Perceptions of the behavioral influence of goals: A mediational relationship to exercise

Abstract

In the present study, it is argued that a more fundamental approach is necessary for the study of exercise goals and exercise behavior if we are to understand their relationship. The specific purposes of the investigation were to a) examine the relationships between perceptions of the behavioral influence of goals, moderators of goal influence (i.e., goal clarity) and perceptions of required exercise behavior (frequency and intensity), (b) examine changes that occurred over time to measures of goal-related variables and (c) describe various personal exercise goals and related action plans to achieve goals. Ninety-nine healthy adults in intermediate level university fitness classes were volunteers in this prospective study. The present study revealed that exercisers have multiple goals and action plans and are also knowledgeable about the specific behavioral strategies and exercise behaviors required to attain these goals. Also, the clarity, commitment, and perceived behavioral influence of goals increased as adherers gained experience with the exercise program. Finally, perceptions of the way goals influence behavior was found to mediate the goal clarity-exercise intensity and the goal commitment-exercise intensity relationships at the beginning of the exercise program but not at mid-program. Instead, independent relationships emerged at midprogram between goal clarity and goal influence, goal commitment and goal influence, goal clarity and exercise intensity, goal commitment and exercise intensity, and goal influence and exercise intensity. Results an discussed in terms of the complex and changing nature of the perceptions people hold of their goals and how these goals influence their exercise.     

Health behavior change in transactive systems

Relationship members are frequently concordant on health outcomes; health behavior change is also concordant in close relationships. Despite clear evidence of this influence, relatively little is known about the possible mechanisms by which individuals in densely transactive systems (i.e., relationships with high goal‐related interdependence) influence each other's health. I draw on transactive goal dynamics (TGD) theory to highlight potential processes involved in health behavior change in interdependent systems. I introduce and discuss relevant literature about two related constructs—partner‐directed goal pursuit and partner‐directed goal qualities. I then highlight two areas where drawing on TGD principles may be useful, including unpacking recursive patterns of influence and health behavior change in concordant systems. I conclude with recommendations for future research.     

When mistakes affecting one’s own group result in compensation: Evidence of a compensatory own goal effect

ObjectivesAlthough sports team members often value their teams highly, they sometimes make mistakes and thereby unintentionally put their teams at a disadvantage. Thus, they should be motivated to compensate for their mistake to resolve this discrepancy. To test this hypothesis, we studied whether professional soccer players compensate for their own goals by scoring regular goals in the same game (Study 1) and possible processes underlying such compensation efforts (Study 2).DesignIn Study 1, we compared how frequently prior own goal scorers scored a regular goal in the same game to (a) their expected goal scoring frequencies and (b) their probabilities to score a regular goal following a regular goal by the opposing team. In Study 2, we investigated four possible processes underlying the expected compensatory efforts.MethodWe analyzed all own goals from the first fifty years of the German Bundesliga (N = 889) and possible ensuing regular goals by the own goal scorer. Moreover, we surveyed amateur soccer players about four motives: group performance, individual performance, individual public image, and group public image.ResultsFollowing their own goals, professional soccer players are particularly likely to score regular goals in the same game (i.e., a compensatory own goal effect). Presumably, they primarily do so to secure a good group performance, but the other motives also play a role.ConclusionsGroup members who make highly visible mistakes are motivated to compensate for the disadvantage they caused. Presumably, they mainly do so to secure a good team performance.     

情节式未来思考中目标加工研究进展

情节式未来思考是个体将自我投射到未来以预先经历某事件的能力,个人目标加工在情节式未来思考中发挥着重要作用。目前对情节式未来思考中目标加工的行为学研究通常将其划分为目标过程模拟和目标结果模拟两种类型,以探究其对执行意图的影响为主;脑机制神经影像学研究则聚焦于默认网络的内侧前额叶和后扣带的重要作用,以及默认网络、额顶控制网络和奖赏区的协同作用。未来研究应进一步探讨情节式未来思考目标加工的形式、年龄差异及其与时间距离的关系。     

Act local but don’t think too global: The impact of ecological goal level on behavior

