Andrew J Elliot
Biographic Data
| ID | 208647 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Andrew J Elliot |
| GIVEN NAMES | Andrew J |
| FAMILY NAME | Elliot |
| SIGNATURE | ELLIOT A J |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Rochester |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-1664-6426 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 127 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 1720 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 127 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1991 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 18 |
Growth Feedback, Mastery-approach Goals, and Learning-related Outcomes
Economic Inequality Increases Negative Affect
Economic inequality has been increasing as a global trend and has profound implications for subjective well-being. However, the affective dimension of subjective well-being remains relatively underexplored. The present research aimed to understand the psychological impact of economic inequality on individuals’ affect and the underlying mechanisms. We hypothesized that economic inequality would decrease positive affect and increase negative affect…
Achievement Goals and Income Inequality
The achievement goal perspective highlights the importance of mastery-approach goals in facilitating students’ academic achievement. However, a socio-ecological lens would suggest that the effectiveness of these mastery-approach goals might vary across different levels of income inequality, specifically national- and school-level income inequality. Understanding the role of income inequality is essential for advancing a socio-ecologically sensiti…
Influence of competition on motor inhibitory control
Teachers’ metamotivational knowledge about students’ achievement goals
Principals’ achievement motives and implicit theories predict principals’ desired achievement goals for their students
The present research investigated principals’ achievement motives and implicit theories of intelligence as predictors of their desired achievement goals for their students. The research was highly powered and conducted in the understudied cultural context of Saudi Arabia. Data were collected from 326 principals (175 female and 151 male) in single-sex elementary, middle, and high schools in the study. Results indicated that the need for achievemen…
Metamotivational task knowledge of performance-approach and performance-avoidance achievement goals
Stability and change in academic achievement goals
Effects of peers’ emotions on students’ emotions, achievement goals, mental effort, and performance
Emotion transmission often occurs in social interactions but has attracted limited attention in the education domain. Given the frequent interactions among teachers and students, not only teachers’ emotions but also peers’ emotions may influence students’ learning. This preregistered experimental study investigated how peers’ emotions (either enjoyment, neutral state, or frustration) affect students’ emotion, motivation, and cognition in observat…
Socio-economic status, mastery-approach goals and learning-related outcomes
BackgroundSocio-economic status is one of the most important factors shaping students' motivation and achievement but has seldom been explored in relation to achievement goals.AimsThis study aimed to investigate whether mastery-approach goals explain the link between SES and key learning-related outcomes (mediation) and whether SES modifies the relationship between mastery-approach goals and these outcomes (moderation).SampleData came from 595,44…
How Many Participants Do I Need to Test an Interaction? Conducting an Appropriate Power Analysis and Achieving Sufficient Power to Detect an Interaction
Power analysis for first-order interactions poses two challenges: (a) Conducting an appropriate power analysis is difficult because the typical expected effect size of an interaction depends on its shape, and (b) achieving sufficient power is difficult because interactions are often modest in size. This article consists of three parts. In the first part, we address the first challenge. We first use a fictional study to explain the difference betw…
The effect of red on attractiveness for highly attractive women
Feeling poor or feeling poorer
Separate areas of research have found that need-based and relative-based operationalizations of subjective income are important for health. Need- and relative-based measures are conceptually distinct, but differential implications for downstream outcomes have never been directly tested. In the present study, US residents ( N = 844) reported their subjective-need and subjective-relative income, as well as their health and well-being. Subjective-ne…
Opposing effects of income inequality on health
Income inequality is commonly posited to elevate concerns about social status that undermine psychological health, but the empirical evidence is inconsistent. Here we propose that these inconsistencies conceal opposing processes: Income inequality prompts perceived competitiveness, which can both negatively predict psychological health via avoidance motivation and positively predict psychological health via approach motivation. First, we conducte…
Achievement goal perception
present a formal methodological approach to studying this novel concept using a Bayesian implementation of the multivariate SRM (MSRM), and put the proposed integrative approach to the test with an in-depth empirical study that directly addresses fundamental questions of achievement goal perception. In this empirical study, we measured four types of achievement goal perceptions-mastery-approach (MAP), mastery-avoidance (MAV), performance-approach…
