PROMOTING REGULAR EXERCISE IN ORGANIZATIONAL FITNESS PROGRAMS: HEALTH-RELATED DIFFERENCES IN MOTIVATIONAL BUILDING BLOCKS

Hypotheses are proposed about relations among "building block" components of the motivation to attain exercise goals in an organizational fitness program, as well as about health-related individual differences in those components. The hypotheses are tested in a longitudinal field study involving questionnaire, physiological, and behavioral data from 107 participants in such a program. In support of the componential hypotheses, goal attainment was a positive function of goal commitment. Goal commitment was an additive function of goal attractiveness and goal-specific self-efficacy/perceived control. In support of the individual difference hypotheses, physiological variables were associated with work- and health-related perceived barriers to goal attainment. Employees with high health risks ranged from .5 to 1.2 SDs higher in perceived barriers than employees with low risks. Evidence suggests that for goal setting to succeed as a program intervention, managers must concentrate on reducing the perceived work- and health-related barriers to exercise participation and goal attainment, especially for employees with high health risks.     

社会公平感对不同阶层目标达成的影响及其过程

基于目标追求理论和社会阶层心理学的相关理论, 本文通过3个研究, 逐步深入地考察了社会公平感对不同阶层个体目标达成的影响作用及其过程。研究1为相关研究, 考察了高低阶层成人被试的教育领域社会公平感与为孩子进行教育投入的目标承诺及目标达成之间的关系; 研究2为准实验研究, 通过操纵公平或不公平教育情境启动公平感, 考察其对高低阶层中学生的学习目标承诺与目标达成的影响; 研究3为实验研究, 通过实验操纵社会公平感和社会阶层, 考察社会公平感对高低阶层大学生的实验任务目标承诺和目标达成的影响。研究发现, 社会公平感通过正向影响低阶层者的目标承诺, 进而正向影响其目标达成; 而对于高阶层者来说, 变量之间这些关系则不显著。这表明：相对于高阶层来说, 低阶层者的目标追求易受社会公平感的影响; 低阶层者的社会公平感水平越高, 其追求目标的动机水平就越高, 进而越有利于目标达成。     

Individual differences that moderate the effectiveness of relational reasons for self-improvement

Two studies tested the hypotheses that relationally-autonomous reasons (RARs) for goals predict attainment, and that this relationship is stronger among highly relational and agreeable people than others. Study 1 (n = 134) assessed participants’ self-construal and Agreeableness, and their tendency to pursue subgoals for RARs, relationally-controlled reasons (RCRs), and personally-controlled reasons (PARs). One month later, they indicated the number of subgoals they had attained. RARs were positively correlated with attainment, and this relationship was stronger among highly relational and agreeable people than others. In Study 2 (n = 74), self-construal and Agreeableness were assessed then participants generated possible outcomes of 3 subgoals using a Goal Attainment Scale. They were then randomly assigned to a goal program that either emphasized RARs, RCRs, or PARs. One week later, participants indicated their level of attainment. Highly relational and agreeable people had higher levels of attainment than others in the program emphasizing RARs.     

The interplay between goal intentions and implementation intentions

Two studies tested whether action control by implementation intentions is sensitive to the activation and strength of participants' underlying goal intentions. In Study 1, participants formed implementation intentions (or did not) and their goal intentions were measured. Findings revealed a significant interaction between implementation intentions and the strength of respective goal intentions. Implementation intentions benefited the rate of goal attainment when participants had strong goal intentions but not when goal intentions were weak. Study 2 activated either a task-relevant or a neutral goal outside of participants' conscious awareness and found that implementation intentions affected performance only when the relevant goal had been activated. These findings indicate that the rate of goal attainment engendered by implementation intentions takes account of the state (strength, activation) of people's superordinate goal intentions.     

Effect of goal difficulty and feedback seeking on goal attainment and learning1

Abstract: This field study investigated the effect of goal difficulty and feedback seeking on goal attainment and learning in Management by Objectives (MBO) programs. Participants (n = 105) described the degree of their goal difficulty. After 6 months, they answered a questionnaire that inquired about the frequency of the feedback‐seeking and the degree of learning during the 6‐month period. Data about the extent of goal attainment were obtained from the participants’ immediate supervisors. The results indicated that goal difficulty and the frequency of feedback seeking were positively related to the degree of goal attainment and learning.     

