How partner‐satisfying decisions benefit relationships: An experience sampling study

Sometimes, individuals must choose between acting in a way that satisfies their own desire or acting in a way that satisfies their partner's desire. What are the consequences of choosing one over the other for individuals' well‐being and relationship? Using experience sampling data (934 reports by 106 participants) that assessed daily decision conflicts in relationships, we examined consequences of partner‐satisfying decisions. A higher proportion of partner‐satisfying decisions predicted more perceived needs fulfillment and marginally higher perceived relationship quality over the course of a week. Additionally, immediately after the partner‐satisfying decision, participants reported feeling closer to their partner, and reported more positive and less negative affect, even when controlling for the quality of the relationship.     

Individuation in relation to parents as a predictor of career goals and career optimism in emerging adults

The aim of this study was to examine the associations of Slovenian emerging adults’ individuation characteristics (in relation to mother and father) with career goals and career optimism. We were interested in contributions of age, gender, certainty of study choice, and individuation dimensions when predicting intrinsic/extrinsic career goals and career optimism. The participants provided self‐reports on the Individuation Test for Emerging Adults, the Career Goals Scale and the Career Futures Inventory. The results showed that age did not relate to emerging adults’ career goals; however, older students reported lower career optimism than their younger counterparts. Furthermore, certainty of study choice was the most important predictor of career optimism, and, along with gender, of intrinsic career goals. Emerging adults who reported higher connectedness with both parents and self‐reliance in relation to mother had higher intrinsic career goals, while self‐reliance in relation to mother was positively associated with stronger optimism about an individual's future career. Fear of disappointing both parents significantly contributed to the prediction of extrinsic career goals and optimism, while parental intrusiveness did not add significantly to the prediction of the two measured career outcomes. The study confirmed the correlational effects of positive and negative aspects of individuation on career outcomes in emerging adulthood.     

Value‐related goals and vocational choice: The effect of temporal distance

This field study examines the importance that people assign to value‐related goals in their vocational decisions. We focused on the interactive effects of temporal distance from the vocational decision and the level of abstraction of the goal. Soldiers rated the importance of value‐related goals for their vocational choice following their release from military service. They were presented with value‐driven, abstract, decontextualized goals and with value‐driven, concrete, job‐related goals. For half, vocational choice was temporally close, and for the rest, it was temporally distant. Temporal distance from the vocational decision interacted with the level of abstraction of the goals in predicting their importance: When construed in the abstract, the goals were deemed more important if the vocational decision was distant. When construed concretely, the goals were deemed more important if the vocational decision was proximate.     

Assessment of learning goals in university students from the perspective of ‘person-situation interaction’: the Situated Goals Questionnaire (SGQ-U) / Evaluación de las metas de aprendizaje en estudiantes universitarios desde la perspectiva de la ‘interacción persona-situación’: el Cuestionario de Metas Situadas (CMS-U)

Academic behaviour takes place in a context in which the nature of class activities and interactions can influence the student’s motivation to learn. So, in order to study this influence, it is necessary to assess not only the personal variables that can motivate academic behaviour, but also the degree to which students are sensitive to different situational or task characteristics. In this case, the interaction person-situation is analysed using a new tool, the ‘situated-goal questionnaire’ for university students. Data of 770 students were analysed using confirmatory techniques, as well as Anova and regression techniques. According to results, the questionnaire has good psychometric characteristics. Besides, they showed the effect of the kinds of situation on the degree to which students declare the pursuit of different goals, as suggested by the person/situation interaction model, as well as the validity of both goals and sensitivity to situations for predicting engagement and self-estimated mean grade.     

Feeling bad about progress does not lead people want to change their health behaviour

Objective: When do people decide to do something about problematic health behaviours? Theoretical models and pragmatic considerations suggest that people should take action when they feel bad about their progress – in other words, when they experience negative progress-related affect. However, the impact of progress-related affect on goal striving has rarely been investigated.

Design and Methods: Study 1 (N = 744) adopted a cross-sectional design and examined the extent to which measures of progress-related affect were correlated with intentions to take action. Study 2 (N = 409) investigated the impact of manipulating progress-related affect on intentions and behaviour in an experimental design.

Results: Study 1 found that, while engaging in health behaviours had the expected affective consequences (e.g. people felt bad when they were not eating healthily, exercising regularly or limiting their alcohol consumption), it was feeling good rather than bad about progress that was associated with stronger intentions. Study 2 replicated these findings. Participants induced to feel good about their eating behaviour had marginally stronger intentions to eat healthily than participants led to feel bad about their eating behaviour.

