Deck 7: Personal Goals As Windows to Well-Being

Question 1

Personal goals

A) provide coherence and purpose to life.
B) help explain the "whys" of people's behavior.
C) connect having and doing.
D) all of the above

Answer 1

all of the above

Question 2

Goals connect the "having" and "doing." This means that

A) personal goals help determine the influences that personal resources have on well-being.
B) personal goals determine what you have and what you do.
C) what you have determines what you do and therefore what you achieve.
D) personal resources and personal goals are both determined by an individual's personality.

Answer 2

personal goals help determine the influences that personal resources have on well-being.

Question 3

Diener and Fujita examined the relationship between personal resources (e.g.. intelligence, social skills, support) and personal goals, and well-being among college students. These researchers found that higher levels of well-being and happiness were related to

A) the number of resources a student had.
B) the quality of a student's resources.
C) the degree of match or congruence between resources and personal goals.
D) an optimistic and "can do" attitude that led students to get the resources they needed to achieve important goals.

Answer 3

the degree of match or congruence between resources and personal goals.

Question 4

Goals are defined as

A) desired states and outcomes that people expend energy trying to achieve.
B) the basic needs and motives that underlie all human behavior.
C) those concrete activities and tasks that we are working on right now.
D) those desired outcomes that express a person's unique personality, talents, and skills.

Question 5

Compared to other motivational concepts, such as needs, values, and motives, Karolyi argues that personal goals provide

A) a more general framework for studying human motivation.
B) a window to the "deeper and enduring motives of a person's life."
C) a more specific "here and now" look at a "person's on-line command center."
D) insights into the most common and shared core of human motives.

Question 6

In research studies, personal goals are typically measured by asking each study participant to

A) rate the importance of each goal on a list of goals provided by the researcher.
B) write an essay about their current and future life from which researchers then extract important personal goals and goal-related motivations.
C) describe their most important current activities, future dreams, and past accomplishments.
D) describe their most important current goals based on a definition or examples provided by the researcher.

Question 7

What is the relationship between goals and other motivational concepts such as needs, values, motives, and self-concept?

A) goals may express or fulfill needs, values, etc.
B) goals can represent the particular way an individual fulfills or expresses more general needs, values, etc.
C) goals may have their origins in needs, values, etc.
D) all of the above

Question 8

In describing his hierarchy of human needs, Maslow argued that

A) his list of human needs was universal, but their order of fulfillment was not.
B) his list was universal across cultures and that unfulfilled lower-order needs took precedence over fulfilling higher-order needs.
C) people often used higher-order needs such as religion/transcendence to cope with unfulfilled lower-order needs such as safety and security.
D) self-actualization was based on the personal growth that resulted from overcoming the frustration and distress associated with unfulfilled lower- order needs.

Question 9

In a large sample of American and South Korean college students, Sheldon and his colleagues tested 10 candidate needs for universal status (i.e., needs important across different cultures) according to two criteria of universality. These criteria involved the assumption that

A) students' most important life goals would express their most important needs.
B) people's most satisfying and dissatisfying life events would be related to fulfillment or lack of fulfillment/frustration of important needs.
C) human evolution has provided a core of human needs shared across all cultures.
D) the globalization of Western culture has significantly reduced cultural differences around the world.

Question 10

The study of American and South Korean college students by Sheldon and his colleagues tested 10 candidate needs for universal status (i.e., applicability across cultures). According to their study, what four needs might qualify as universal across cultures?

A) self-esteem, relatedness, autonomy, and competence
B) physiological, safety and security, belongingness, self-esteem
C) self-preservation, kinship, security, self-esteem
D) freedom, individuality, nurturance, autonomy

Question 11

Grouzet, Kasser, Ahuvia , Dols, Kim, et al. studied the importance of 11 personal goals (affiliation, community feeling, conformity, financial success, hedonism, image, health, popularity, safety, self-acceptance, and spirituality) in 15 different cultures. Statistical analysis of participant ratings revealed that people in each culture organized the 11 goals in similar ways around two organizing themes. These two themes or organizing structures were

A) security versus risk and autonomy versus belonging.
B) internal versus external goals and self versus other goals.
C) intrinsic versus extrinsic goals and physical versus self-transcendent goals.
D) self-serving versus other-serving goals and hedonistic versus eudaimonic goals.

Question 12

The study by Grouzet, Kasser, and colleagues examined the importance of 11 personal goals (affiliation, community feeling, conformity, financial success, hedonism, image, health, popularity, safety, self-acceptance, and spirituality) in 15 different cultures and identified two underlying goal dimensions. If we used these dimensions as a "universal" template, the study suggests that people approach their life goals by considering

A) their intrinsic psychological needs versus desires for extrinsic rewards, and their physical survival/pleasure versus desire for meaningful place in the world.
B) basic needs first, then higher-order needs as suggested by Maslow.
C) how much they are willing to sacrifice their own goals to maintain quality relationships and to meet the needs of significant others.
D) their own needs versus the needs of others and short-term pleasures versus enduring and transcendent meanings/purposes.