Strategies of self‐regulation in goal attainment versus goal maintenance

We propose that there exists an important difference between attainment and maintenance in terms of the goal pursuit strategies for which they call. Specifically, we propose that goal attainment calls for the use of eager approach strategies, whereas goal maintenance calls for the use of vigilant avoidance strategies. We distinguish between attainment versus maintenance as two different goal pursuit conditions on the one hand, and promotion versus prevention focus as two different self‐regulatory concerns on the other hand. We then use insights from Regulatory Fit Theory to make predictions concerning the interactive effects of these two motivational dimensions on outcome valuations. Consistent with our proposal about attainment and maintenance, we found that participants in a promotion focus valued the outcome of an attainment task more than did participants in a prevention focus, whereas the opposite was true for a maintenance task. Implications for maintenance‐related phenomena such as belief perseverance effects are subsequently discussed. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Using telehealth to provide outpatient follow‐up to children with avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder

The COVID‐19 global health crisis compelled behavior analysts to consider alternatives to face‐to‐face services to treat children with feeding disorders. Research suggests telehealth is one method behavior analysts could use to initiate or continue assessment of and treatment for feeding disorders. In the current paper, we conducted pilot studies in which we analyzed chart records of patients with Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder; who graduated from an intensive, day‐treatment program; and transitioned to an outpatient follow‐up program. In Experiment 1, we analyzed the data of participants who received follow‐up both in‐clinic and via telehealth. In Experiment 2, we analyzed goal attainment for participants who received outpatient follow‐up either in‐clinic exclusively or via telehealth exclusively. Results of both studies showed that outcomes were equivalent along most dimensions for in‐clinic and telehealth services. We provide recommendations for telehealth feeding services and discuss other considerations relevant to telehealth service delivery.     

Reconceptualizing Stabilization for Counseling Adolescents in Brief Psychiatric Hospitalization: A New Model

This research examined goal attainment as it related to client stability in the process of counseling adolescents admitted to a crisis residence. Data were collected from licensed master's‐level clinicians treating adolescent clients admitted to an acute care psychiatric program at 1 of 2 hospitals located in the mid‐South. There was a statistically significant relationship between the goal‐attainment model and client stability, as defined by symptom manifestation.     

Evaluating the individual counseling of conduct problem adolescents: The goal attainment scaling method

Goal Attainment Scaling (GAS) is described as a potentially useful way of evaluating goal attainment of individual counseling provided to public school adolescents with conduct problems. Utilization of the GAS method for individual counseling involves a counselor (e.g., school psychologist) and a pupil in goal setting, program design, goal attainment scaling, and goal attainment evaluation activities. An application of the GAS method to evaluate goal attainment of individual counseling of conduct problem adolescents in an urban high school is presented, and formative evaluation data pertaining to practical and technical properties of the approach are reported. Advantages and limitations of the GAS method are discussed.     

Regulatory Fit and Resisting Temptation during Goal Pursuit

Because avoiding obstacles to goal attainment is a favored means of prevention-focused self-regulation, the authors proposed that resisting tempting diversions from task completion would better fit a prevention focus than a promotion focus, thus affecting task enjoyment and performance. Whether deciphering encrypted messages (Study 1) or solving math problems (Study 2), when exposed to attractive distracting video clips, participants in a prevention focus reported greater task enjoyment than did participants in a promotion focus, whereas the reverse was true when the distracting clips were not presented. Indeed, prevention-focused participants enjoyed the tasks more when they had to resist temptation than when they did not. In Study 2, prevention-focused participants outperformed promotion-focused participants under distracting (but not nondistracting) conditions, and regression analyses suggested that task enjoyment mediated this effect. Different regulatory states thus appear to differentially equip people to deal with tempting diversions from goal attainment.     

