The effects of task relevance and closeness with another on future performance

• Main Author: Ang, Bryna Shun Ying
• Other Authors: School of Humanities and Social Sciences
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2012
• Subjects: DRNTU::Humanities
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/49130
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

The self-evaluation maintenance (SEM) model suggests that it is threatening to be outperformed in a task that is self-defining, and that this threat is greater when a close other outperforms oneself, as compared to a distant other. For the purpose of this paper, the person who observes the performance of another person on a task will be referred to as the perceiver, while the person whom the perceiver is observing will be referred to as the target. The SEM model proposes that when the perceiver’s self-evaluation is threatened by the target’s better performance, the perceiver will be more likely to try harder in the next task in an effort to reduce the performance discrepancy. To test these hypotheses, participants engaged in two tests consisting of anagrams, with the latter containing two unsolvable anagrams (unbeknownst to the participants). Participants read that the tests were a measure of verbal creativity skills that was either validated (high relevance) or non-validated (low relevance). Participants were told they did badly in the first test and a second test was given. Persistence was measured as the amount of time the participants spent on the unsolvable anagrams. Results did not support our hypotheses. The explanations and implications are discussed.