The mediating role of relatedness need satisfaction in the relationship between charitable behavior and well‐being: Empirical evidence from China

Based on self‐determination theory, the current research aimed to explore the potential mediating effect of relatedness need satisfaction on the relationship between charitable behavior and well‐being in the Chinese context. Employing a cross‐sectional design, participants reported data on the aforementioned variables in Study 1. The results indicated that relatedness need satisfaction mediated the positive relationship between charitable behavior and hedonic well‐being and that between charitable behavior and eudaimonic well‐being. Subsequently, a field experiment was conducted in Study 2. Participants rated their levels of relatedness need satisfaction and well‐being after charitable donation behaviors were primed. We again observed consistent results. Specifically, charitable behavior was positively associated with both hedonic and eudaimonic well‐being, and these relationships were mediated by relatedness need satisfaction. The above findings help to clarify the association between charitable behavior and people's subjective feelings (i.e., well‐being), and they deepen our understanding of the underlying mechanism from the perspective of psychological needs satisfaction.     

Stated goals and their influence on helping behavior toward ingroups and outgroups

When seeking to motivate individuals to help, helping behavior may be framed in terms of power‐oriented, results focused, goals or value‐oriented, ideologically based, goals. In two studies, participants were presented with a call for assistance benefitting an ingroup or an outgroup. The stated goal associated with helping behavior was power‐oriented or value‐oriented. Participants showed more willingness to help on behalf of an outgroup when they believed the charitable organization had value‐oriented goals and more willingness to help on behalf of their ingroup when they believed the charitable organization had power‐oriented goals. The results suggest that organizations should consider the relationship between who will benefit and who is providing assistance to maximize the likelihood that assistance will be provided.     

The joys of genuine giving: Approach and avoidance sacrifice motivation and authenticity

Why do sacrifices undertaken in pursuit of approach and avoidance goals differentially influence well‐being and relationship quality? A cross‐sectional study (Study 1), an experiment (Study 2), and a 2‐week daily experience study (Study 3) demonstrate that the personal and interpersonal outcomes of approach and avoidance sacrifice goals in dating and married relationships are mediated by felt authenticity. When people sacrificed for approach goals such as to make their partner happy, they felt more authentic, in turn contributing to greater personal and relationship well‐being. However, when they sacrificed for avoidance goals such as to avoid conflict, they felt less authentic, in turn detracting from personal and relationship well‐being. Implications for research and theory on motivational processes in close relationships are discussed.     

Implementation intentions, perfectionism, and goal progress: perhaps the road to hell is paved with good intentions

Two studies explored whether perfectionism moderates the impact of implementation intentions on goal progress. Study 1 used an implementation intention manipulation to examine the effects of these plans in interaction with perfectionism on the progress of New Year's resolutions. Study 2 added a repeated implementation intention condition and monitored affect and monthly goal progress. The results of both studies revealed a significant backfire effect of the implementation intentions on goal progress for participants high on a particular dimension of perfectionism (socially prescribed perfectionism). These perfectionists reported doing significantly worse at reaching their personal goals when they were asked to formulate implementation intentions than when they completed a control exercise. There also was evidence that implementation planning aroused negative affect for socially prescribed perfectionists. These results are the first to suggest that implementation planning may be contra-indicated for individuals with self-critical tendencies.     

The social network of solidarity with migrants: The role of perceived injunctive norms on intergroup helping behaviors

Using an ego-centered network approach, we examine across two studies whether and how injunctive network norms—behaviors that are approved by alters—are related to majority members’ decisions to participate in helping actions supporting migrants. We hypothesize that the more people perceive their personal social networks as positive toward humanitarian actions for migrants, the more they consider their opinions on migration issues as self-defining, and the more they are willing to mobilize in helping behaviors. With a name generator approach, we collected personal social network data among majority members of Belgian, mobilized volunteers (Study 1, N = 204) and Swiss, non-mobilized participants (Study 2, N = 247). Results demonstrate the impact of injunctive network norms in promoting and maintaining helping actions for migrants, and the role of self-defining attitudes. Overall, the results highlight the importance of injunctive norms within personal social networks for participation in intergroup helping behaviors.     

