Should I plan? Planning effects on perceived effort and motivation in goal pursuit

This research investigates how forming a plan can have both beneficial and detrimental effects on people's motivation to pursue a goal. We propose that forming a plan makes the necessary steps to pursue a goal salient, directing attention to the effort involved in executing these steps, which ultimately affects perceptions of required effort and motivation. We theorize that the impact of forming plans on motivation in goal pursuit depends on the level of difficulty to achieve a goal. When a goal is relatively easy to achieve, planning should make goal pursuit seem less effortful, thereby decreasing motivation to pursue the goal. When a goal is more difficult to achieve, planning should make goal pursuit seem more effortful, which ironically should increase motivation to pursue it. Three studies demonstrate how plans influence motivation in the domains of losing weight and saving money. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Honest and Deceptive Impression Management in the Employment Interview: Can It Be Detected and How Does It Impact Evaluations?

Applicants use honest and deceptive impression management (IM) in employment interviews. Deceptive IM is especially problematic because it can lead organizations to hire less competent but deceptive applicants if interviewers are not able to identify the deception. We investigated interviewers’ capacity to detect IM in 5 experimental studies using real‐time video coding of IM (N = 246 professional interviewers and 270 novice interviewers). Interviewers’ attempts to detect applicants’ IM were often unsuccessful. Interviewers were better at detecting honest than deceptive IM. Interview question type affected IM detection, but interviewers’ experience did not. Finally, interviewers’ perceptions of IM use by applicants were related to their evaluations of applicants’ performance in the interview. Interviewers’ attempts to adjust their evaluations of applicants they perceive to use deceptive IM may fail because they cannot correctly identify when applicants actually engage in various IM tactics. Helping interviewers to better identify deceptive IM tactics used by applicants may increase the validity of employment interviews.