Principal Investigator
Aims

Every year, thousands of consumers set new year’s resolutions; goals to better improve their well-being for the future. However, the majority of these resolutions fail (Luciani, 2015). People often enter a cycle of stopping and restarting goal pursuit (i.e., Strohacker, Carpenter, & McFarlin, 2009), often never reaching their goal. One reason that this might happen is that “small failures” derail people. Throughout long term goal pursuit, it is inevitable that people will experience a small failure along the way. Some days it might be impossible to make it to the gym, or some days you might have to splurge on that dessert. However, when these small failures occur, consumers often believe that there is a low chance of reaching their larger goal (e.g., losing weight/staying fit), leading them to completely abandon it (i.e., Cochran & Tesser, 1996; Soman & Cheema, 2004).

In this research, we test one cost-free nudge to help increase goal persistence by reducing the perception of goal failure. In particular, if feeling like one has failed by engaging in goal inconsistent behavior on their path to goal achievement leads people to be more likely to quit, it may be that encouraging consumers to make up for their failures will increase the likelihood that reach their goal. Our research seeks to test this hypothesis. Furthermore, if the effect holds, our research seeks to explore why this might be: is it because it helps mitigate feelings of failure, or could it be that encouraging someone to make up for failure helps prevent them from failing in the first place?

Abstract

Every year, thousands of consumers try to improve their well-being by setting goals, such as losing weight (Martin et al., 2018). More often than not, these goals are unsuccessful (i.e., Tsai & Wadden, 2005; Wadden et al., 2004; Young et al, 2012). One reason this might happen is that “small failures” derail people. Throughout long term goal pursuit, it is inevitable that people will experience a small failure along the way. Some days it might be impossible to make it to the gym, or some days you might have to splurge on that dessert. However, when these small failures occur, consumers often believe that there is a low chance of reaching their larger goal (e.g., losing weight/staying fit), leading them to completely abandon it (i.e., Cochran & Tesser, 1996; Soman & Cheema, 2004). In this research, we test one cost-free nudge to help increase goal persistence by reducing the perception of goal failure. We propose that if consumers are encouraged to make up for their failure during goal pursuit, they will be more likely to reach that goal. We will explore this idea in real-behavior longitudinal studies. We will ask participants to pursue a goal for a week(s), such as working out every day for 30 minutes. Participants will be divided into two conditions: one where they can make up for their failure, and one where they pursue the goal traditionally (without the ability to make up for failure). In the making up for failure condition, participants will be encouraged that if they do not work out 30 minutes on one day, they can work out extra minutes on a future day and apply those minutes to the failed day to reach their goal. If the results match our hypothesis, and people are more like to reach their goal when given the ability to make up for failure, it will have implications not only for goals and motivation theory but for real-world goal pursuit. If consumers are more likely to succeed when able to make up for failure, it would suggest that part of the reason why consumers fail is that they feel like their weak performance has ruined their path to goal achievement. Consumer products and services that promote and aid in goal pursuit, such as weight loss apps or personal trainers, may want to build in nudges and opportunities for consumers to make up for their failure in order to better enable them to succeed in improving their well-being.

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Award Dates
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