Effect of easy and difficult goals on self-efficacy and memory performance in young and elderly people: challenges for the cognitive effort hypothesis

Cognitive effort can affect the execution of a wide range of tasks and is primarily involved in the regulation of cognitive control when performing the task and achieving the chosen goal.

The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of easy and difficult goals on self-efficacy and memory performance in young and elderly people with an investigation of the cognitive effort hypothesis.

The present study is a semi-experimental study. The statistical population of this study was the young and elderly people in the sixth district of Tehran city and its statistical sample includes 80 young and elderly subjects who were selected in 2018 and were randomly assigned to eight experimental groups. To measure self-efficacy, a questionnaire of memory self-efficacy beliefs was used, and a stroop task was used to assess cognitive tasks. Data were analyzed using analysis of mixed covariance tests with repetitive measurements, two-way analysis covariance, and Bonferroni PostHoc test. Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS software version 20.

Results in high cognitive loads showed that young adults group with difficult goals have significantly better performance rather than other experimental groups (P<0.001). The results of tasks with low and high cognitive loads showed that younger adults group has better performance rather than older adults (P<0.05). The average self-efficacy beliefs in youth group with the easy goals were better than other groups (P <0.05).

According to the findings of this study, the use of goals for promoting performance and memory self-efficacy beliefs in training is recommended.