| Affiliation: | (1) Department of Psychology, Seattle Pacific University, Seattle, Washington;(2) Department of Psychology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington;(3) Department of Psychology, Seattle Pacific University, 3307 3rd Avenue W., Ste. 107, Seattle, WA, 98119-1922 |
| Abstract: | High expectancies of success are widely assumed to have positive effects on performance in achievement situations. However, previous investigations have tended to ignore task difficulty or assume that expectancies affect performance in a linear fashion. In two investigations, we found that (a) expectancies were more closely related to performance at difficult tasks than easy tasks and (b) low expectancies produced the poorest levels of performance, but moderate and high expectancies were equally advantageous. The practical, methodological, and theoretical implications of these findings are considered.This research was supported by a Presidential Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation (SBR-8958211) to Jonathon D. Brown, and a National Science Foundation graduate fellowship to Margaret A. Marshall. |
