This article reviews evidence suggesting that the cause of approach and avoidance behavior lies not so much in the presence (i.e., the stimulus) but, rather, in the behavior’s anticipated future consequences (i.e., the goal): Approach is motivated by the goal to produce a desired consequence or end-state, while avoidance is motivated by the goal to prevent an undesired consequence or endstate. ...

The relation between the learning environment (e.g., students’ perceptions of the classroom goal structure and teachers’ instructional discourse) and students’ reported use of avoidance strategies (selfhandicapping, avoidance of help seeking) and preference to avoid novelty in mathematics was examined. Quantitative analyses indicated that students’ reports of avoidance behaviors varied signific...

Effective coping during athletic competition has been shown to benefit performance. This study was designed to investigate the direct and indirect effects of personality and achievement motivation on athletes’ coping style. Elliot’s Hierarchical Model of Approach and Avoidance Motivation (Elliot, 1999; Elliot & Church, 1997) was used as the framework to assess participants’ (N=258) temperament ...

Despite the fact that humans have a deep motivation to pursue and maintain close relationships, little research has examined social relationships from a motivational perspective. In the current paper, we argue that any model of close relationships must simultaneously account for people’s tendencies to both approach incentives and avoid threats in close relationships. To that end, we review rese...

Elliot and colleagues (2006) examined the effects of experimentally induced achievement goals, proposed by the trichotomous model, on self-handicapping and performance in physical education. Our study replicated and extended the work of Elliot et al. by experimentally promoting all four goals proposed by the 2 x 2 model (Elliot & McGregor, 2001), measuring the participants' own situational achi...

Avoidance goals heighten the salience of negative social experiences, and in intimate relationships such an orientation may contribute to communication difficulties and the perpetuation of avoidance. We therefore hypothesized that individuals with stronger avoidance goals would be particularly prone to engage in escalating levels of negative communication with their intimate partner, and we tes...

AbstractDeveloping self-regulated learners has been the life-long ambition of different stakeholders in education. This study was set out to find the relationships between self-regulated strategies as defined by time and resource management, cognitive and metacognitive strategies, achievement goals classified as mastery, performance-approach and performance-avoidance, and the listening ac...

In the present research, we conducted two studies designed to examine the joint influence of avoidance temperament and avoidance-based achievement goals on the experience of flow on a creativity task. In both a laboratory study (N = 101; M(age)  = 22.61, SD(age)  = 4.03; 74.3% female) and a naturalistic study (N = 102; M(age)  = 16.23, SD(age)  = 1.13; 48% female), participants high in avoidanc...

The purpose of this study was to examine the multiple mediational roles of academic social comparison directions (upward academic social comparison and downward academic social comparison) on the relationships between achievement goal orientations (i.e., mastery goals, performance-approach goals, and performance-avoidance goals) and subjective well-being (SWB) in school (school satisfaction, sc...

This study examined the relationship between achievement and social goals, and explored how both goals affect students' level of informed self-determination in Physical Education. Participants were 395 high school students. Three scales were used to assess achievement, social goals, and motivation. Several hierarchical regression analyses revealed that mastery-approach goals were the greatest c...