Author: Stephen Johnson / Source: Big Think
- A recent study examined how goal-setting interacts with performance among people of varying intellectual capabilities.
- People with higher general mental abilities appear to perform worse when being directly measured along the lines of performance.
- Interestingly, these individuals’ performance greatly improves when they were encouraged to simply do their best.
Smart people are more likely to choke in high-pressure situations, but interestingly this disadvantage seems to vanish when goals are framed strategically.
That’s the takeaway of a study recently published in the Journal of Applied Psychology. It suggests an ironic reason for why people with high general mental ability (GMA) often become mentally overwhelmed in complex, dynamic working environments: Their strong mental capacity leaves them vulnerable to performance anxieties and intrusive thoughts.
The researchers hypothesized that reframing goals for these individuals might change performance. To test that idea, they asked 261 undergraduate business students to participate in a stock market experiment. Each student was placed in one of three groups, each oriented toward a different type of goal: Performance, learning, or do-your-best.
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