The effectiveness of assigned goals in complex financial decision making and the importance of gender

Theory and Decision

Volumn 61, Issue 2, 2006, Pages 129-157

  Endres, Megan Lee ^a  

^a EASTERN MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

Assigned goals; Gender; Multicriteria decisions; Risk; Self efficacy

Indexed keywords

ECONOMICS; FINANCIAL DATA PROCESSING; RISK ASSESSMENT; RISKS; SOCIAL ASPECTS;

ASSIGNED GOALS; GENDER; MULTICRITERIA DECISIONS; SELF-EFFICACY;

DECISION MAKING;

EID: 33746644676     PISSN: 00405833     EISSN: 15737187     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1007/s11238-006-0006-z     Document Type: Article

References (71)

1. Ackerman, P.L., Bowen, K.R., Beier, M.E. and Kanfer, R. (2001), Determinants of individual differences and gender differences in knowledge, Journal of Educational Psychology 93(4), 797-825.
2. Atkinson, S.M., Baird, S.B. and Frye, M.B. (2003), Do female mutual fund managers manage differently? The Journal of Financial Research 26(1), 1-18.
3. Bajtelsmit, V.L. and Bernasek, A. (1996), Why do women invest differently than men? Financial Counseling and Planning 7, 1-10.
4. Bandura, A. (1991), Social cognitive theory of self-regulation, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 50(2), 248-287.
5. Bandura, A. (1995), Guide for Constructing Self-efficacy Scales, Stanford University.
6. Bandura, A. and Jourden, F.J. (1991), Self-regulatory mechanisms governing the impact of social comparison on complex decision making, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 60(6), 941-951.
7. Bandura, A. and Wood, R. (1989), Effect of perceived controllability and performance standards on self-regulation of complex decision making, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 56(5), 805-814.
8. Beloff, H. (1992), Mother, father, and me: Our IQ, The Psychologist 5, 309-311.
9. Bem, S.L. (1975), Sex role adaptability: One consequence of psychological androgyny, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 31(4), 634-643.
10. Betz, N.E. and Hackett, G. (1983), The relationship of mathematics self-efficacy expectations to the selection of science-based college majors, Journal of Vocational Behavior 23(3), 329-345.
11. Betz, N.E. and Hackett, G. (1986), Applications of self-efficacy theory to understanding career choice behavior, Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology 4(3), 279-289.
12. Block, J. and Kremen, A.M. (1996), IQ and ego-resiliency: Conceptual and empirical connections and separateness, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 70(2), 349-361.
13. Budner, S. (1962), Intolerance of ambiguity as a personality variable, Journal of Personality 30(1), 29-50.
14. Byrnes, J.P., Miller, D.C. and Schafer, W.D. (1999), Gender differences in risk-taking: A meta-analysis, Psychological Bulletin 125(3), 367-383.
15. Cervone, D., Jiwani, N. and Wood, R. (1991), Goal setting and the differential influence of self-regulatory processes on complex decision making performance, Journal of Applied Psychology 61(2), 257-266.
16. Cervone, D. and Wood, R. (1995), Goals, feedback, and the differential influence of self-regulatory processes on cognitively complex performance, Cognitive Therapy and Research 19(5), 519-545.
17. Chen, G., Casper, W.J. and Cortina, J.M. (2001), The roles of self-efficacy and task complexity in the relationships among cognitive ability, conscientiousness, and work-related performance: A meta-analytic examination, Human Performance 14(3), 209-230.
18. Chesney, A.A. and Locke, E.A. (1991), Relationships among goal difficulty, business strategies, and performance on a complex management simulation task, Academy of Management Journal 34(2), 400-424.
19. Chowdhury, S. and Endres, M.L. (2005), Gender Difference and the Formation of Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy, USASBE Conference, San Diego, CA.
20. Cohen, J. (1988), Statistical Power Analysis for the Behavioral Sciences (2nd ed.), Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ.
21. Cosier, R.A. (1980), Inquiry method, goal difficulty, and context effects on performance, Decision Sciences 11(1), 1-16.