Investigating goal conflict as a source of mixed emotions

This research investigated whether (1) the experience of mixed emotions is a consequence of activating conflicting goals and (2) mixed emotions are distinct from emotional conflict. A preliminary experiment (Study 1, N = 35) showed that an elicited goal conflict predicted more mixed emotions than a condition where the same goals were not in conflict. The second experiment was based on naturally occurring goal activation (Study 2, N = 57). This illustrated that mixed emotions were experienced more following conflicting goals compared with a facilitating goals condition—on both a direct self-report measure of mixed emotions and a minimum index measure. The results also showed that mixed emotions were different to emotional conflict. Overall, goal conflict was found to be a source of mixed emotions, and it is feasible that such states have a role in resolving personal dilemmas.     

How goal instrumentality shapes relationship evaluations

Findings from 6 experiments support the hypothesis that relationship evaluations and behavioral tendencies are goal dependent, reflecting the instrumentality of significant others for the self's progress toward currently active goals. Experiments 1 and 3 found that active goals can automatically bring to mind significant others who are instrumental for the activated goal, heightening their accessibility relative to noninstrumental others. Experiments 2-5 found that active goals cause individuals to evaluate instrumental others more positively, draw closer to them, and approach them more readily, compared with noninstrumental others. Experiment 6 found that people who engage in goal-dependent interpersonal evaluations are more successful, receiving higher grades. Implications for understanding the social nature of self-regulation and the impact of personal goals on interpersonal relationships are discussed.     

When goal sharing produces support that is not caring

Four studies used experimental and correlational methods to investigate the effect of a "partner-achievement goal," or a personal goal for a relationship partner's successful achievement. This goal led support providers to offer unhelpful support about how to play a computer game (Study 1). It also predicted poor achievement for dieting support recipients (Study 2). The effects of partner-achievement goals were moderated by recipient expectations of success and mediated by recipient effort. Recipients with low expectations of their own success requested that their provider partners with partner-achievement goals refrain from offering them support (Study 3); they also invested less time studying Latin grammar and learned fewer Latin words over one week (Study 4). Together, these findings highlight the unique behavioral consequences of partner-achievement goals for both members of a relationship.     

Reactions to Feedback in Goal Choice and Goal Change Processes1

Two laboratory studies were conducted to test the effects of reactions to feedback on propensity to change an initial self-selected performance goal. In Study 1, the performance of 228 subjects on a word search task was manipulated by varying puzzle difficulty. In Study 2, two-dimensional goals (i.e., time and quantity) were first assigned and then chosen by 75 subjects. In Study 1, satisfaction with performance and self-efficacy predicted goal change beyond the effects of past performance. Subjects lower in both satisfaction and self-efficacy tended to lower initial goals, whereas those higher in either or both variables tended to raise them. In a post-hoc analysis, goal-performance discrepancies and motivational force interacted to explain satisfaction with performance for subjects experiencing negative feedback. This result was replicated in Study 2 for self-selected quantity goals. In Study 2, satisfaction with performance explained goal choice beyond the effects of past performance for initial time goals and final quantity goals. Trade-offs in the selection of dual goals occurred, with subjects selecting a difficult goal on one dimension and an easy goal on the other. Suggestions for future research and practice on self-regulation of goals and performance are provided.     

Achievement goals and interpersonal behavior: how mastery and performance goals shape information exchange

The present research examines the impact of achievement goals on task-related information exchange. Studies 1 and 2 reveal that relative to those with mastery goals or no goal, individuals pursuing performance goals were less open in their information giving to exchange partners. Study 2 further clarifies this effect of achievement goals by showing that performance goals generate an exploitation orientation toward information exchange. Furthermore, relative to individuals with mastery goals or no goal, people pursuing performance goals enhanced their task performance by utilizing more high-quality information obtained from their exchange partner (Study 1) and protected their task performance by more rigorously disregarding received low-quality information (Study 2).     

Let’s play the blame game: The distinct effects of personal standards and self-critical perfectionism on attributions of success and failure during goal pursuit

In the present study, we examined whether personal standards and self-critical perfectionism differentially related to how people attributed their success and failures in pursuing their personal goals. In two studies (Ns = 185 and 240), participants set three week-long (Study 1) and semester-long (Study 2) goals, and at the end of the week or semester answered questions about goal status, internal and external attributions, and likelihood to reset the goal. Mulitlevel analyses showed that self-critical perfectionism was related to attributing goal attainment to external sources; this was not the case for failure or abandonment. Conversely, personal standards perfectionism was related to attributing failure more to external sources. Overall, these results highlight differences in how perfectionism influences the use of the self-serving bias.     