Question 13

As described by Markus and Nurius, possible selves refer to our

A) fantasy selves - used to escape from boredom, frustration, and failure.
B) imaginary selves - that begin in childhood and encompass all our unfulfilled dreams for the future.
C) imagined future selves - who we want to become and who we are afraid of becoming.
D) real selves - the ones that are realistic, achievable, and possible.

Question 14

According to Markus & Nurius, possible selves provide a link between self-concept and motivation because possible selves

A) express the dreams and aspirations shared by nearly all people in the world.
B) embody the concrete and unique individual expressions of more general and widely shared human needs, values, and goals.
C) express fundamental aspects of people's identity.
D) are oriented toward the future and unaffected by the past.

Question 15

According to the matching hypothesis, goals that are most likely to increase well-being when pursued and achieved are those that

A) are similar to goals that brought satisfaction in the past.
B) fit and express the dominant values and aspirations of one's culture.
C) fit and express a person's needs, values, and self-concept.
D) challenge a person's current skills and talents.

Question 16

Brunstein and his colleagues investigated the relation of general life motives (agency and communion), personal goals, and well-being. According to the results of this study, students who excel academically

A) may or may not have higher levels of well-being compared to students with average or below academic records.
B) will show enhanced well-being only if agency is an important life motive.
C) may show diminished well-being if communion and not agency is the most important life motive.
D) all of the above

Question 17

What do 1. self-realization, 2. intrinsic goals, and 3. autonomous motivation have to do with the matching hypothesis? Each of these three concepts

A) provide an explanation for the well-being benefits of matching.
B) suggest why matching does not always increase well-being.
C) suggest that goal achievement does not always increase well-being.
D) all of the above

Question 18

According to Sheldon and Elliot's self-concordance theory, the reasons behind goal pursuit are critical to well-being outcomes. Self-concordance theory suggests that matched goals may increase well-being because matched goals are likely to be self-concordant goals as well. Self-concordant goals are

A) deeply held values and life-long commitment.
B) autonomous and freely chosen goals that generate positive feelings of ownership and personal expressiveness.
C) matched to personality, talents, and social skills.
D) consistent with self-image, identity, and level of self-esteem.

Question 19

In their study of happiness and success in college, Sheldon and Houser-Marko evaluated freshmen students' reasons for attending college according to the extent to which their reasons reflected external, introjected, identified, or intrinsic motivations. A student who said their main reason for attending college was that they would feel guilty and anxious if they didn't, perhaps because they would disappoint their parents, would be fit what type of motive or reason for going to college?

A) external
B) intrinsic
C) identified
D) introjected

Question 20

In their study of happiness and success in college, Sheldon and Houser-Marko evaluated freshmen students' reasons for attending college according to the extent to which their reasons reflected external, introjected, identified, or intrinsic motivations. What reason/motive type was most related to higher grades, personal goal fulfillment, better social and emotional adjustment, and personal development?

A) external - consistent with reinforcement theory
B) introjected and external consistent with control theory
C) intrinsic - consistent with flow theory - turning work into play
D) identified and intrinsic - consistent with self-concordance theory

Question 21

In their study of happiness and success during the first year of college, Sheldon and Houser-Marko evaluated freshmen students' reasons for attending college according to the extent to which their reasons reflected external, introjected, identified, or intrinsic motivations. The results of their study suggested the potential for an upward spiral of well-being, because some students maintained or increased their well-being gains from the first to the second semester of college. What factor seemed to determine whether first semester well-being increases were lost, maintained, or increased in the second semester?

A) presence or absence of an optimistic attitude
B) amount and quality of social support
C) continued success in achieving personal goals
D) self-esteem and resilience

Question 22

In their classic study of the "dark side of the American dream," Kasser and Ryan found strong evidence for an inverse relationship between financial aspirations and well-being. What was the specific nature of this relationship?

A) People who place a high priority on financial success showed lower well-being.
B) People who rated financial success as more important than intrinsic goals such as self-acceptance and affiliation showed lowered well-being.
C) People who were inconsistent in their endorsement of intrinsic and extrinsic life had lower well-being.
D) Strong financial success strivings coupled with self-centeredness predicted lower well-being.

Question 23

Conclusions from the classic Kasser and Ryan study on the "dark side of the American dream"

A) only apply to affluent cultures.
B) are specific to the United States and Canada.
C) are limited to Western cultures.
D) have been replicated in a variety of different cultures.

