Goal Complexes

 

Achievement Goals provide the target of what people are trying to accomplish, there are four different kinds of goals that they generally try to reach. Mastery Approach Goals in which the person desires to master a certain set of content or skills. Mastery Avoidance Skills in which the person wants to avoid being incompetent and tend to become concerned with the consequences of not mastering their desired goal. Performance Approach Goals in which the person wants to perform better than their peers and want to demonstrate to their peers that they are competent. Performance Avoidance Goals in which the person does not want to take the chance of performing worse than others and tend to want to avoid performance situations. People that tend to have Mastery Goals enjoy learning, tend to see a challenge as an opportunity to excel, are very persistent, and are more likely to seek help from others.

            Dean is someone who has a high need for achievement but also has a need for affiliation. His need for achievement tends to overshadow his need for affiliation, which affects his personal relationships throughout the show. An example of this is when Dean was on the warpath of defeating Lucifer once and for all. Dean wanted to achieve the seemingly impossible, killing Lucifer so that he would never come back to life. In order to accomplish this, he would have to give over his body to an archangel, Michael, who was also wanting to kill Lucifer once and for all. In this moment Dean knew that he would either have to work alone and die trying or take up Michael’s offer so that they could collectively defeat Lucifer. This team up secured at least a 50% or higher chance of victory which is something that is necessary for someone who has a high need for achievement. This high need for achievement pushed down Dean’s need for affiliation. Rather than working with his brother and the rest of his “family” Dean charged forward without thinking about his relationships with them.

       Achievement Motives are broken down into two sections, hope for success (need for achievement) and fear of failure. These motives are what predict Achievement Goals. Hope for success is directly correlated to Mastery and Performance Approach whereas fear of failure is directly correlated to Mastery and Performance Avoidance. Then you have the combinations between hope for success and fear of failure, which produce four outcomes, optimists, failure accepting, over strivers, and failure-avoiders. I would describe Dean as someone who masks as an optimist but is more of a mix between an optimist and over-striver. Most of the time Dean puts on the front that he is an optimist and that he can complete everything he put his mind to, especially when hunting monsters. Yet, in reality Dean deals with being an over-striver because he is so worried about failing not only himself but also his family. An example of this is when Dean’s brother Sam is going through the three trials to shut the gates of hell. Dean is so worried about failing his brother during the trials that he goes to the extremes to make sure that they succeed in closing the gates. Dean captures Crowley, the King of Hell at the time, and brings him to Sam because the trial was to humanize a demon. Dean goes out of his way to collect everything and anything that was needed to pass these trials because he doesn’t want to fail and risk the possibility of his brother dying or incurring the wrath of every demon in Hell.