Principle of Care and Giving to Help People in Need

Theories of moral development posit that an internalized moral value that one should help those in need—the principle of care—evokes helping behaviour in situations where empathic concern does not. Examples of such situations are helping behaviours that involve cognitive deliberation and planning, that benefit others who are known only in the abstract, and who are out‐group members. Charitable giving to help people in need is an important helping behaviour that has these characteristics. Therefore we hypothesized that the principle of care would be positively associated with charitable giving to help people in need, and that the principle of care would mediate the empathic concern–giving relationship. The two hypotheses were tested across four studies. The studies used four different samples, including three nationally representative samples from the American and Dutch populations, and included both self‐reports of giving (Studies 1–3), giving observed in a survey experiment (Study 3), and giving observed in a laboratory experiment (Study 4). The evidence from these studies indicated that a moral principle to care for others was associated with charitable giving to help people in need and mediated the empathic concern–giving relationship. © 2016 The Authors. European Journal of Personality published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of European Association of Personality Psychology     

Personal goals as predictors of intended classroom goals: Comparing elementary and secondary school pre‐service teachers

Background and Aims. The literature documents fewer classroom mastery goal structures in secondary school compared to elementary. However, little is known about how personal achievement goals may influence classroom goal structures. This is especially true at the level of pre‐service teachers. Our objective was to investigate if pre‐service teachers’ personal goals predicted their intended classroom goal structures. Sample. Participants were 125 elementary and 175 secondary school pre‐service teachers from two Western Canadian universities. Method. Structural equation modelling was used to examine if the structural relationships and latent means of personal and intended classroom goal structures differed for elementary and secondary school pre‐service teachers. Results. The results revealed that personal goals predicted the goal structures that pre‐service teachers intended to establish; however, the relationships and means differed between elementary and secondary school pre‐service teachers. Specifically, personal mastery‐approach goals positively predicted classroom mastery goals much more strongly at the elementary than the secondary level. Furthermore, elementary pre‐service teachers had significantly higher latent mean scores on personal mastery‐approach goals than their secondary counterparts. Conclusions. It seems possible that the currently documented differences between classroom goal structures noted for elementary compared to secondary school may be based on the personal goals endorsed as pre‐service teachers. The results are further discussed in terms of alignment with research on practising teachers’ personal and classroom goals and implications for teacher education.     

Inaccurate self-knowledge formation as a result of automatic behavior

Four studies tested a post-priming misattribution process whereby a primed goal automatically influences people's behavior, but because people are unaware of that influence, they misattribute their behavior to some other internal state. People who were primed with a goal were more likely to choose an activity that was relevant to that goal, but did not recognize that the prime had influenced their choices. Instead, people used more accessible and plausible reasons to explain their behavior. The goals were seeking romantic interaction (Studies 1 and 2), helping (Study 3) and earning money (Study 4). People made choices related to these goals but misattributed the choices to temporary preferences (Studies 1 and 3) and more permanent dispositions (Studies 2 and 4). The misattribution had downstream effects, leading to choice behavior consistent with the erroneous self-knowledge. We suggest that automatic behavior can lead to a confabulated self-knowledge with behavioral consequences.     

Cohort Differences in Personal Goals and Life Satisfaction in Young Adulthood: Evidence for Historical Shifts in Developmental Tasks

This study investigated the influence of changing socio-historical conditions on personal goals in young adulthood. It was hypothesized that socio-historical changes related to individualization have resulted in shifts in goal pursuit. Participants from three birth cohorts reconstructed their important goals when they were 20 years old. Members of the oldest cohort were born between 1920 and 1925. Members of the middle cohort were born between 1945 and 1950. Members of the youngest cohort were born between 1970 and 1975. Goal content, the degree to which goals were perceived as being shared by members of the same cohort (social sharedness), perceived control over goal attainment, success in attainment, and life satisfaction at age 25 were measured in a retrospective study. Results show consistent shifts over time. Whereas members of older cohorts mentioned goals related to classical developmental tasks, members of younger cohorts mentioned more individualistic, self-related goals and goals related to education. The processes through which goal pursuit influenced life satisfaction also changed. Perceived social sharedness of goals was a direct predictor of life satisfaction for the oldest cohort. For the younger cohorts, perceived control over goal attainment influenced success which in turn influenced life satisfaction. These changes support the contention that developmental tasks and processes are historically variant.     