Question 24

The goal contents explanation (what goals are pursued) for the relationship between strong financial aspirations and lower well-being is that

A) people with strong financial aspirations are shallow, superficial, and easily influenced by our "celebrity culture."
B) extrinsic goals are inherently less satisfying than intrinsic goals and might also interfere with the pursuit of intrinsic goals such as developing supportive social relationships.
C) people must chose between extrinsic and intrinsic goals and materialists have made the wrong choice.
D) strong financial aspirations inevitably lead to a stressful and frustrating life that undercuts the satisfaction that may result from financial success.

Question 25

The goal motive explanation (why goals are pursued) for the relationship between strong financial aspirations and lower well-being is that

A) strong financial motivations lead to a variety of personal and social conflicts that lower well-being.
B) people with strong financial aspirations are searching for a purpose in life, but have made a poor choice.
C) strong financial aspirations are typically adopted by people who come from impoverished backgrounds and see money as the cause and the solution to their problems.
D) strong financial aspirations are likely to involved controlled rather than autonomous sources of motivation and research shows controlled motivations lower well-being.

Question 26

Studies conducted by Sheldon and his colleagues evaluated whether goal content or goal motive was more important in the relationship between strong financial aspirations and lower well-being. These studies showed that

A) goal content was more important.
B) goal motive was more important.
C) goal content and goal motive each made independent contributions to well-being.
D) the effects of goal content and goal motive were dependent on other factors such as personality, values and self-esteem.

Question 27

Studies showing that materialistic people have unmet needs and doubts about their self-worth and their acceptance by others suggests that strong financial aspirations may be motivated by

A) an attempt to compensate for psychological insecurity.
B) personal frustration that drives a workaholic lifestyle.
C) a personal pessimism that nothing much matters except money.
D) the influence of consumer culture on highly suggestible people.

Question 28

Earnest Becker in his classic book The Denial of Death argued that everything from the Egyptian pyramids to modern skyscrapers to cultural heroes who triumph over adversity all communicate the symbolic message that

A) you can't take it with you.
B) life is short but the human spirit lives on.
C) we don't really die.
D) only by accepting and therefore transcending death can people truly live.

Question 29

Terror management theory states that the evolution of human intelligence came with a price tag. Which is that

A) people are often too smart for their own good.
B) all humans are aware that they will eventually die.
C) intelligence can be used for good or evil.
D) the transformation of the natural environment made possible by intelligence now threatens our existence.

Question 30

Terror management theory states that all cultures have developed a system of beliefs and sources of individual self-esteem whose purpose is to

A) provide the necessary defenses against both internal and external threats.
B) permit co-operative and collective action necessary for survival.
C) buffer and reduce the potential incapacitating terror of death.
D) confront the reality of death and provide means for its acceptance as a fact of life.

Question 31

What is the connection of death and materialism as shown in studies employing a mortality salience condition in which people are instructed to think about their own death? Studies of mortality salience show that

A) anxiety about death increased materialistic expectations and behavior, suggesting that money and possessions may provide a sense of safety and security.
B) anxiety about death decreased materialistic expectations and behavior, suggesting that thinking about your own death shifts people's thinking to the spiritual domain.
C) people in the mortality salience condition affirmed, but did not increase, their existing material and financial aspirations, suggesting that death anxiety creates a greater appreciation of what you have that you previously took for granted.
D) people in the mortality salience condition showed an increased fear of losing their current material and financial well-being, suggesting that death anxiety makes you keenly aware of all that you would lose.

Question 32

According to the historical analysis of Solomon and his colleagues (developers of terror management theory), what does gold in ancient Egypt, the Temple of Juno Moneta in Rome, and the imagery on a U.S. dollar bill all have in common? These authors argue that each of these example show

A) that even religion could not stop the "secular worship" of money and wealth.
B) the corruption of religion and spirituality by desires for material wealth.
C) that religious people are often the most materialistic.
D) the connection of money to the transcendence of death.

Question 33

Recent studies by Luthar and others have compared the adjustment problems, rates of depression, and drug use of low-income inner-city teenagers to those of affluent teens living in the suburbs. These studies show that

A) low-income teens are more materialistic than affluent teens.
B) affluence is a significant contributor to prejudice towards low-income and inner-city residents.
C) low-income teens continue to have more problems than their affluent counterparts.
D) many affluent teens show greater levels of maladjustment and higher rates of depression than their low-income counterparts.

Question 34

Explanations for the connection between affluent families and teenagers' emotional health and well-being have focused on the

A) damaging effects of having too much too early.
B) easy availability of drugs in affluent suburbs.
C) stress of parental achievement pressures and lack of parental supervision and attention.
D) low parental expectations and an undemanding educational curriculum.

Question 35

According to the research by Van Boven and Gilovich, many of the negative effects of materialism can be reduced if people would

A) give more money to charities that help others lead a better life.
B) make more experiential purchases that involve new experiences and learning opportunities.
C) simply save more and spend less.
D) reduce their "wants" to actual needs.