Mastery-approach goals
595,444 adolescents) to examine the relations of MAP goals to four antecedents (workmastery, competitiveness, fear of failure, fixed mindset) and 16 consequences (task-specific motivational, achievement-related, and well-being outcomes), and tested the cross-cultural generalizability of these relations. Results showed that MAP goals were: (a) grounded primarily in positive but not negative achievement motives/beliefs; (b) most strongly predictive…
A three-dimensional taxonomy of achievement emotions
We present a three-dimensional taxonomy of achievement emotions that considers valence, arousal, and object focus as core features of these emotions. By distinguishing between positive and negative emotions (valence), activating and deactivating emotions (arousal), and activity emotions, prospective outcome emotions, and retrospective outcome emotions (object focus), the taxonomy has a 2 × 2 × 3 structure representing 12 groups of achievement emo…
Early literacy skill development and motivation in the low-income context of Haiti
Income inequality predicts competitiveness and cooperativeness at school
Competitiveness and cooperativeness are important predictors of social and learning outcomes at school.Drawing on evidence suggesting that contexts with high income inequality foster an ethos of competitiveness and inhibit cooperativeness in the economic environment, we examine whether income inequality is also associated with more competitiveness and less cooperativeness in the academic environment.We conducted four preregistered studies to test…
Spontaneous use of retrieval and rereading
The effects of U.S. county and state income inequality on self-reported happiness and health are equivalent to zero
The present work suggests that-at least in the USA-income inequality is likely neither associated with self-reported happiness nor with self-reported health
Goal complexes
Advances in Motivation Science
The effects of Covid-19 on perceived intergroup competition and negative intergroup outcomes
2,131) for this research. The data provided support for the hypothesis that perceptions of Black-White intergroup competition, and subsequently perceptions of discrimination, behavioral avoidance, intergroup anxiety, and interracial mistrust would be higher after the onset of COVID-19. Three additional predictors, a perceived interracial competition manipulation, political orientation, and population density at the ZIP-code level were examined to…
Awe arises in reaction to exceeded rather than disconfirmed expectancies
Awe is a fascinating emotion, associated with positive consequences such as greater prosociality, generosity, and epistemic openness. Unfortunately, in spite of the weighty consequences of awe, the exact way in which it arises, and what it entails, is still a puzzle. Particularly puzzling is the question of whether awe is the result of expectancy violation. While awe is thought to arise in reaction to expectancy-violating objects or events, class…
A 2 × 2 achievement goal framework
A 2 x 2 achievement goal framework comprising mastery-approach, mastery-avoidance, performance-approach, and performance-avoidance goals was proposed and tested in 3 studies. Factor analytic results supported the independence of the 4 achievement goal constructs. The goals were examined with respect to several important antecedents (e.g., motive dispositions, implicit theories, socialization histories) and consequences (e.g., anticipatory test an…
A hierarchical model of approach and avoidance achievement motivation
A hierarchical model of approach and avoidance achievement motivation was proposed and tested in a college classroom. Mastery, performance-approach, and performance-avoidance goals were assessed and their antecedents and consequences examined. Results indicated that mastery goals were grounded in achievement motivation and high competence expectancies; performance-avoidance goals, in fear of failure and low competence expectancies; and performanc…
What is satisfying about satisfying events? Testing 10 candidate psychological needs
Three studies compared 10 candidate psychological needs in an attempt to determine which are truly most fundamental for humans. Participants described "most satisfying events" within their lives and then rated the salience of each of the 10 candidate needs within these events. Supporting self-determination theory postulates (Ryan & Deci, 2000)--autonomy, competence, and relatedness, were consistently among the top 4 needs, in terms of both their …
Goal striving, need satisfaction, and longitudinal well-being
On the motivational nature of cognitive dissonance
Most empirical research investigating the motivational properties of cognitive dissonance has focused on the arousal component of dissonance rather than on the psychological component explicitly delineated by L. Festinger (1957) . In 2 induced-compliance experiments, a self-report measure of affect was used to demostrate that dissonance is experienced as psychological discomfort and that this psychological discomfort is alleviated on implementati…
Approach-avoidance motivation in personality
Prejudice with and without compunction
Ss reported their standards for how they should respond and how they would respond in contact situations with Black people (Study 1) and homosexual men (Study 2). Interest centered on the affective consequences associated with should-would discrepancies
