The Effects of Proximal and Distal Goalson Goal Level,Strategy Development,and Group Performance

Abstract

It was hypothesized that team members working toward short-term and long-term goals would perform better than teams only working toward long-term goals, because the former would invest more time and energy in efforts to develop effective task strategies. Thirty-one teams of nurse surveyors working in a state department of health set goals to improve the accuracy of their reports. One-half the groups set a long-term goal for accuracy (the level of accuracy they would ultimately try to achieve over the next 6 to 9 months). The other groups set a long-term goal and one or two short-term goals to serve as intermediate steps. Results showed that although team members in the short-term-plus-long-term-goal condition performed better than those in the long-term-goal condition, strategy development did not mediate this effect. Instead, group members in the short-term-plus-long-term-goal condition set more difficult long-term goals, and more difficult goals led to better performance.