French translation of the Flow State Scale-2: Factor structure,cross-cultural invariance,and associations with goal attainment

ObjectivesThe goal of this paper was to assess the cross-cultural invariance of the factor structure of the French and English versions of the Flow State Scale-2 (FSS-2) [Jackson, S. A., & Eklund, R. C. (2002). Assessing flow in physical activity: The Flow State Scale-2 and Dispositional Flow State Scale-2. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 24, 133–115] and to assess the relationships between athletes’ flow state and perceived goal attainment.DesignCross-sectional with self-reported questionnaires.MethodTwo samples of sport participants completed the FSS-2 immediately after an event and within a few days after the event, respectively. Data were analyzed with reliability and confirmatory factor analyses as well as with correlational and regression analyses.ResultsResults of confirmatory factor analyses on the French FSS-2 replicated the factor structure of the original FSS-2 with the first-order 9-factor and the hierarchical models both displaying adequate level of goodness-of-fit. Results of multi-sample analyses indicated that most parameters of the FSS-2 were invariant across languages. As expected, flow state correlated significantly with goal attainment during a sport competition. The relationship between flow and goal attainment was invariant across levels of competition.ConclusionsThis study provided support for the factor structure of the French version of the FSS-2 and for the invariance of the flow construct across languages. Flow state is significantly associated with goal attainment and the relationship is equivalent across athletes’ levels of competition.     

Integrated Conative Model of Well-Being: from Motives to Well-Being

The aim of this study was to develop the self-concordance model of healthy goal striving through testing the extended conative model of well-being. This model included: goal self-concordance as an aspect of positive motive; sustained effort as positive behaviour directed toward attaining the goal; goal attainment; personal growth interpretation as positive cognition regarding goal attainment; need satisfaction; and finally well-being as the outcome of the successful goal-striving process. Across three studies, university students completed online surveys regarding these variables, making reference to their most important goal during the past 4 weeks. The results indicated that (a) goal self-concordance predicted well-being via mediation of need satisfaction; (b) sustained effort also predicted well-being via mediation of need satisfaction; (c) personal growth interpretation predicted well-being via mediation of need satisfaction. The suggested integrated conative model of well-being provided appropriate goodness of fit. The three model-fitting studies highlight the important role of psychological processes such as construal in the conative processes that predict subjective well-being.     

Pets as safe havens and secure bases: The moderating role of pet attachment orientations

We examined the extent to which a pet functions as an attachment figure. In Study 1, 165 pet owners performed a goal exploration task, assessing the number of life goals generated and confidence in goal attainment. In Study 2, 120 pet owners performed a distress-eliciting task while assessing blood pressure. In both studies, participants were divided into three conditions: pet physical presence, pet cognitive presence, and no pet presence. As compared to no pet presence, physical or cognitive pet presence increased the number of life goals generated and self-confidence in goal attainment and reduced blood pressure during the distress-eliciting task. The findings confirm the ability of a pet to provide a safe-haven and a secure-base and the moderating role of attachment insecurities.     

Effects of shifts in goal origin on goal acceptance and attainment

Current models of goal setting often fail to consider the potential negative effects of goal programs. Control over goal difficulty levels may be an important source of personal control in the workplace and psychological reactance may result from a shift in control over the setting of goals. The present experiment examined the effects of initial goal origin (assigned or self-set) and shifted goal origin (shifted or not shifted) on goal acceptance and attainment over two trial blocks of a verbal task. Several hypotheses based on psychological reactance theory were tested in a laboratory experiment with 160 college undergraduates. Overall analyses revealed significant interactions for goal acceptance and goal attainment over trial blocks. Simple effect analyses isolated this interaction for both dependent variables in a disordinal crossover pattern for the shifted origin groups over trial blocks, as expected. The discussion focuses on fitting these results into the current program guiding goal-setting research and on suggesting future avenues of research. Some implications for the application of goal setting are also discussed.     

Goal conflict, goal striving, and psychological well-being

Although goal conflict is an important part of classic and contemporary theories of motivation, the correlates of goal conflict are not well understood. We identify and distinguish conflicting and facilitating goals, and assess relations with goal attainment and psychological well-being in a short-term, prospective study design. Results from multilevel models demonstrated that individuals with greater conflict were less successful in attaining their goals, but the goals they failed attain were not necessarily the ones in conflict. People who experienced goal conflict tended to be ruminative and hesitant, and reported greater levels of negative affect and increases in depression, anxiety, and psychosomatization. People who experienced goal facilitation reported greater levels of positive affect, life satisfaction, and successful goal attainment. This study identifies several implications of holding conflicting and facilitating goals, but also points to a theoretical inconsistency pertaining to goal conflict. Namely, conflicting goals may not be inherently less attainable than nonconflicting goals. We argue that distinguishing between goal- and person-level factors is essential for understanding goal striving.     