Test anxiety and the hierarchical model of approach and avoidance achievement motivation
This research was designed to incorporate the test anxiety (TA) construct into the hierarchical model of approach and avoidance achievement motivation. Hypotheses regarding state and trait TA were tested in 2 studies, and the results provided strong support for the predictions. State TA (specifically, worry) was documented as a mediator of the negative relationship between performance-avoidance goals and exam performance. The positive relationshi…
Approach and avoidance achievement goals and intrinsic motivation
nMost contemporary achievement goal conceptualizations consist of a performance goal versus mastery goal dichotomy. The present research offers an alternative framework by partitioning the performance goal orientation into independent approach and avoidance motivational orientations. Two experiments investigated the predictive utility of the proposed approach-avoidance achievement goal conceptualization in the intrinsic motivation domain. Results…
Behavioral activation and inhibition in everyday life
Joint effects of daily events and dispositional sensitivities to cues of reward and punishment on daily positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA) were examined in 3 diary studies. Study 1 showed that positive events were strongly related to PA but not NA, whereas negative events were strongly related to NA but not PA. Studies 2 and 3 examined how the dispositional sensitivities of independent appetitive and aversive motivational systems, the …
Romantic red
In many nonhuman primates, the color red enhances males' attraction to females. In 5 experiments, the authors demonstrate a parallel effect in humans: Red, relative to other achromatic and chromatic colors, leads men to view women as more attractive and more sexually desirable. Men seem unaware of this red effect, and red does not influence women's perceptions of the attractiveness of other women, nor men's perceptions of women's overall likeabil…
Self-Concordance and Subjective Well-Being in Four Cultures
Sheldon and colleagues have recently focused research attention on the concept of self-concordance, in which people feel that they pursue their goals because the goals fit with their underlying interests and values rather than because others say they should pursue them. Self-concordant individuals typically evidence higher subjective well-being (SWB). But is this also true in non-Western cultures, which emphasize people's duty to conform to socie…
The social-cognitive model of achievement motivation and the 2 × 2 achievement goal framework
Two studies examined hypotheses drawn from a proposed modification of the social-cognitive model of achievement motivation that centered on the 2 x 2 achievement goal framework. Implicit theories of ability were shown to be direct predictors of performance attainment and intrinsic motivation, and the goals of the 2 x 2 framework were shown to account for these direct relations. Perceived competence was shown to be a direct predictor of achievemen…
Attachment and exploration in adulthood
In the present work, the relationship between attachment and exploration in adulthood is examined from both theoretical and empirical standpoints. Theoretically, attachment theory's exploration system is linked to R. W. White's (1959) concept of effectance motivation, and to the motive and goals constructs that are central to the achievement motivation literature. Empirically, 4 studies are presented that document a link between adult attachment …
Inspiration as a psychological construct
Inspiration has received little theoretical or empirical attention within psychology. Inspiration is conceptualized herein as a general construct characterized by evocation, motivation, and transcendence. In Studies 1a and 1b, a trait measure of inspiration was developed and was found to have strong psychometric properties. Studies 2a-2c documented a nomological network consistent with the present conceptualization. Study 3 related inspiration to…
The self-serving bias in relational context
This article examined the impact of relationship closeness on the self-serving bias (SSB). Members of relationally distant dyads working on interdependen t-outcomes tasks manifested the SSB: They took credit for dyadic success but blamed the partner for dyadic failure. However, members of relationally close dyads did not manifest the SSB: They did not take more credit than their partner for dyadic success and did not blame the partner more than t…
Avoidance achievement motivation
Predictors and consequences of achievement goals in the college classroom
The authors investigated personality predictors of achievement goals in an introductory psychology class, as well as the consequences of these goals for the motivation and performance of 311 undergraduates. Two dimensions of achievement motivation (workmastery and competitive orientations; J. T. Spence & R. L. Helmreich, 1983) predicted the goals endorsed. Individuals high in workmastery were more likely to adopt mastery goals and less likely to …
Implicit theories and IQ test performance
Narcissism and Comparative Self-Enhancement Strategies
Goal setting, achievement orientation, and intrinsic motivation
This study investigated the interactive effects of achievement orientation and evaluative focus of assigned, task-specific goals on intrinsic motivation for an enjoyable pinball game. Regression analyses revealed that the effect of performance or mastery-focused goals on intrinsic motivation varied as a function of achievement orientation. Specifically, the provision of task-specific standards with a performance focus enhanced intrinsic motivatio…
