Forcing your luck: Goal-striving behavior in chance situations
Previous research suggests that desired end-states (i.e., goals) initiate a set of motivational processes supporting goal-attainment. For example, motivational intensity (e.g., effort investment) increases as distance to the goal decreases. The present studies investigate whether this goal-gradient...
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| Format: | Online |
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Springer US
2015
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| Online Access: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4764625/ |
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pubmed-4764625 |
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pubmed-47646252016-03-04 Forcing your luck: Goal-striving behavior in chance situations Becker, Daniela van der Pligt, Joop Original Paper Previous research suggests that desired end-states (i.e., goals) initiate a set of motivational processes supporting goal-attainment. For example, motivational intensity (e.g., effort investment) increases as distance to the goal decreases. The present studies investigate whether this goal-gradient can also be observed in chance determined situations, situations in which there is a desired end-state (i.e., winning) but in which increased effort investment does not support goal-attainment. Three studies provide consistent evidence for the goal-gradient in chance determined situations. We show that participants (in the lab and in a TV game show) invest more effort into goal-directed behavior the closer they get to the end of the game. The moderation of expectancy and value was, however, modest. Interestingly, participants’ self-reports suggest that their dynamic changes in behavior were unintentional and perceived as non-instrumental. Findings are related to theories of goal pursuit and illusory control, and contrasted to the principle of resource conservation, according to which such behavior should not occur. Springer US 2015-12-09 2016 /pmc/articles/PMC4764625/ /pubmed/26949276 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11031-015-9527-5 Text en © The Author(s) 2015 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. |
| repository_type |
Open Access Journal |
| institution_category |
Foreign Institution |
| institution |
US National Center for Biotechnology Information |
| building |
NCBI PubMed |
| collection |
Online Access |
| language |
English |
| format |
Online |
| author |
Becker, Daniela van der Pligt, Joop |
| spellingShingle |
Becker, Daniela van der Pligt, Joop Forcing your luck: Goal-striving behavior in chance situations |
| author_facet |
Becker, Daniela van der Pligt, Joop |
| author_sort |
Becker, Daniela |
| title |
Forcing your luck: Goal-striving behavior in chance situations |
| title_short |
Forcing your luck: Goal-striving behavior in chance situations |
| title_full |
Forcing your luck: Goal-striving behavior in chance situations |
| title_fullStr |
Forcing your luck: Goal-striving behavior in chance situations |
| title_full_unstemmed |
Forcing your luck: Goal-striving behavior in chance situations |
| title_sort |
forcing your luck: goal-striving behavior in chance situations |
| description |
Previous research suggests that desired end-states (i.e., goals) initiate a set of motivational processes supporting goal-attainment. For example, motivational intensity (e.g., effort investment) increases as distance to the goal decreases. The present studies investigate whether this goal-gradient can also be observed in chance determined situations, situations in which there is a desired end-state (i.e., winning) but in which increased effort investment does not support goal-attainment. Three studies provide consistent evidence for the goal-gradient in chance determined situations. We show that participants (in the lab and in a TV game show) invest more effort into goal-directed behavior the closer they get to the end of the game. The moderation of expectancy and value was, however, modest. Interestingly, participants’ self-reports suggest that their dynamic changes in behavior were unintentional and perceived as non-instrumental. Findings are related to theories of goal pursuit and illusory control, and contrasted to the principle of resource conservation, according to which such behavior should not occur. |
| publisher |
Springer US |
| publishDate |
2015 |
| url |
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4764625/ |
| _version_ |
1613542359788683264 |