The Context of Anticipated Performance Evaluation, Self-Presentational Motivation, and Performance Effort

Abstract

We tested the usefulness of self-presentational concepts in describing the linkage between the context of an anticipated evaluation and an individual' performance effort. Undergraduate students who performed a complex problem-solving task were told that an outstanding performance would result in a better chance at getting a job with the accounting firm that employed the evaluators of their work. Instructions varied the attractiveness of the accounting firm as an employer and the evaluator' influence over its hiring practices. The subjects' ability to produce work that would impress the evaluator was varied by the description of competitors who were performing the task. Results indicated that performance effort is directly related to the self-presentational concerns of an individual.