Sexy red
Avoidance personal goals and the personality–illness relationship
A three-dimensional taxonomy of achievement emotions
We present a three-dimensional taxonomy of achievement emotions that considers valence, arousal, and object focus as core features of these emotions. By distinguishing between positive and negative emotions (valence), activating and deactivating emotions (arousal), and activity emotions, prospective outcome emotions, and retrospective outcome emotions (object focus), the taxonomy has a 2 × 2 × 3 structure representing 12 groups of achievement emo…
Predictors of Older Adults' Technology Use and Its Relationship to Depressive Symptoms and Well-being
Findings do not support the claim that ICT use directly enhances mental health or well-being among older adults although it may protect against depressive symptoms for individuals coping with health conditions other than ADL impairments
Prejudice with and without compunction
Ss reported their standards for how they should respond and how they would respond in contact situations with Black people (Study 1) and homosexual men (Study 2). Interest centered on the affective consequences associated with should-would discrepancies
Achievement goals and intrinsic motivation
Two experiments investigated the effects of achievement goals on intrinsic motivation for an enjoyable pinball game. Study 1 manipulated Ss' performance (demonstrating ability) and mastery (developing one's skills) achievement goals and contrasted them with a neutral control group. Stud, 2 replicated Study 1 and extended it by additionally providing (or not) Ss with positive, goal-relevant feedback. Results were consistent across studies, indicat…
On the motivational nature of cognitive dissonance
Most empirical research investigating the motivational properties of cognitive dissonance has focused on the arousal component of dissonance rather than on the psychological component explicitly delineated by L. Festinger (1957) . In 2 induced-compliance experiments, a self-report measure of affect was used to demostrate that dissonance is experienced as psychological discomfort and that this psychological discomfort is alleviated on implementati…
Goal setting, achievement orientation, and intrinsic motivation
This study investigated the interactive effects of achievement orientation and evaluative focus of assigned, task-specific goals on intrinsic motivation for an enjoyable pinball game. Regression analyses revealed that the effect of performance or mastery-focused goals on intrinsic motivation varied as a function of achievement orientation. Specifically, the provision of task-specific standards with a performance focus enhanced intrinsic motivatio…
Are Racial Stereotypes Really Fading? The Princeton Trilogy Revisited
In this article, the authors identify three methodological short-comings of the classic Princeton trilogy studies: (a) ambiguity of the instructions given to respondents, (b) no assessment of respondents' level of prejudice, and (c) use of an outdated list of adjectives. These shortcomings are addressed in the authors' assessment of the stereotype and personal beliefs of a sample of University of Wisconsin students. In contrast to the commonly es…
Approach and avoidance achievement goals and intrinsic motivation
nMost contemporary achievement goal conceptualizations consist of a performance goal versus mastery goal dichotomy. The present research offers an alternative framework by partitioning the performance goal orientation into independent approach and avoidance motivational orientations. Two experiments investigated the predictive utility of the proposed approach-avoidance achievement goal conceptualization in the intrinsic motivation domain. Results…
Avoidance Personal Goals and Subjective Well-Being
The present research comprises two studies designed to investigate both antecedents and consequences of pursuing avoidance (relative to approach) personal goals over the course of a semester-long period. Results revealed that neuroticism was positively related to the adoption of avoidance personal strivings (Study 1), and participants with low perceptions of their life skills were more likely to adopt avoidance personal projects (Study 2). Avoida…
A hierarchical model of approach and avoidance achievement motivation
A hierarchical model of approach and avoidance achievement motivation was proposed and tested in a college classroom. Mastery, performance-approach, and performance-avoidance goals were assessed and their antecedents and consequences examined. Results indicated that mastery goals were grounded in achievement motivation and high competence expectancies; performance-avoidance goals, in fear of failure and low competence expectancies; and performanc…
Avoidance achievement motivation
Predictors and consequences of achievement goals in the college classroom
The authors investigated personality predictors of achievement goals in an introductory psychology class, as well as the consequences of these goals for the motivation and performance of 311 undergraduates. Two dimensions of achievement motivation (workmastery and competitive orientations; J. T. Spence & R. L. Helmreich, 1983) predicted the goals endorsed. Individuals high in workmastery were more likely to adopt mastery goals and less likely to …
Not all Personal Goals are Personal
