Global Assessments
As previously noted, global assessments are
generalized beliefs about the four assessment
dimensions, aggregated across tasks and over
time. They represent cumulative learnings from
past task assessments and are used to help "fill
in the gaps" in assessing novel situations. If a
person defines faith as belief held in the absence
of complete evidence, it follows that the
motivation to engage in any new activity requires
some faith. Global assessments, then,
provide a potential reservoir of faith for undertaking
and sustaining new activities. If an individual's
global assessments are relatively high,
the model implies that he or she will be more
optimistic than others in undertaking activities in
which information about task assessments is
ambiguous. In contrast, individuals who have
lower global assessments will tend to be more
pessimistic. At a given point in time, the global
assessments can be considered individual difference
variables. However, global assessments
can change over time in response to evidence