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Mastery Goals

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Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences

Synonyms

Learning goals; Mastery orientation; Self-improvement goals; Task goals

Definition

Mastery goals are aimed at attaining a standard of competence defined by self-improvement or skill development. Individuals who hold mastery goals either seek task-related self-improvement or strive to gain task mastery.

Introduction

When individuals find themselves in an achievement situation, they will often set goals that give direction to their efforts. Achievement goals reflect the aim of an individual’s achievement pursuits and may be defined as frameworks that help to understand how individuals perceive, interpret, and react to achievement situations (Elliot 2005). In the achievement goal literature, two types of goals have by far received the most attention: mastery goals and performance goals. Mastery goals involve the aim of improving one’s own performance and gain task mastery, whereas performance goals reflect the pursuit of outperforming others and display superior performance...

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Correspondence to P. Marijn Poortvliet .

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Poortvliet, P.M. (2016). Mastery Goals. In: Zeigler-Hill, V., Shackelford, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_533-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_533-1

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