Negative affect and ruminative self-focus during everyday goal pursuit

Models of self-regulation propose that negative affect is generated when progress towards goals is perceived to be inadequate. Similarly, ruminative thinking is hypothesised to be triggered by unattained goals (Martin & Tesser, 1996). We conducted an experience-sampling study in which participants recorded their negative affect, ruminative self-focus, and goal appraisals eight times daily for one week. Negative affect and ruminative self-focus were each associated with low levels of goal success and (with the exception of sadness) high levels of goal importance. As predicted, the combination of low goal success and high goal importance was associated with the highest levels of negative affect, and this interaction was marginally significant for ruminative self-focus. Decomposition of the ruminative self-focus measure revealed that the success by importance interaction was significantly associated with focus on problems but not focus on feelings. Findings did not differ for individuals reporting high versus low levels of depressive symptoms or trait rumination. These results suggest that self-regulatory models of goal pursuit provide a useful explanatory framework for the study of affect and ruminative thinking in everyday life.     

Priming against your will: How accessible alternatives affect goal pursuit

Four studies examined how diverse aspects of goal pursuit are influenced by the accessibility of alternative goals. It was consistently found that such an accessibility often affects the resources allocated to a focal goal, influencing commitment, progress, and the development of effective means, as well as one's emotional reponses to positive and negative feedback about one's striving efforts. Moreover, the direction of these influences was found to depend on how the alternative goals relate to the focal pursuit. Alternatives unrelated to the focal goal pull resources away from it, whereas alternatives facilitatively related to a focal goal draw resources toward it.     

Power and goal pursuit

Powerful individuals more easily acquire desired outcomes compared to powerless individuals. The authors argue that these differences can partly be attributed to self-regulation. The effects of power on the ability to act in a goal-consistent manner were analyzed across different phases of goal pursuit. Study 1 examined goal setting, Study 2 focused on the initiation of goal-directed action, Study 3 examined persistence and flexibility, and Study 4 assessed responses to good opportunities for goal pursuit and the role of implementation intentions. Consistently across studies, power facilitated prioritization and goal-consistent behavior. Power had, however, independent effects from implementation intentions. Consequences for performance are discussed.     

The nonconscious cessation of goal pursuit: when goals and negative affect are coactivated

Extending on the recent investigation into the implicit affective processes underlying motivation and decision making, 5 studies examined the role of negative affect in moderating goal priming effects. Specifically, experimental effects on measures that typify motivational qualities of goal systems, such as keeping a goal at a heightened level of mental accessibility and exerting effort to work for a goal and experiencing desire to attain the goal, showed that the motivation and resultant operation of social goals cease when these goals are primed in temporal proximity of negatively valenced information. These goal cessation effects resulting from the mere coactivation of a goal and negative affect are discussed against the background of present research on nonconscious goal pursuit and the role of accessibility and desirability in the regulation of automatic goal-directed behavior.     

Automatic for the people: how representations of significant others implicitly affect goal pursuit

Five studies are presented that explore how representations of significant others may automatically affect goal pursuit. Specifically, evidence is presented that suggests goals may be primed by one's representation of a significant other and that this priming may be moderated by one's closeness to this other individual. It is also shown to be affected by the number of different goals associated with this person. The greater the number of goals associated with a significant other, the less likely this individual will invoke any 1 goal very strongly. Such goal priming is shown to have implications for the extent to which goals are pursued (as seen through task persistence and performance) as well as the extent to which they are inhibited or ignored (especially when an individual is associated with a goal unrelated to a current pursuit).     

Relational mechanisms in the goal pursuit process

Four studies tested a model for goal pursuit, which proposed three relational mechanisms that yield motives for a goal. These motives, in turn, predict goal outcomes, but the association was expected to be stronger among women than among men. Study 1 (n = 116) tested the model for a short‐term, collaborative project between strangers; Study 2 (n = 186) examined parents being motivated by their children to be healthier; Study 3 (n = 124) examined nontraditional college students' career searches; and Study 4 (n = 181) examined young adults' progress toward a self‐improvement goal. Results showed support for the model in all four studies, with the exception that feeling accountable to others was not a consistent predictor of relational motives.     

Illegitimacy improves goal pursuit in powerless individuals

The effects of power legitimacy on self-regulation during goal pursuit were examined. Study 1 focused on goal-setting and goal-striving. Specifically, it examined how much time legitimate and illegitimate powerless individuals needed to set goals, and how many means they generated to pursue these goals. Study 2 examined persistence in the face of difficulties. Consistently across these studies illegitimacy improved self-regulation in powerless individuals. Illegitimate powerless individuals behaved similarly as control participants. They took less time to decide on a course of action, used more flexible means to strive for goals, and persisted longer in the face of difficulties, compared to their legitimate counterparts. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

Postactional goal pursuit: Consequences of task completion for thought content,affect, and behavioral intentions

Postactional goal pursuit remains an underexplored area of the mindset theory of action phases. According to the theory, individuals enter a postactional phase following the completion of an intention. This phase focuses on evaluating goal outcomes, answering questions such as: Was the goal completed successfully? Was it worth the effort? Contrasting postactional phase with predecisional and actional goal pursuit, the present research examines differences in cognitive orientation, affective responses to feedback, and functional benefits for adapting subsequent goal pursuit. Five experiments show that postactional goal pursuit engenders outcome-focused deliberation, more intense affect in reaction to the current state of goal pursuit, and increased readiness to adapt subsequent goal pursuit to experienced outcomes. Moving beyond conceptual arguments, the present work provides initial evidence that postactional goal pursuit provokes a mindset-like shift suitable for a phase-specific task of outcome evaluation.     

