The Personal Goal Difficulty - Progress Paradox: Unraveling the Role of Self-Efficacy on Perceptions of Goal Difficulty

Abstract

Within classic goal-setting theory, hundreds of laboratory and occupational studies show more difficult goals enhance performance. Yet, in everyday contexts, personal goal difficulty is negatively associated with goal progress. This contradiction may arise from self-efficacy's influence on perceived goal difficulty. In their day-to-day lives, people have less objective cues for assessing difficulty and must rely on their feelings of competence, which likely confounds the measure of difficulty; those with high self-efficacy perceive goals as easier. Conducting mixed model analyses on 8 individual datasets (n=2619), then meta-analyzing the results, we test whether partialing out self-efficacy from goal difficulty reveals its expected positive link with progress (H1a) or remains negative (H1b). We will also explore self-efficacy's moderating role in this relationship (H2).

Keywords: Goal Difficulty, Goal Progress, Personal Goals, self-efficacy