Even when goals are self-generated, they may not feel truly "personal," that is, autonomous and self-integrated. In three studies (one concurrent and two prospective), we found that the autonomy of personal goals predicted goal attainment. In contrast, the strength of "controlled" motivation did not predict attainment. Studies 2 and 3 validated a mediational model in which autonomy led to attainment because it promoted sustained effort investment…
Rethinking achievement goals
The types of goals that students adopt in educational settings and the consequences of those goals an 2 important educational outcomes-performance and intrinsic motivation-are discussed. In the case of performance, we briefly review and evaluate a large body of theory and research conducted by other investigators. In particular, we consider the possibility that some commonly accepted conclusions about the effects of achievement goals are prematur…
Avoidance personal goals and the personality-illness relationship
Three studies demonstrated that avoidance personal goals are positively related to physical symptom reports. These results were obtained (a) using both longitudinal and retrospective methodologies and (b) controlling for neuroticism and other alternative predictor variables. In 2 of the studies, a process model was validated in which perceived competence and perceived controlledness were shown to mediate the observed relationship between avoidanc…
The self-serving bias in relational context
This article examined the impact of relationship closeness on the self-serving bias (SSB). Members of relationally distant dyads working on interdependen t-outcomes tasks manifested the SSB: They took credit for dyadic success but blamed the partner for dyadic failure. However, members of relationally close dyads did not manifest the SSB: They did not take more credit than their partner for dyadic success and did not blame the partner more than t…
Avoidance personal goals and the personality–illness relationship
Approach and avoidance motivation and achievement goals
Achievement goal researchers and theorists have relied primarily on the distinction between performance goals and mastery goals in differentiating competence-based strivings. In this article, an argument is made for incorporating the distinction between approach and avoidance motivation into the performance-mastery dichotomy. Historical, theoretical, and empirical reasons for attending to the approach-avoidance distinction are offered, and a revi…
Achievement goals, study strategies, and exam performance
Two studies examined achievement goals as predictors of self-reported cognitive/ metacognitive and motivational study strategies and tested these study strategies as mediators of the relationship between achievement goals and exam performance in the normatively graded college classroom. The results support hypotheses generated from the trichotomous achievement goal framework. Mastery goals are positive predictors of deep processing, persistence, …
Test anxiety and the hierarchical model of approach and avoidance achievement motivation
This research was designed to incorporate the test anxiety (TA) construct into the hierarchical model of approach and avoidance achievement motivation. Hypotheses regarding state and trait TA were tested in 2 studies, and the results provided strong support for the predictions. State TA (specifically, worry) was documented as a mediator of the negative relationship between performance-avoidance goals and exam performance. The positive relationshi…
Goal striving, need satisfaction, and longitudinal well-being
Short-term and long-term consequences of achievement goals
Why do some students excel in their college classes and develop interest in an academic discipline? The authors examined both the short-term and long-term consequences of students ' achievement goals in an introductory psychology course. Mastery goals positively predicted subsequent interest in the course, but not course grades. Performance goals positively predicted grades, but not interest. Three semesters later, the authors obtained measures o…
Personal Goals in Social Roles
Most contemporary personal goal research aggregates across goals, perhaps masking important differences between goals. We assessed this risk by examining both similarities and differences between the goals that participants pursued in five important social roles. Previous relevant findings (Cantor, Norem, Niedenthal, Langston, & Brower, 1987) and self‐determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985) were used to predict between‐role differences in goal a…
Narcissism and Comparative Self-Enhancement Strategies
Behavioral activation and inhibition in everyday life
Joint effects of daily events and dispositional sensitivities to cues of reward and punishment on daily positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA) were examined in 3 diary studies. Study 1 showed that positive events were strongly related to PA but not NA, whereas negative events were strongly related to NA but not PA. Studies 2 and 3 examined how the dispositional sensitivities of independent appetitive and aversive motivational systems, the …
Approach and Avoidance Motivation
Achievement Goals and the Hierarchical Model of Achievement Motivation
Psychology (120 works) · Social Psychology (105 works) · Developmental psychology (68 works) · Education, Achievement, and Giftedness (44 works) · Cognitive psychology (38 works) · Motivation and Self-Concept in Sports (33 works) · Academic achievement (30 works) · Social Psychology (27 works) · Mathematics education (23 works) · Behavioral Health and Interventions (21 works)