ABSTRACT

Growing awareness of humanity’s impact on the environment raises the question of how best to encourage pro-environmental actions. Numerous campaigns have been created to convince people to adopt environmentally friendly everyday behaviors, with varying success. The difficulty may be due, at least in part, to the huge gap between these small individual actions and the high-level goals, such as “saving the planet,” often used as incentives. We tested this hypothesis via four experiments. Studies 1 and 2 showed that high-level goals were less effective than low-level goals in promoting paper- and energy-saving behaviors. Study 3 showed that high-level goals engender lower perceived outcome expectancy and higher perception of cumulative effort. Study 4 showed that outcome expectancy mediates the direct effect of goal level on intention.     

Social and Emotional Processes in the Classroom Setting: A Goal Approach

Goals can be defined as cognitive- and as value-related motivational constructs. Consequently, both goal elaboration and personal valuing of goals are emphasized as critical determinants of motivated action. From this perspective, it is argued that goals play an influential role in students' cognitions, and in their social and emotional processes. I explore students' strategies for dealing with potentially stressful classroom circumstances in relation to their goals by examining students' reactions to imagined specific academic stressors, focusing on their emotions, behavior, and goals. Four distinct strategies were defined: strategic flexible action, strategic rigid action, passive behavior, and disorganized behavior. It is suggested that (a) goals play a major role in articulating and integrating behaviors and emotions within a whole strategy, (b) particular combinations of goal characteristics - goal-setting, personal goal valuing, and goal difficulty - are required for successful coping, and (c) both productive behavior and emotional regulation are predicted by specific goal characteristics.     

Comparing the effects of goal types in a walking session with healthy adults: Preliminary evidence for open goals in physical activity

ObjectivesGoal-setting is one of the most common strategies used to increase physical activity. Current practice is often based on specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound (SMART) goals. However, theory and research suggests that this approach may be problematic. Open goals (e.g., “see how well you can do”) have emerged as a possible alternative, but are yet to be tested experimentally in physically active tasks. In a walking-based session, this study aimed to experimentally compare the effects of open, SMART and do-your-best goals with a control condition on distance walked and psychological variables related to engagement.DesignRepeated measures design (mixed model).MethodParticipants (N = 78; M_age = 55.88) were randomly assigned to one of four goal conditions: an open, SMART, or do-your-best goal, or a control condition (“walk at your normal pace”), before completing a baseline and two manipulated attempts of a 6-min walking test.ResultsOpen, SMART, and do-your-best goals achieved greater distance walked, and higher ratings of perceived exertion, than the control across both experimental attempts. Open and SMART goals led to greater enjoyment of the session. However, SMART goals led to higher pressure/tension, while open goals led to higher perceptions of performance and higher interest in repeating the session.ConclusionsThese findings provide preliminary evidence for the efficacy of setting open goals in physical activity, and suggest that they may be more psychologically adaptive to pursue than SMART or do-your-best goals. Implications are discussed, and recommendations are made for future goal-setting research in physical activity.     

Chinese values and health: A cultural-level examination

Abstract

Previous research has identified two factors from the Chinese Value Survey, Integration vs Inwardness and Reputation vs Morality. In an effort to further establish their validities, the scores of a student sample on these two dimensions were calculated for each of 23 countries. These value profiles were then used as predictors of a number of health indices, after partialing out the confounding influence of per capita GNP. This country-level analysis revealed many relationships between the two value dimensions and 1. longevity measures, 2. modes of death, 3. health endangering behaviors, and 4. indicators of social well-being. These findings were related to theorizing about cultural emphases on individualism and on material success. It is hoped that this research will stimulate more comprehensive within-and cross-cultural research on the link between values and health.     

