Grant's Goal-Setting Theory (SDT)

Goal-setting

Goal-setting involves the development of a personal action plan which directs individuals’ actions helping them not only to monitor and evaluate its’ performance, but to motivate them as well (Grant, 2012). It is generally accepted that goal-setting can produce positive effects on personal development and self management. More precisely, according to goal-setting theory, people who set difficult but attainable and specific goals and also know how to monitor and evaluate their progress perform better than those who set vague, easy or do-your-best goals and do not monitor and evaluate their actions. Locke and Latham (1990) being two of the pioneers of goal-setting research suggested that in order to be effective, goals have to be

More precisely, SDT focuses on the motivation behind the choices people make with or without external influence or interference, in other words the center of attention of this theory is the degree to which an individual 's behavior is self-motivated and self-determined (Deci, & Ryan, 2000; Ryan, & Deci, 2002; Van Den Berghe, Vansteenkiste, Cardon, Kirk, & Haerens, 2014; Ryan, & Deci, 2017).

Briefly, according SDT three innate psychological needs have to be satisfied to achieve psychological growth, integrity and mental health. The first of these needs is the freedom individuals experience when they feel that their actions are endorsed by them (autonomy); the second is the sense of the possession of a required skill, the sense of qualification or sufficient knowledge of a task, or the sense of ability (competence); and the third need is the feeling of belonging and reacting efficiently into the social environment (relatedness). Therefore, according SDT people have a tendency to try to achieve goals, and to be involved in relationships or domains which fulfill their needs. Depending on the degree they are able to come across such opportunities they experience or they do not experience, positive psychological

According this approach, the core component of human behaviour is the individual’s intention to perform a given activity. Intention is supposed to reflect the individual’s levels of motivation whereas it reveals how much he/she will try in order to achieve his/her goal. Three independent critical factors determine individual’s intention towards behaviour. The first is the individual’s attitude toward the behaviour which refers to positive or negative evaluations of the behaviour per se. The second determinant is named subjective norm which has to do with possible social pressure which is exerted on the individual to engage or not to engage in the behaviour; and the third is individual’s perceived behavioural control which denotes to the extent to which the person believes that he/she has the ability to control the behaviour under question. In general, positive judgements about the behaviour, strong social influences and greater levels of perceived behavioural control lead to stronger intention to involve in the desired behaviour. The significance of these three determinants on the prediction of intensity, has been proved in several studies and it varies across different areas and behaviours (e.g. Rhodes, Beauchamp,