Enhancing Social Goal Involvement through Cooperative Instructions

Abstract

The current study examined the influence of giving competitive, cooperative, and individualistic goals on goal involvement. After being given cooperative, competitive, or individualistic goals, college students (N = 198; 65 male, 133 female) played a social dilemma task and completed questions assessing task, ego, and cooperative goal involvement. Experimental grouping significantly predicted goal involvement, with cooperative group participants defining success by working with partners more often and outperforming others less often than competitive group participants did. As social ways of defining success generally predict beneficial motivation-related outcomes (e.g., Hodge, Allen, & Smellie, 2008; Stuntz & Weiss, 2009), promoting cooperative goals appears beneficial.