Conclusion: The findings have implications for interventions designed to promote changes in health behaviour, as well as theoretical frameworks for understanding self-regulation.     

Positive affect and physical activity: Testing effects on goal setting,activation, prioritisation,and attainment

Objective: The present research tested whether incidental positive affect promotes pursuit of physical activity goals. Four key features of goal pursuit were examined – setting physical activity goals (Study 1), goal activation (Study 2), and goal prioritization and goal attainment (Study 3).

Design: Participants (N_s = 80, 81, and 59, in Studies 1–3, respectively) were randomized to positive affect (joy, hope) or neutral affect (control) conditions in each study.

Main Outcome Measures: Questionnaire measures of goal level, goal commitment, and means selection (Study 1); a lexical decision task indexed goal activation (Study 2), a choice task captured goal prioritization and MET minutes quantified goal attainment (Study 3).

Results: Study 1 showed that positive affect led to a greater number of intended physical activities, and that joy engendered greater willingness to try activities. In Study 2, a positive affect induction led to heightened activation of the physical activity goal compared to the control condition. The joy induction in Study 3 led to greater physical activity, and a trend towards greater goal prioritization.

Conclusion: These findings suggest that positive affect enhances the pursuit of physical activity goals. Implications for health behavior theories and interventions are outlined.     

The role of implicit motivation in hot and cold goal pursuit: Effects on goal progress, goal rumination, and emotional well-being

Two cross-sectional studies examined the role of implicit motivational needs in the association between personal goal pursuits and depressive symptoms and affect. Replicating and extending on findings reported by Brunstein et al. [Brunstein, J. C., Schultheiss, O. C., & Grässmann, R. (1998). Personal goals and emotional well-being: The moderating role of motive dispositions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75(2), 494–508], both studies provided evidence that goal progress significantly accounted for variations in depressive symptoms and happiness only in individuals with high levels of implicit motivation, but not in individuals low in implicit motivation. Moreover, in the absence of a strong sense of goal commitment, high levels of implicit motivation were associated with high goal progress in both studies and low levels of goal rumination in Study 2. These findings are interpreted within a dual-systems framework of motivation that distinguishes an implicit, intuitive, and hedonically driven from an explicit, effortful-analytical, and non-hedonic mode of goal pursuit.     

Socially oriented achievement goals of Chinese university students in Singapore: structure and relationships with achievement motives, goals and affective outcomes

Contemporary literature on culture, self, and motivations (Markus & Kitayama, 1991) suggests that in collectivistic cultures, individual achievement is interdependent of one's social others. We proposed that this cultural characteristic could be exemplified in the achievement goal orientation and tested the notion with university students in a collectivistic community-Singapore. A socially oriented achievement goal construct was developed by taking into consideration the significant social others in the students' lives. A measuring instrument was established with a sample of Singaporean Chinese university students (N = 196; 144 females and 52 males); its relationships to achievement motives, goals, and consequences were examined. Although the socially oriented achievement goal items were originally constructed from four categories of social others, confirmatory factor analysis suggested a unifactor structure. Results showed that the socially oriented goal was related positively with students' performance goal, mastery goal, and competitive motive; it bore no relationship to mastery motive, work ethic, and interest in learning; and it predicted negatively future engagement. After the effects of mastery and performance goals were controlled for, the socially oriented goal did not predict test anxiety.     

Academic achievement in the Chinese context: the role of goals, strategies, and effort

Previous studies have suggested that Western constructs of academic motivation may operate in different ways in Asian contexts due to differences in the cultural environment. In the present study, the integrative effects of achievement goals, strategy orientations, and effort expenditure on achievement outcomes were examined among 1950 seventh-grade Chinese students in Hong Kong. Participants completed separate questionnaires for mathematics and English. Results for the two subjects were largely similar. There were significant positive relationships between mastery and performance goals, between cooperative and competitive orientations, as well as between understanding and memorizing strategies. Regression analyses further revealed that goals and strategies were highly predictive of effort expenditure, but only goals and effort significantly predicted achievement outcome, with strategies being barely significant. The need to further investigate how Chinese students reconcile the apparently antithetical orientations in learning as well as the effective strategies contributing to their learning is indicated.