22. Cronbach, L.J. (1951), Coefficient alpha and the internal structure of tests, Psychometrika 16(3), 297-334.
23. Daily, C.M., Certo, S.T. and Dalton, D.R. (1999), A decade of corporate women: Some progress in the boardroom, none in the executive suite, Strategic Management Journal 20(1), 93-99.
24. Dulebohn, J.H. (2002), An investigation of the determinants of investment risk behavior in employer-sponsored retirement plans, Journal of Management 28(1), 3-26.
25. Earley, P.C., Connolly, T. and Ekegren, G. (1989), Goals, strategy development and task performance: Some limits on the efficacy of goal setting, Journal of Applied Psychology 74(1), 24-33.
26. Einhorn, H.J. and Hogarth, R.M. (1985), Ambiguity and uncertainty in probabilistic inference, Psychological Review 92(4), 433-461.
27. Engel, J., Kollat, D. and Blackwell, R. (1982), Consumer Behavior, Dryden Press, New York.
28. Gist, M.E. and Mitchell, T.R. (1992), Self-efficacy: A theoretical analysis of its determinants and malleability, Academy of Management Review 17(2), 183-211.
29. Gordon, M.E., Slade, L.A. and Schmitt, N. (1987). Student guinea pigs: Porcine predictors and particularistic phenomena, Academy of Management Review 12(1), 160-163.
30. Grable, J.E. (2000), Financial risk tolerance and additional factors that affect risk taking in everyday money matters, Journal of Business and Psychology 14(4), 625-630.
31. Grable, J.E. and Lytton, R.H. (2003), The development of a risk assessment instrument: A follow-up study, Financial Services Review 12(3), 257-274.
32. Gysler, M., Kruse, J.B. and Schubert, R. (2002), Ambiguity and gender differences in financial decision making: An experimental examination of competence and confidence effects, Economic Science Association International Meeting, Boston, MA.
33. Hackett, G., Betz, N.E., Casas, J.M. and Rocha-Singh, I. (1992), Gender, ethnicity, and social cognitive factors predicting the academic achievement of engineering majors, Journal of Counseling Psychology 39(4), 527-538.
34. Hamill, S.K. (2003), Resilience and self-efficacy: The importance of efficacy beliefs and coping mechanisms in resilient adolescents, Colgate University Journal of the Sciences 35, 115-146.
35. Heath, C. and Tversky, A. (1991), Preference and belief: Ambiguity and competence in choice under uncertainty, Journal of Risk and Uncertainty 4, 5-28.
36. Heilman, M.E. (1994), Affirmative action: some unintended consequences for working women, in Staw, B.M. and Cummings, L. (eds.), Research in Organizational Behavior, JAI press, Greenwich (Conn.): London, pp. 125-169.
37. Huber, V.L. (1985), Effects of task difficulty, goal setting, and strategy on performance of a heuristic task, Journal of Applied Psychology, 70(3), 492-504.
38. Jianakoplos, N.A. and Bernasek, A. (1998), Are women more risk averse? Economic Inquiry 36(4), 620-630.
39. Jones, K. and Tullous, R. (2002), Behaviors of pre-venture entrepreneurs and perceptions of their financial needs, Journal of Small Business Management 40(3), 233-249.
40. Kanfer, R. and Ackerman, P.L. (1989), Motivation and cognitive abilities: An integrative aptitude treatment interaction approach to skill acquisition, Journal of Applied Psychology 74(4), 657-690.
41. Keppe, H. and Weber, M. (1995), Judged knowledge and ambiguity aversion, Theory and Decision 39(1), 51-77.
42. Klenke, K. (2003), Gender influences in decision-making processes in top management teams, Management Decision 41(10), 1024-1034.
43. Kuhn, K.M. and Yockey, M.D. (2003), Variable pay as risky choice: Determinants of the relative attractiveness of incentive plans, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 90(2), 323.
44. Lenney, E. (1977), Women's self-confidence in achievement settings, Psychological Bulletin 84(1), 1-13.
45. Lewellen, W.G., Lease, R.C. and Schlarbaum, G.G. (1977), Patterns of investment strategy and behavior among individual investors, Journal of Business 50(3), 296-333.
46. Lindsley, D.H., Brass, D.J. and Thomas, J.B. (1995), Efficacy-performance spirals: A multilevel perspective, Academy of Management Review 20(3), 645-678.
47. Locke, E.A. and Latham, G.P. (2002), Building a practically useful theory of goal setting and task motivation: A 35-year odyssey, American Psychologist 57(9), 705-717.
