Using Personal Values to Understand the Motivational Basis of Amity Goal Orientation

Abstract

Values are broad motivations that can serve as the basis for goals. We propose that values can be used to understand the motivational basis of amity goal orientation, a prosocial goal orientation within achievement situations. We offer theory and empirical evidence relating personal values to amity goal orientation and other achievement goal orientations. Specifically, the results of three studies and a mini meta-analysis suggest that the prosocial value of benevolence is positively related to amity goal orientation and can be interpreted as the motivational basis of amity goal orientation. Furthermore, power values are positively related to performance-approach goal orientation; self-direction values are positively related to mastery goal orientation, and security values are positively related to performance-avoidance goal orientation. These findings can explain the pattern of correlations previously found among achievement goal orientations, and open up the potential for new research on amity goal orientation as well as other value-based achievement goal orientations.

Pro-Social Goals in Achievement Situations: Amity Goal Orientation Enhances the Positive Effects of Mastery Goal Orientation

“…Amity goal orientation was measured with four items that capture the motivation for cooperation with others in an academic achievement situation, the willingness to help others to succeed, and the willingness to develop and improve non-competitive relations with others. These items were developed to maximize similarity to the other goal orientation items regarding style, wording, length, and so on (Levontin & Bardi, 2017). Items were “My goal is that my classmates will perform as well as I do,” “It is important for me to help other students do well in this class,” “I am striving to cooperate with other students,” “My aim is to assist other students to succeed with their assignments,” α = .84.…”

“…We calculated performance-approach goal orientation by averaging respondents’ ratings for the four performance-approach items (e.g., “I try to figure out what it takes to prove my ability to others at work,” α = .83), performance-avoidance goal orientation by averaging the ratings for the four performance-avoidance items (e.g., “I would avoid taking on a new task if there was a chance that I would appear rather incompetent to others,” α = .86), and mastery goal orientation by averaging the ratings for the four mastery items (e.g., “I am willing to select a challenging work assignment that I can learn a lot from,” α = .83). To these items, we added the following six amity goal orientation items taken from Levontin and Bardi (2017): “It is important to me to cooperate with my coworkers,” “I think it is important to cooperate with others at work,” “It is important to me to assist my coworkers to succeed with their assignments,” “I prefer working with others than working alone,” “It is important to me that my team members will do as well as I do,” and “I enjoy work assignments that require cooperation with others” (α = .79).…”

Longitudinal Links Between Self-Esteem and the Importance of Self-Direction Values During Adolescence

“…Nevertheless, this study found that all value types (self-direction and others) positively correlated with self-esteem. This finding is surprising considering that multiple previous studies established that the behaviors, attitudes and personality aspects that are positively associated with any specific value importance, are negatively associated with the value importance of opposing values in the circle (Benish-Weisman, 2015; Levontin & Bardi, 2019;Vecchione et al, 2016).…”

Understanding motivation for implementing cooperative learning methods: a value-based approach

“…Such a perspective seems to be in line with a body of research that emphasises the relevance of addressing teachers' inherent motivations and needs, to better understand their instructional orientations, professional engagement and teaching effectiveness (Barni et al, 2019;Han & Yin, 2016;Liou et al, 2019;Reeve, 2009). A way to investigate inherent motivations is to examine individuals' values (Barni et al, 2018(Barni et al, , 2019Levontin & Bardi, 2019). Therefore, in this research, we aimed to understand teachers' motivations to apply cooperative methods based on personal values.…”

“…Therefore, this may also explain their motivation towards cooperative learning methods. Findings from studies from different domains suggest that cooperative and competitive behaviours (Hinz et al, 2005;Sagiv et al, 2011;Schwartz, 1996) or goals (Levontin & Bardi, 2019) are associated with the value dimension of ST-SE values. Specifically, this body of research suggests that ST value endorsement is positively associated with cooperative behaviours and negatively with competitive behaviours.…”