Personal goal appraisals vary across both individuals and goal contents

Abstract

This study examined personal goals as a multilevel construct. After investigating to what extent goal appraisals were characteristics of an individual as compared to the extent to which they vary across different goals, both individual-level and goal-level predictors of goal appraisals were examined. To examine these research questions 477 undergraduates filled in the Personal Project Analysis and Beck’s Depression inventory. Multilevel modeling showed that, although goal appraisals varied between individuals, they differed to greater extent across the different goals a particular person reported. At the individual level, a high amount of depressive symptoms was associated with a low level of accomplishment and a high level of stress. At the goal level, goals that focused on education were appraised as low in control but high in accomplishment and stress, family-related goals as high in meaning and control, and self-related goals as high in meaning and stress but low in accomplishment.