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Goals and Needs

Most human behavior is directed by goals and needs, which can range from personal to professional and from short-term to long-term. Needs are what organisms require for survival, while psychological needs drive humans toward goals or behaviors. Goals can be core long-term goals that direct much of what one does, or short-term proximal goals that are more concrete and can be achieved quickly to help reach core goals. Goal orientation theory distinguishes between mastery goals focused on learning and improving, and performance goals focused on demonstrating ability compared to others. Mastery goals are generally more productive for learning than performance goals.

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Haider Ali Abbasi
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109 views2 pages

Goals and Needs

Most human behavior is directed by goals and needs, which can range from personal to professional and from short-term to long-term. Needs are what organisms require for survival, while psychological needs drive humans toward goals or behaviors. Goals can be core long-term goals that direct much of what one does, or short-term proximal goals that are more concrete and can be achieved quickly to help reach core goals. Goal orientation theory distinguishes between mastery goals focused on learning and improving, and performance goals focused on demonstrating ability compared to others. Mastery goals are generally more productive for learning than performance goals.

Uploaded by

Haider Ali Abbasi
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Goals and Needs

Most of human behavior is directed by goals and needs. Goals range from personal to professional,
from being happy to doing well in school, from short-term to long-term and the list could go on and
on. Needs can be objective and physical or subjective and psychological. This lesson will distinguish
between the constructs of goals and needs. We will also discuss differing types of goals as they
relate to academics and learning.
You may understand the definition of need to be anything necessary for an organism to survive. For
example, a plant needs sunlight to survive, or a human needs food and water to survive. In
psychology, however, the concept of need assumes a slightly different definition. To psychologists,
a need is a psychological feature that drives a human or animal toward a goal or behavior. Examples
of this definition include a need for achievement, a need for affiliation with others and a need for
attention.
Let's move on to goals. Goal orientation theory is a social-cognitive theory of achievement
motivation. Goal theory became a particularly important theoretical framework in the study of
academic motivation in the late 1980s. Whereas other motivational theories examine students'
beliefs about their successes and failures, goal orientation theory examines the reasons why
students engage in their academic work.
A core goal is a long-term goal that drives much of what an individual does. These long-term goals
help direct behavior toward achievement and success. Let's meet Jack. Jack is a freshman in
college. Jack wants to go to medical school after completing his undergraduate degree. Jack's core
goal is to get accepted into the most prestigious medical school in the country.
Short-term goals, referred to as proximal goals, are more concrete and can be accomplished within
a short time period. One can think of proximal goals as a stepping stone toward a longer-range goal.
Jack has many proximal goals in order to help him achieve his core goal of getting accepted into a
prestigious medical school. He has a GPA goal of 4.0 for his first semester in college, a goal of
taking the MCATs within two years and a goal of volunteering 50 hours a semester at the local
hospital. All of these goals can be achieved in a short duration of time and will ultimately help Jack
achieve his core goal.

Mastery vs. Performance Goals


The work of early goal theorists contrasted two types of goal orientations: mastery, which is a desire
to acquire additional knowledge or master new skills, and performance, which is a desire to
demonstrate high ability and make a good impression. Recent works of goal theorists have
incorporated a second dimension of goal orientations: approach and avoidance.
Mastery-oriented goals are defined in terms of a focus on learning, mastering the task according to
self-set standards or self-improvement. It also encompasses developing new skills, improving or

developing competence, trying to accomplish something challenging and trying to gain an


understanding or insight.
Performance-oriented goals represent a focus on demonstrating competence or ability and how
ability will be judged relative to others. For example, trying to surpass normative performance
standards, attempting to best others, using casual comparative standards or striving to be the best in
a group or even avoiding judgments of low ability or appearing dumb are examples of performanceoriented goals.
Approach-oriented goals are goals in which individuals are positively motivated to look good and
receive favorable judgment from others.
Avoidance-oriented goals are goals in which individuals can be negatively motivated to try to avoid
failure and to avoid looking incompetent.
Let's explore these concepts and incorporate the second dimension of approach and avoidance. We
are joining Jack in his freshman anatomy and physiology class.
For a mastery approach example, Jack's goal in the class is to learn all of the features of the
human body because he is interested in anatomy and physiology and wants to be able to build his
base knowledge of these principles.
For a mastery avoidance example, Ashley's goal in class is to avoid misunderstanding the features
of a human body and principles of human physiology as presented to her by her teacher.
For an example of performance approach, Hillary's goal in class is to identify all of the bones,
muscles and tissues in the human body more quickly and better than her classmates.
And for performance avoidance, Max's goal in class is to avoid appearing incompetent at
identifying anatomy or applying principles of physiology.
It is important to note that students can hold multiple goals simultaneously; thus, it is possible for a
student to be both mastery-approach-oriented and performance-approach-oriented. Such a student
truly wants to learn and master the material but is also concerned with appearing more competent
than others.

Which Is Best? Mastery or Performance Goals


Researchers agree that mastery goals are more productive than performance goals, and approach
goals are more productive than avoidance goals. Controversy has arisen, however, about whether
performance-approach goals should be considered productive and recommended by teachers as a
complement to mastery-approach goals.

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