Interaction of irrational beliefs with goal pursuit

152 subjects reported affective and cognitive reactions at several stages of pursuing a hypothetical goal related to the taking of a classroom test, then gave Anxious Overconcern and High Self-expectations ratings from Jones' Irrational Belief Test. Subject groups differed in kinds of goals set; e.g., easy vs. difficult. Affective and attributional correlates of the irrational beliefs appeared maladaptive, but differed as a function of difficulty and phase of pursuit of the hypothetical goal. These results supported a contextual model in which irrational beliefs are general cognitive structures which interact with other internal and/or external factors to influence reactions in particular situations. Motivational variables-such as type of goal pursued and number of steps taken in pursuit of it-appear to be important among such factors. The study thus points to growing complexity in our knowledge of how B functions in the ABC paradigm.Frank W. Wicker is Professor of Educational Psychology in the Department of Educational Psychology, The University of Texas at Austin. His research interests are focused on the cognitive bases of motivation and emotion.Gail Brown is a graduate student in the program in Cognition, Learning, and Instruction in the Department of Educational Psychology, University of Texas at Austin. Her primary research interests relate to theoretical explorations of motivation and emotion.Anastasia S. Hagen is a graduate student in the program in Cognition, Learning, and Instruction. She is especially interested in motivation as it pertains to learning and instruction.Wayne Boring is a graduate student in the program in Cognition, Learning, and Instruction. He is interested in cognitive approaches to the understanding of animal behaviors.James A. Wiehe is also a graduate student in the program in Cognition, Learning, and Instruction. He combines interests in cognitive, motivation, and the psychology of music.     

Beyond priming effects: The role of positive affect and discrepancies in implicit processes of motivation and goal pursuit

Recent research demonstrates that goal pursuit can be instigated without conscious interventions when the mental accessibility of goal representations is enhanced by environmental cues. However, the mechanisms producing this non-conscious, motivational, goal-directed activity are not clearly addressed in the literature. In this chapter we present a framework within which the non-conscious activation of goal-directed behaviour can be understood. The framework departs from the idea that a goal is represented as a desired state and identifies three characteristics of this representation that render non-conscious goal pursuit more likely to occur: its mental accessibility, the discrepancy of the represented state with the actual state, and its association with positive affect. We present findings, largely established in our own labs, that demonstrate the crucial role of these three factors. We will close the chapter by showing how the framework can help to address some of the pressing issues in the research on non-conscious goal pursuit.     

Goals as identities: Boosting perceptions of healthy-eater identity for easier goal pursuit

People who think of their personal goals as identities are more likely to engage in goal-consistent behavior. However, no research has explored whether learning to frame goals as identities can be an effective strategy for pursuing goals in daily life. Across a series of studies, we assessed how incorporating a goal as part of one’s identity impacts goal-consistent choices. In a pilot study, we established a positive correlational relationship between natural goal identification and goal-consistent decision-making. Individuals with stronger healthy-eater identities made healthier food choices in a behavioral choice task. In Studies 1 and 2, we employed longitudinal interventions to teach people to frame their healthy eating goals as identities. We found that people who learned to frame their goals as identities made healthier choices, felt their goals were easier to pursue, reported greater success at managing goals, and made food choices that they both perceived to be healthier and that were rated as healthier by independent evaluators. Across studies, our findings suggest that thinking of goals as identities makes it easier to engage in goal-consistent choices.

     

Nonconscious goal pursuit: Acting in an explanatory vacuum

Nonconsciously activated goals and consciously set goals produce the same outcomes by engaging similar psychological processes (Bargh, 1990; Gollwitzer & Bargh, 2005). However, nonconscious and conscious goal pursuit may have different effects on subsequent affect if goal pursuit affords an explanation, as nonconscious goal pursuit occurs in an explanatory vacuum (i.e. cannot be readily attributed to the respective goal intention). We compared self-reported affect after nonconscious versus conscious goal pursuit that either violated or conformed to a prevailing social norm. When goal-directed behavior did not require an explanation (was norm-conforming), affective experiences did not differ after nonconscious and conscious goal pursuit. However, when goal-directed behavior required an explanation (was norm-violating), nonconscious goal pursuit induced more negative affect than conscious goal pursuit.     