The effects of open vs. specific goals on flow and clutch states in a cognitive task

ObjectivesRecent qualitative evidence suggests that two optimal psychological states (flow and clutch) underlie excellent performance in sport. That research further suggests that the type of goal pursued influences which state is experienced. This study aimed to examine the effects of goal types (i.e., open, specific, and do-your-best goals) on flow and clutch states during performance in a cognitive task, which was developed and has been used in sport. Secondary aims were to investigate the effects of goal types on objective and subjective performance, confidence, and perceived challenge.DesignThis study employed a repeated measure design (mixed model).MethodParticipants (N = 95; M_age = 24.89, SD = 9.27) were randomised to one of three goal conditions and asked to perform a Letter and Number Identification Task, which was repeated for six attempts.ResultsParticipants prescribed open or do-your-best goals experienced significantly higher levels of flow than those prescribed specific goals, who conversely experienced significantly higher levels of clutch states. Participants assigned specific goals performed significantly better than those prescribed open or do-your-best goals. Those assigned open or do-your-best-goals reported greater perceived performance, higher confidence, and feeling more optimally challenged.ConclusionsThese findings provide experimental support for the role of goal types in determining flow and clutch states, and further understanding of the psychological effects of these goal types. Implications are discussed, and recommendations are made for future research into the role of goals in experiencing flow and clutch states in sport and exercise.     

Optimism,goals, and threats: How to conceptualize self-regulatory processes in the adoption and maintenance of health behaviors

Abstract

How individuals control themselves and their health behaviors can be better understood by examining their self-beliefs in terms of threats and goals. The distinction between self-regulatory threat appraisals and self-regulatory goal attainment may help to explain when individuals fall prey to defensive optimism and when they are guided by functional optimism. To underscore the notion of process-specific self-beliefs, a further distinction is made between goal-setting self-efficacy, action self-efficacy, coping self-efficacy, and recovery self-efficacy.     

Prospective teachers’ beliefs about students’ goal orientations: A carry-over effect of prior schooling experiences?

This study examined the relationship between prospective teachers’ (N = 166) retrospective perceptions of their own past achievement goals and their current beliefs about students’ goal orientations and achievement behaviors. Results of hierarchical regression analysis provide correlation evidence in support of a “carry-over effect” of prospective teachers’ past goal orientations on their current beliefs about students. Specifically, prospective teachers’ were found to believe that their future students will pursue goal orientations analogous to their own past goal orientations. In addition, prospective teachers’ explanations for why students might engage in or avoid achievement-directed behaviors were examined. Regardless of past goal orientation, “internal motives” (e.g., improvement and self-satisfaction) represented the most frequent explanation offered by prospective teachers for why students engage in achievement behaviors. Prospective teachers with past performance-approach goals were significantly more likely to view avoidance as a sign of “laziness,” whereas those with past performance-avoidant goals were more likely to view avoidance as resulting from a “lack of confidence and support.” Implications for subsequent research are discussed.     

Time for change: using implementation intentions to promote physical activity in a randomised pilot trial

Objective: A common barrier to exercise is a perceived lack of time. The current pilot study examined the effects of an implementation intention intervention to enhance exercise self-efficacy, increase confidence to exercise when facing time constraints, and increase physical activity in middle-aged adults (n?=?63, aged 35–69). Design: Participants received a pedometer (Fitbit) to objectively measure activity and were randomly assigned to either a control or intervention condition. After a 1-week baseline, the intervention condition received instructions to plan how, where, and when they would add steps to their daily routine to meet their step goal, using personalised schedules and maps. Both groups were contacted nightly via email. Main Outcome Measures: Physical activity (steps and time spent in moderate-to-vigorous activity), goal achievement, exercise self-efficacy, time-relevant exercise self-efficacy and affect. Results: Compared to the control, the intervention condition significantly increased in steps, time spent in moderate-to-vigorous activity, and time-relevant exercise self-efficacy. Goal achievement was related to greater time-relevant exercise self-efficacy and more positive affect at the daily level. Conclusion: Findings suggest that the personalised planning intervention increased physical activity and confidence in achieving physical activity goals under time constraints. Avenues for future directions, especially for producing more sustained effects, are discussed.     

Memory for goals: an activation‐based model

Goal‐directed cognition is often discussed in terms of specialized memory structures like the “goal stack.” The goal‐activation model presented here analyzes goal‐directed cognition in terms of the general memory constructs of activation and associative priming. The model embodies three predictive constraints: (1) the interference level, which arises from residual memory for old goals; (1) the strengthening constraint, which makes predictions about time to encode a new goal; and (3) the priming constraint, which makes predictions about the role of cues in retrieving pending goals. These constraints are formulated algebraically and tested through simulation of latency and error data from the Tower of Hanoi, a means‐ends puzzle that depends heavily on suspension and resumption of goals. Implications of the model for understanding intention superiority, postcompletion error, and effects of task interruption are discussed.     

