We propose to extend to the workplace an emerging theoretical/empirical literature on self-regulated goal pursuit, in which cognitive construals of personal life tasks or goals have been found to relate to important adjustmental outcomes, including depression, anxiety, life satisfaction, physical symptoms, and health care utilization. A new assessment procedure, the Goal Systems Questionnaires (GSQ), offers a promising technique for the assessment of cognitive representations of work-related goals. Two hundred forty employed adults, selected from a national probability sample, will be asked via telephone interview to complete (1) the GSQ as it applies to their three most important work goals and (2) a battery of standardized instruments to assess depression, anxiety, job and life satisfaction, pain, and psychosomatic symptoms. In the long-run, the GSQ may be used to target deficient patterns of goal construal, as a prescriptive device for individual or group interventions, as a means of identifying problematic goal types, and as a tool to assess the efficacy of health promotion programs (e.g., stress management, smoking cessation, etc.).
| Karoly, P; Ruehlman, L S (1996) Motivational implications of pain: chronicity, psychological distress, and work goal construal in a national sample of adults. Health Psychol 15:383-90 |