The role of working memory in achievement goal pursuit

The present research examined the role of working memory in the pursuit of qualitatively different achievement goals. Pursuit of a mastery-approach goal entails a focus on developing self-referential competence while a performance-approach goal entails a focus on demonstrating normative competence. Across two experiments it was found that, when working memory is loaded, individuals pursuing a mastery-approach goal experienced larger performance decrements than individuals pursuing a performance-approach goal or those in a no-goal control. It was also found that reliance upon working memory intensive strategies (explicit strategies) was more evident for those in a mastery-approach condition, whereas reliance upon less working memory intensive strategies (implicit strategies) was more evident for those in the performance-approach condition. Results suggest that a motivated focus on developing self-referential skill relies heavily on working memory, facilitated by the use of deliberative, ‘step-by-step’ strategies during goal pursuit. Conversely, a focus on demonstrating normative skill depends less on working memory, facilitated by the use of more heuristic ‘short-cut’ strategies during goal pursuit. These findings show, for the first time, that working memory plays an important, but selective, role in achievement goal pursuit.     

Goal complexes: Integrating achievement goals as standards and self-attributed motives as reasons underlying goal pursuit

Goal complexes, which are formed by pairing standards of competence strivings with their underlying reasons, are essential to an understanding of achievement goal regulation. This paper examines goal complexes that cross other-approach and other-avoidance goals with the approach-avoidance dimensions of Big Three motives as underlying reasons. 220 undergraduates participated in Study 1 which developed and validated the Self-Attributed Motive Scale to measure hope of success, fear of failure, hope of affiliation, fear of rejection, hope of power, and fear of loss of power. Additionally, 235 undergraduates participated in Study 2 where goal complexes were created by crossing the motive items developed in Study 1 with other-approach and other-avoidance goals. The predictive utility of the resultant goal complexes was examined in relation to positive well-being (positive learning-related emotions and engagement), negative well-being (negative learning-related emotions and burnout), and academic buoyancy. The contributions of the studies to the self-attributed motive and goal complex literatures are discussed.

     

The tenacious goal pursuit and flexible goal adjustment scales: a validation study

The flexible goal adjustment (FLEX) and tenacious goal pursuit (TEN) scales are used regularly in aging research. The current study examined their validity in a sample of 517 women (30-75 years) in multiple ways. Overall, the findings show that the scales do not clearly distinguish between FLEX and TEN. The direction in which the items were formulated was just as important as what was being measured. Moreover, face validity of the inversely phrased items in particular appeared to be weak. On the basis of these findings, the authors recommend a revision of the concept definitions as well as of the items.     

Psychological momentum: The phenomenology of goal pursuit

Psychological momentum (PM) is thought to be a force that influences judgment, emotion, and performance. Based on a review of the extant literature, we elucidate two distinct approaches that researchers have adopted in their study of PM: the input‐centered approach and the output‐centered approach . Consistent with the input‐centered approach, we conceptualize PM as a process whereby temporal and contextual PM‐like stimuli (i.e., perceptual velocity, perceptual mass, perceptual historicity, and perceptually interconnected timescales)—initially perceived as an impetus—are extrapolated to imagined future outcomes through mental simulation. In turn, and consistent with the output‐centered approach, we posit that mental simulation elicits experiential (e.g., perceptual, cognitive, emotional) and behavioral states that govern goal pursuit, and that the pursuit of goals further influences perceptions of self, environment, and action quality. In all, we suggest that PM is interdependently linked to perceptions and behaviors in the sense that PM both influences and is influenced by changes in self‐perceptions, environmental perceptions, and behavior, and we conclude by linking the PM construct to recent work on prospection.     

The impact of associative strength on performance in goal pursuit

The present research explored the hypothesis that strengthened attainment means–goal association leads to enhanced performance in goal pursuit. We hypothesize that because of the instrumental nature of means–goal association, strengthened associative strength leads to greater instrumentality expectancy of the means, which elicits greater motivation in the pursuit and hence better actual performance. We demonstrated in four studies that when the means is believed to facilitate goal attainment, a strong (vs. weak) means–goal association leads to greater performance in goal pursuit. Conversely, when the means is perceived to undermine goal attainment, a strong (vs. weak) association results in worse performance in goal pursuit.     

Stuck in the middle: the psychophysics of goal pursuit

The classic goal-gradient hypothesis posits that motivation to reach a goal increases monotonically with proximity to the desired end state. However, we argue that this is not always the case. In this article, we show that motivation to engage in goal-consistent behavior can be higher when people are either far from or close to the end state and lower when they are about halfway to the end state. We propose a psychophysical explanation for this tendency to get "stuck in the middle." Building on the assumption that motivation is influenced by the perceived marginal value of progress toward the goal, we show that the shape of the goal gradient varies depending on whether an individual monitors progress in terms of distance from the initial state or from the desired end state. Our psychophysical model of goal pursuit predicts a previously undiscovered nonmonotonic gradient, as well as two monotonic gradients.