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Are mastery-avoidance achievement goals always detrimental? An adult development perspective

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Abstract

Achievement goal research consistently reveals that mastery-avoidance goals (i.e., striving to avoid losses) are maladaptive, especially in comparison to mastery-approach goals (i.e., striving for gains). Nearly all of it has been done with children or young adults, however. Lifespan theories of motivation posit that people in late adulthood are more likely than young adults to strive toward maintenance and loss-prevention rather than gains, and also that they sometimes profit from pursuing those goals. Integrating the two approaches, this experiment compared young and older adults’ experience and performance on a laboratory task when pursuing either mastery-approach or mastery-avoidance goals. Results show that young adults perceived the mastery-approach goal to be more attainable and therefore felt less pressure, enjoyed the task more, and performed better with it, whereas older adults showed this pattern with the mastery-avoidance goal. This matching effect replicates recent research on adult development and has broader implications for achievement goal theory and avoidance motivation in general.

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Notes

  1. A matching effect for older adults pursuing MAVO goals could take a strong or weak form. The strong form would show benefits of MAVO goals, while the weaker form would show neutralized, non-toxic effects of MAVO goals. Either is plausible and would depart notably from the negative effects typical for young adults pursuing MAVO goals.

  2. Despite the categorical nature of the goal and age variables, we chose multiple regression over ANCOVA because regression is better suited to fully test the various indirect effects. We chose regression over structural equation modeling due to our medium sample size and desire to explore all possible effects (Kline 2005).

  3. Task persistence was treated as a covariate rather than process variable in those analyses for three reasons. First, its late timing and natural confounding with task performance make it better suited as a covariate. Second, although suitable as an outcome measure (i.e., a behavioral indicator of effort), it does not reflect a clear psychological process. Third, because it can reflect either adaptive or maladaptive motivation, it has no clear place in our hypothesized process model. Hence why this measure played two roles: as an outcome variable to test Hypothesis 5, and as a covariate for all direct and indirect analyses of the key outcomes.

  4. The same suppression effect was tested and ruled out in all other significant age or goal × age effects; each remains significant without baseline ability in the model.

  5. Although there is little theoretical reason to expect it, it is plausible that age alters the links between goal difficulty and performance pressure or between performance pressure and the outcomes. Supplemental analyses tested if age moderates these indirect paths (i.e., moderated mediation). It did not for any.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Monika Bieri and Juerg Graf for assistance in putting together the experimental materials. Financial support for this research was provided by a grant to Corwin Senko, while a Post-Doctoral researcher at the University of Zürich, from the Suzanne and Hans Biäsch Foundation for Applied Psychology.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, State University of New York – New Paltz, 600 Hawk Drive, New Paltz, NY, 12561, USA

    Corwin Senko

  2. Department of Psychology and University Research Priority Program, Dynamics of Healthy Aging, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

    Alexandra M. Freund

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  1. Corwin Senko
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  2. Alexandra M. Freund
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Correspondence to Corwin Senko.

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Senko, C., Freund, A.M. Are mastery-avoidance achievement goals always detrimental? An adult development perspective. Motiv Emot 39, 477–488 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-015-9474-1

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