Unattainable educational goals: Disengagement,reengagement with alternative goals,and consequences for subjective well-being

IntroductionIs it always positive, in terms of well-being, to be highly committed to one's goals? Even if giving up on goals is most often seen as an undesirable response to difficulties, some researchers have begun to demonstrate the benefits of goal disengagement and reengagement with another goal when faced with unattainable goals.ObjectiveThis study aims to test the impact of goal commitment, goal disengagement and goal reengagement on several indicators of well-being in the higher education context, where in first year, a relatively large proportion of students may perceive their initial educational goal as unattainable.MethodSome 357 students with secondary school leaving qualifications were surveyed in a first wave of data collection; 186 of these also participated in a second wave.ResultsResults show that the positive impact of goal commitment on well-being disappears, or even becomes negative, when the goal is perceived as unattainable. Moreover, disengagement from an unattainable goal was found to have beneficial effects on self-mastery. However, this disengagement was not enough to reduce depressive feelings; it must be accompanied by reengagement with an alternative goal.ConclusionThese results are discussed and proposals for future research are put forward.     

Perceived self-regulation of exercise goals and interfering goals among regular and irregular exercisers: a life space analysis

ObjectivesTo investigate whether adults self-classified as regular and irregular exercisers tend to differentially perceive the self-regulation of their exercise goals (a between groups comparison) and whether the groups’ differ in their self-regulatory perceptions of an exercise goal versus a goal that strongly interferes with exercise (a within groups comparison).DesignsCross-Sectional Survey.MethodsCollege students (N=399, 66% female), who were either regular or irregular exercisers, completed the Goal Systems Assessment Battery [GSAB; Karoly, P., & Ruehlman, L. S. (1995). Goal cognition and its clinical implications: Development and preliminary validation of four motivational assessment instruments. Assessment, 2, 113–129] for the goal of exercise and for a self-selected interfering goal. The GSAB gauges how individuals evaluate multiple functional components of self-regulation.ResultsA doubly multivariate MANOVA revealed a significant interaction between exercise regularity and goal type. Irregular exercisers manifested a pattern of goal regulatory thinking favoring their interfering goal relative to their exercise goal with respect to its value and the extent of their monitoring, planning, social comparison, and self-rewarding their progress toward that goal. Regular exercisers tended not to make such regulatory distinctions.ConclusionsAlthough life pursuits identified as interfering with exercise (e.g. academic goals) generally require more of a psychological investment than engaging in exercise, regular exercisers tend to construe their physical activity goals in a manner that closely matches their ratings of competing life aspirations. A dual focus on exercise goals and their aspirational rivals may inform motivational theory and intervention.     

The role of goals and goal barriers in predicting the outcomes of intentional actions in the contexts of narrative text

ABSTRACT

Predictions about human behaviour can be influenced by the presence and status of goals. The purpose of this study was to assess the impact of an active goal and barriers to that goal on predictions about outcomes experienced by agents. Participants read stories describing characters with goals. The extent that there were barriers to those goals was varied. Participants predicted what happens next in the story, both prior to and after barrier removal. There was support for a goal barrier hypothesis, where the conditions for predicting goal completion involved removing conditions that prevent a goal being achieved (Experiments 1 and 2). At the same time, unachieved goals were more accessible to working memory than completed goals, regardless of a barrier (Experiment 3). These results suggest that participants deliberately decided when it was appropriate to use goal information to predict outcomes of intentional actions conducted by the agents in the stories.     

