- Members were recruited by sending an email inviting them to participate in a movie rating campaign to enhance the rating prediction in MovieLens
- Similarly to study 1, different messages were used in the invitation email to vary participants’ perceptions of their group assignment and goal challenge

Study 2 Methods: Overview

- MovieLens members who had logged on at least once in the five-month period prior to the study
- On average, the subjects had rated 147 total movies, about 8 per week in the five months prior to the study
- Of the 900 members contacted, they were able to retain 834 subjects

Study 2 Methods: Subjects

- Manipulated 2 variables: group assignment (2 conditions: group or individual) and specificity of goals (2 conditions: “do your best” or a specific numeric goal)
- The difficulty of the numeric goal varied on 4 levels

Study 2 Methods: Experimental Manipulation

- Subjects in the non-specific goals condition were told to “do your best” to rate the movies
- For individual subjects in the specific goal groups, they were asked to rate either 8, 16, 32, or 64 movies in the week
-  In groups with a specific goal, they were asked to rate either 80, 160, 320, or 640 movies in the week

Study 2 Methods: Goal Specificity

- Overview
- Subjects
- Experimental Manipulations
- Group Assignment
- Goal Specificity

University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

- It is rare that there are specific instructions of the type and amount of contribution that is expected of users in online communities
- The purpose of this study is to test both the benefits and limits of specific, high-challenge goals in online communities
- This study focused on group goals, and the benefits and limits of high challenge goals

Three hypotheses:
- Hypothesis 4: In an online community, specific, numeric goals will motivate greater contributions than non-specific goals
- Hypothesis 5: Members assigned individual goals will provide more contributions than members assigned group goals
- Hypothesis 6: In an online community, contribution will drop off when goals exceed some difficulty threshold

Study 2: Motivating Contributions Through Goal Setting

https://presnick.people.si.umich.edu/papers/cscw04/cscw2004preprint.pdf

Using Social Psychology to Motivate Contributions
to Online Communities (Gerard Beenen et al.)

- High challenge goals energize higher performance
- Upward performance spiral is known as the high-performance cycle
- The settings that stimulate high performance: Goals must be relatively difficult, specific, context-appropriate, and immediate rather than long term
- Mediating variables of a high-performance environment: individual commitment, the importance assigned to the goal, and self-efficacy

Benefits of High-Challenge Goals

- In some small group settings where individual and group interests are aligned, group goals have been associated with higher performance than an individual goal
- Performance benefits of group goals disappear or reverse as the size of the group goes beyond 6-8 people

Group Goals

- According to Locke and Latham, no goal can be too high, since performance will plateau but not drop as goals become increasingly difficult
- Overly difficult goals could undermine a member’s commitment to the goal, diminishing engagement with contributions
- Overly difficult goals could reduce the attractiveness of community membership if that community is perceived as making unrealistic goals

Limits of High-Challenge Goals

Study 2 Methods

- Hypothesis 4 tested whether people contribute more when given specific numeric goals vs. non-specific “do your best” goals. This hypothesis was confirmed
- Hypothesis 5 stated that participants assigned individual goals would contribute more than those with group goals. This hypothesis was disconfirmed, participants with group goals rated more movies than those with comparable individual goals
- Hypothesis 6 stated that the relationship between goal specificity and performance is curvilinear, with the highest challenge goals leading to declines in ratings. This hypothesis is weakly supported, it was found that extremely difficult goals would reduce contributions


Study 2 Analysis and Results

- The most obvious result from this study was that specific, numeric goals led to higher contribution rates than non-specific ones
- This finding is inconsistent with the collective effort model and social loafing because subjects in the group conditions contributed more than those in the individual conditions
- Specific, challenging goals have been shown to be powerful motivators of online contributions, particularly when contributors are not part of a group
- Assignment to a group condition in the context of a large, anonymous online community seemed to raise contribution levels
- This study suggests that goals that are overly difficult may lead to reduced contributions, past research suggests effort plateaus
- Providing an interface that facilitates elements of the collective effort model and goal-setting theory such as real-time feedback, member identifiability, group cohesion, and so forth, could enhance the effects observed in this study

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