perceptions of their classes' achievement goal structure influence their tendencies to seek or to avoid seeking help when needed (Church et al., 2001; Midgley, 2002; Urdan et al., 2002). Elementary school classes that students collectively judge as more focused on mastery are less likely to avoid seeking needed help (Turner et al., 2002). Although young children are concerned about not appearing incompetent by asking for help, not until middle school do such concerns influence whether they will ask (Newman, 2000). Presumably a consequence of increased evaluation pressures that begin with the transition to middle school (Eccles and Midgley, 1989; Ryan and Pintrich, 1997, 1998), performance goal-related classroom characteristics, in addition to perceived classroom mastery goals, affect middle school students' tendencies to seek or to avoid seeking help (Karabenick et al., 2005; Newman, 2002; Ryan et al., 1998). By the time students are in college, available evidence suggests that classroom mastery goals are not as relevant to help seeking; rather, students in classes they perceive to be focused on avoiding demonstrations of incompetence (performance-avoid goals) are less likely to seek needed help, or they seek expedient help (Karabenick, 2004).

Cognitive maturation

Trends in cognitive maturation that youth experience in childhood and adolescence have implications for peer/group interactions and relationships relative to their sport participation. Nicholls’ (1984, 1989) achievement goal theory is useful to understand a key feature of cognitive maturation salient to youth sport group dynamics: differentiating effort from ability. Specifically, Nicholls puts forth that children conceive of effort and ability as measures of their competence. He posits that while children in early childhood (under 7 years of age) can show a preoccupation with outperforming others, they are typically more task-involved: they value effort, which they view as synonymous with ability, and gauge task difficulty based on how difficult task execution is for them. As youth mature, however, they develop the capacity to distinguish effort from ability. They initially demonstrate this differentiated perspective inconsistently, but gain marked consistency by late childhood (11–12 years old; Nicholls, 1984, 1989; Weiss & Williams, 2004). Youth can conceive that individuals who are successful at a given task but exercise little effort likely possess high ability. They can also understand that an individual’s personal capacity may limit the extent to which effort can enhance ability, and use norm-referenced criteria to assess task difficulty. Thus, although youth may vary in when they develop the capacity to fully differentiate, typically by late childhood they can choose to evaluate their ability from an undifferentiated or differentiated perspective.

Young athletes’ developing capacity to distinguish effort from ability can influence how they engage with group dynamics. Youth who have yet to develop the capacity to fully differentiate also have a more egocentric perspective; they are less capable of adopting another person’s (or group’s) viewpoint (i.e., role-taking). Although children in early childhood can spontaneously compare ability relative to others, their more consistent capacity to fully differentiate coincides with a budding preference for social comparison information and competition to gauge ability in middle childhood (Passer, 1996). As youth more consistently adopt a differentiated perspective and show a heightened preoccupation for social comparison information to judge their competence, this developmental shift can impact peer, opponent, and teammate interactions and dynamics. When youth exercise a differentiated perspective and gravitate toward social comparison (or competitive results) to measure their own ability, they may become preoccupied with outperforming others, rather than personally improving. Strong inclinations toward competition and social comparison may detract from a young athlete’s ability to engage in inclusive peer interactions and form adaptive relationships. Instead, they might misconstrue competition with teammates and opponents as adversarial rather than cooperative—a form of mutual striving (Shields & Bredemeier, 2009). An eagerness to compete with peers and “be the best” does not necessarily undermine a young athlete’s peer relationships and group interactions. If a young person understands competition as mutually striving with, rather than against, others and uses peer comparison information to reach new levels of personal excellence, they can guard against these potentially deleterious effects and support cooperative, adaptive peer relationships and group dynamics.

Summary

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Introduction: process, obstacles, and challenges.

Training creativity: structured and unstructured exploration, domain-general and domain-specific creative training, criticism (external and self-evaluation/judgment) and influence on creativity.

Deliberate practice and other factors leading to expertise: focus and attention, memorization skills, skills required to achieve expert status, achievement goal theory, self-determination.

Training musicians: formal training programs and curriculum, social and personal skills, early versus late beginning in training, neurological changes due to long-term musical training, rewards and challenges.

Training singers: formal training programs and curriculum, brain structures and singing, socialization and character work, identity as singer.

Training actors: formal training programs and curriculum, emotional expression and brain development, memorization and fidelity to text, character development.

Training dancers: formal training programs and curriculum, injury rates and kinesthetic aesthetics, perceptual–cognitive structures and memory retention, shorter careers and transitions.