Cueing task goals and earning money: Relatively high monetary rewards reduce failures to act on goals in a Stroop task

We examined the role of monetary rewards in failures to act on goals in a Stroop task. Based on recent developments in theorizing on the interplay between rewards and cognitive control, we hypothesized that relatively high monetary rewards enhance the focus and stability of a cued task goal compared to low monetary rewards, and hence cause a reduction in failures to act on current task goals under circumstances that warrant top–down goal implementation. To test this, participants received a modified version of the Stroop task, in which they were either briefly cued with the goal of naming the color or meaning of targets on a trial-by-trial basis. After goal cuing, but before presenting the target, either a low or high reward cue was presented. Results showed that higher rewards produced a general speed-up. More importantly, Stroop interference on error rates was lower in the high reward condition compared to the low reward condition, revealing that the rewards enhanced focus and stability of the cued goal. These results provide support for theorizing that reward processing modulates utility assessment of current goals by affecting attention to facilitate goal-directed behavior.     

Painful engagement in deliberate self-harm: The role of conditional goal setting

Conditional goal setting is the tendency for people to see attainment of their future personal goals as necessary for their well-being. It has been argued that this represents an unhealthy way of relating to one’s goals, as well as being particularly problematic when goals are perceived as unlikely. High conditional goal setting has been found to be related to depression and to hopelessness. The present study examined conditional goal setting in deliberate self-harm, where problematic thinking about the future is very prominent. A group of individuals attending hospital for a recent episode of deliberate self-harm (N = 25) were compared with controls attending hospital for minor injuries (N = 25) as well as a psychologically disordered but non-suicidal control group (N = 25). Participants generated goals and rated goal likelihood, the extent to which those goals were seen as necessary for their future well-being (conditional goal setting), and also the extent to which the goals were seen as sufficient for their future well-being (goal sufficiency). Deliberate self-harm patients showed a higher degree of both conditional goal setting and goal sufficiency than did both of the other groups, further confirming the idea of painful engagement with personal goals, rather than disengagement, as characterising deliberate self-harm.     

Positive Mood and Future-Oriented Self-Evaluation

When individuals think about their future, feedback on their strengths and weaknesses may often serve as a useful source of information. Three studies investigated the influence of positive and neutral moods on feedback seeking. In Studies 1 and 2, positive mood increased interest in feedback about weaknesses when this information was useful for self-assessment and self-improvement. But when the feedback was not useful for these superordinate, long-term goals then positive mood directed participants’ interest to strength-focused feedback, thereby serving short-term, affective concerns (e.g., feeling good about oneself). Study 3 directly manipulated self-evaluative goals. When a learning goal was activated, positive mood increased interest in weaknesses-focused feedback, but when an affective goal was activated, positive mood increased interest in strength-focused feedback. These results support our hypothesis that positive mood attunes individuals to the relationships of goals and means, thus promoting actions that serve primary goals.

The effects of manipulating goal content and autonomy support climate on outcomes of a PE fitness class

ObjectivesThe present study tested the potential for manipulating adolescents' goals and motives for participation in a school physical education (PE) lesson, and explored the subsequent outcomes on participant experience.DesignA cluster randomized controlled design was used to compare outcomes of four experimentally manipulated PE class conditions alongside a control group.MethodTwenty-four classes comprising 592 students (M age = 13.74 years) were randomized to undertake one of four experimental conditions, or a control condition, during a fitness-based circuits class during a usual PE lesson. The experimental conditions comprised an autonomy-supportive or controlling climate, each with an intrinsic (health and fitness) or extrinsic (looking good to others) goal focus. The control condition comprised a neutral climate with no goal focus. The effect of experimental condition on motivational, affective, and intentional outcomes was analysed using hierarchical linear modelling.ResultsClass-level effects explained less than 10% of variance of study outcomes, suggesting that the impact of lesson manipulations was limited. Where intervention effects were significant, these were contrary to hypotheses guided by self-determination theory (SDT); participants perceived greater lesson value and formed stronger future intentions in the controlling, extrinsic goal focused condition. However, at the individual-level, findings were in line with SDT, in that perceptions of autonomy support and an intrinsic goal focus predicted positive lesson-related outcomes (i.e., motivation, effort, enjoyment, value, exercise-induced affect) and future intention to exercise (Total R² values = .39 to .75).ConclusionsThe findings highlight the practical challenges of manipulating lesson climates in ecological PE settings.