Frustrated,but not flustered: The benefits of hierarchical approach motivation to weathering daily frustrations

Variations in the organization of personal goals are thought to be important to self-regulation, yet relevant measures and evidence is largely lacking. In two studies (total N = 217), participants were prompted to self-generate personal goals at three levels of a goal hierarchy (low, mid, and high), following which they rated all of these goals along an approach-avoidance dimension. A hierarchical approach measure was created from these ratings and this novel individual difference measure was hypothesized to predict the better self-regulation of goal frustrations in daily life. Such predictions were confirmed. For example, daily frustrations precipitated anger among those low but not high, in hierarchical approach (Study 2). The findings are important theoretically as well as from a measurement perspective.     

The Effect of Self-awareness on the Identification of Goal-related Obstacles

When individuals strive towards personal goals, they may encounter obstacles that could compromise their goal progress and pose a challenge to self-regulation. Coping with obstacles first requires those obstacles to be identified. The purpose of the present studies was to apply an inter-individual approach to this important, but insufficiently studied self-regulatory aspect of goal striving. We therefore examined the role of self-awareness, that is, paying attention to one's own feelings, thoughts, and behaviours, for the identification of goal-related obstacles. We measured and manipulated self-awareness in two correlational and two experimental studies (one of them preregistered) and asked participants to identify obstacles to their goals. All studies confirmed the hypothesis that individuals with higher levels of dispositional and situational self-awareness identify more obstacles, both with regard to their idiosyncratic personal goals (Studies 1 and 2) and with regard to a goal in an assigned task during an experiment (Studies 3 and 4). The results indicate that self-awareness plays a crucial role for identifying obstacles. We discuss the implications of our findings for personality and self-regulation research.     

Goal congruence in project teams: does the fit between members' personal mastery and performance goals matter?

Research on team goals rarely considers the impact of congruence in perceptions of personal goals of self versus other members. In this study of 324 members of 64 short-term project teams, polynomial regression analysis was used to explore how congruence in personal and perceived team mastery and performance goals affected individual outcomes. Results indicated that congruence in perceived performance goals elicited greater individual satisfaction and contributions, regardless of goal strength (i.e.. high or low personal performance goals). Conversely, perceived team mastery goals had a greater effect on individual outcomes than did perceived congruence in self-other mastery goals. Congruent self-actual team goals showed weaker but similar relationships to individual outcomes, but contrary to hypotheses, this effect was not mediated by congruence in perceived self-other goals.     

Bolstering implementation plans for the long haul: the benefits of simultaneously boosting self-concordance or self-efficacy

Recent studies suggest that implementation planning exercises may not be as helpful for long-term, self-initiated goals as for short-term, assigned goals. Two studies used the personal goal paradigm to explore the impact of implementation plans on goal progress over time. Study 1 examined whether administering implementation plans in an autonomy supportive manner would facilitate goal progress relative to a neutral, control condition and a condition in which implementation plans were administered in a controlling manner. Study 2 examined whether combining implementation plans with a self-efficacy boosting exercise would facilitate goal progress relative to a neutral, control condition and a typical implementation condition. The results showed that implementation plans alone did not result in greater goal progress than a neutral condition but that the combination of implementation plans with either autonomy support or self-efficacy boosting resulted in significantly greater goal progress.     

Depressed people are not less motivated by personal goals but are more pessimistic about attaining them

Despite its theoretical importance, personal goal motivation has rarely been examined in clinical depression. Here we investigate whether clinically depressed persons (n = 23) differ from never-depressed persons (n = 26) on number of freely generated approach and avoidance goals, appraisals of these goals, and reasons why these goals would and would not be achieved. Participants listed approach and avoidance goals separately and generated explanations for why they would (pro) and would not (con) achieve their most important approach and avoidance goals, before rating the importance, likelihood, and perceived control of goal outcomes. Counter to hypothesis, depressed persons did not differ from never-depressed controls on number of approach or avoidance goals, or on the perceived importance of these goals. However, compared to never-depressed controls, depressed individuals gave lower likelihood judgments for desirable approach goal outcomes, tended to give higher likelihood judgments for undesirable to-be-avoided goal outcomes, and gave lower ratings of their control over goal outcomes. Furthermore, although controls generated significantly more pro than con reasons for goal achievement, depressed participants did not. These results suggest that depressed persons do not lack valued goals but are more pessimistic about their likelihood, controllability, and reasons for successful goal attainment.