Improved matrix reasoning is limited to training on tasks with a visuospatial component

Recent studies (e.g.,  and ) have provided evidence that scores on tests of fluid intelligence can be improved by having participants complete a four week training program using the dual n-back task. The dual n-back task is a working memory task that presents auditory and visual stimuli simultaneously. The primary goal of our study was to determine whether a visuospatial component is required in the training program for participants to experience gains in tests of fluid intelligence. We had participants complete variations of the dual n-back task or a short-term memory task as training. Participants were assessed with four tests of fluid intelligence and four cognitive tests. We were successful in corroborating Jaeggi et al.'s results, however, improvements in scores were observed on only two out of four tests of fluid intelligence for participants who completed the dual n-back task, the visual n-back task, or a short-term memory task training program. Our results raise the issue of whether the tests measure the construct of fluid intelligence exclusively, or whether they may be sensitive to other factors. The findings are discussed in terms of implications for conceptualizing and assessing fluid intelligence.     

The Borderline Schizophrenic in Group Psychotherapy

SAGE is a group program developed for the community elderly. Groups led by professionals were compared to those led by the elderly, who were supervised SAGE graduates, and both of these groups of participants were compared to a wait-control group of elderly. A series of pre- and postmeasures on goal attainment scales and physical and mental health indices were used to evaluate the impact of the SAGE program. Professionally led groups had greater impact on improvement of mental health indices compared to the peer-led groups. These findings are discussed in the context of a framework used to analyze the differences between professionally conducted therapy, paraprofessionals, and peer-led self-help groups. Implications for the role of professionals in self-help are examined.     

Emotion and false memory: How goal-irrelevance can be relevant for what people remember

Elaborating on misleading information concerning emotional events can lead people to form false memories. The present experiment compared participants’ susceptibility to false memories when they elaborated on information associated with positive versus negative emotion and pregoal versus postgoal emotion. Pregoal emotion reflects appraisals that goal attainment or failure is anticipated but has not yet occurred (e.g., hope and fear). Postgoal emotion reflects appraisals that goal attainment or failure has already occurred (e.g., happiness and devastation). Participants watched a slideshow depicting an interaction between a couple and were asked to empathise with the protagonist's feelings of hope (positive pregoal), happiness (positive postgoal), fear (negative pregoal), or devastation (negative postgoal); in control conditions, no emotion was mentioned. Participants were then asked to reflect on details of the interaction that had occurred (true) or had not occurred (false), and that were relevant or irrelevant to the protagonist's goal. Irrespective of emotional valence, participants in the pregoal conditions were more susceptible to false memories concerning goal-irrelevant details than were participants in the other conditions. These findings support the view that pregoal emotions narrow attention to information relevant to goal pursuit, increasing susceptibility to false memories for irrelevant information.     

"I Can Tell You If I'll Really Lose All That Weight": Dispositional and Situated Optimism as Predictors of Weight Loss Following a Group Intervention

Weight loss is difficult to achieve and predict. We used Carver & Scheier's (1998 ) self-regulation theory to investigate the role of dispositional and situated optimism in weight loss following a group intervention. The theory proposes that dispositional optimism is related to persistence in goal pursuit as a result of greater confidence in goal attainment. Findings showed that situated optimism (higher goals, greater confidence in their attainment) predicted greater weight loss; whereas dispositional optimism, perceptions of controllability, timeline, and consequences of the weight problem were unrelated to weight loss. Changes in situated optimism following the intervention were related to weight-loss success/failure. The findings suggest that people possess quite accurate knowledge of their chances of success, which could be used to tailor interventions to participants.     

Don’t interrupt me! Task interruption depletes the self’s limited resources

It is a common occurrence in daily life to be interrupted prior to completing a task. Such interruptions may have deleterious effects for limited self-resources, especially if they occur just prior to task completion. This hypothesis was tested in three experiments. In the first two, participants initially engaged in a card sorting task, and then subsequently performed a self-control task. In Experiment 3, participants first engaged in a word search task and then worked on an executive function task. In all instances, participants who were interrupted just prior to attaining their goal of completing the initial task, but not those who were stopped earlier in the task or who were allowed to finish, showed evidence of impairment on the subsequent measures. The findings suggest that the desire to pursue a goal increases as goal attainment draws nearer, and that the amount of self-control needed to stop working on a task is modified by situational variables such as goal distance.