48. Maslach, C., Santee, R.T. and Wade, C. (1987), Individuation, gender role, and dissent: Personality mediators of situational forces, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 53(6), 1088-1093.
49. Masten, A. S. (2001), Ordinary magic: Resilient processes in development, American Psychologist 56(3), 227-238.
50. Morse, W.C. (1998), Risk taking in personal investments, Journal of Business and Psychology 13(2), 281-288.
51. Muldrow, T. and Bayton, J.A. (1979), Men and women executives and processes related to decision accuracy, Journal of Applied Psychology 64(2), 99.
52. Ozer, E.M. and Bandura, A. (1990), Mechanisms governing empowerment effects: A self-efficacy analysis, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 58(3), 472-486.
53. Powell, M. and Ansic, D. (1997), Gender differences in risk behaviour in financial decision-making: An experimental analysis, Journal of Economic Psychology 18(6), 605-628.
54. Rammstedt, B. and Rammsayer, T.H. (2002), Self-estimated intelligence: Gender differences, relationships to psychometric intelligence, and moderating effects of level of education, European Psychologist 7(4), 275-284.
55. Rubin, J.Z. and Brown, B.R. (1975), The Psychology of Bargaining and Negotiation, Academic Press, New York.
56. Russo, J.E. and Schoemaker, P.J. (1992), Managing overconfidence, Sloan Management Review 33(2), 7-17.
57. Schwenk, C.R. (1982a), Effects of inquiry methods and ambiguity tolerance on prediction performance/dialectic squared: A fundamental difference in perception on the meanings of some key concepts in social science, Decision Sciences 13(2), 207-224.
58. Schwenk, C.R. (1982b), Why sacrifice rigor for relevance? A proposal for combining laboratory and field research in strategic management, Strategic Management Journal 3(3), 213-225.
59. Stock, J. and Cervone, D. (1990), Proximal goal-setting and self-regulatory processes, Cognitive Therapy and Research 14(5), 483-498.
60. Swift, C.O. and Gruben, K.H. (2000), Gender differences in weighting of supplier selection criteria, Journal of Managerial Issues 12(4), 502-512.
61. Taylor, L.A., III. (1987), Decision quality and commitment within a probabilistic environment, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 39(2), 203-227.
62. Taylor, L.A., III. (1988), Affective responses within a complex decision making task: The influence of "perceptually" ill-structured problems, Decision Sciences 19(1), 39-54.
63. Taylor, L.A., III, Cosier, R.A. and Ganster, D.C. (1992), The positive effects of easy goals on decision quality and risk propensity in an MCPLP Task, Decision Sciences 23(4), 880-898.
64. Taylor, L.A., III, Hall, P.D., Cosier, R.A. and Goodwin, V.L. (1996), Out-come feedback effects on risk propensity in an MCPLP task, Journal of Management 22(2), 299-311.
65. Tokunaga, H. (1993), The use and abuse of consumer credit: Application of psychological theory and research, Journal of Economic Psychology 14(2), 285-314.
66. Venkatesh, V., Morris, M.G. and Ackerman, P.L. (2000), A longitudinal field investigation of gender differences in individual technology adoption decision-making processes, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 83(1), 33-60.
67. Weber, E.U., Blais, A. and Betz, N.B. (2002), A domain-specific risk-attitude scale: Measuring risk perceptions and risk behaviors, Journal of Behavioral Decision Making 15(4), 263-290.
68. Wood, R. and Bandura, A. (1989), Social cognitive theory of organizational management, Academy of Management Review 14(3), 361-384.
69. Wood, R.E., Bandura, A. and Bailey, T. (1990), Mechanisms governing organizational performance in complex decision making environments, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 46(2), 181-201.
70. Wood, R.E., Mento, A.J. and Locke, E.A. (1987), Task complexity as a moderator of goal effects: A meta-analysis, Journal of Applied Psychology 72(3), 416-425.
71. Wright, P.M., Hollenbeck, J.R., Wolf, S. and McMahan, G.C. (1995), The effects of varying goal difficulty operationalizations on goal setting out-comes and processes, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 61(1), 28-43.