The joint effects of target and purpose goals on intrinsic motivation: A mediational analysis

To test Harackiewicz and Sansone's prediction that task-specific target goals would enhance intrinsic motivation when they were congruent with higher order purpose goals, we varied performance and mastery-oriented target goals in neutral and performance-oriented purpose goal contexts and included a no-goals control group. Results provided strong support across three measures of intrinsic motivation indicating that performance target goals undermined interest relative to mastery target goals in a natural context but that performance target goals enhanced intrinsic motivation relative to mastery target goals in performance put;bose goal contexts. Process analyses revealed that competence valuation and task involvement mediated these effects.