Autonomous motivation promotes goal attainment through the conscious investment of effort, but mental contrasting with implementation intentions makes goal striving easier

People with autonomous motives (e.g., personal importance) may use automated strategies to effortlessly sustain goal-directed behavior and overcome obstacles. We investigated whether conscious effort, ease of goal striving, physiological effort, and the number of obstacles encountered mediate relati...

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Main Authors: Riddell, Hugh, Lamont, Wesley, Lombard, Merrill, Paduano, S., Maltagliati, S., Gucciardi, Daniel F., Ntoumanis, Nikos
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD 2024
Subjects:
Online Access:http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/DP200101555
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/96482
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author Riddell, Hugh
Lamont, Wesley
Lombard, Merrill
Paduano, S.
Maltagliati, S.
Gucciardi, Daniel F.
Ntoumanis, Nikos
author_facet Riddell, Hugh
Lamont, Wesley
Lombard, Merrill
Paduano, S.
Maltagliati, S.
Gucciardi, Daniel F.
Ntoumanis, Nikos
author_sort Riddell, Hugh
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description People with autonomous motives (e.g., personal importance) may use automated strategies to effortlessly sustain goal-directed behavior and overcome obstacles. We investigated whether conscious effort, ease of goal striving, physiological effort, and the number of obstacles encountered mediate relations between motives and goal attainment for a competitive cycling goal. Additionally, half the participants (n = 57) were trained in Mental Contrasting with Implementation Intentions (MCII)–a technique that facilitates development of goal-directed behavior–with remaining participants (n = 54) treated as controls. Conscious investment of effort mediated relations between autonomous motives and goal attainment. Subjective ease of goal striving and physiological effort did not. This result indicates that successful goal striving is not perceived as effortless for autonomously motivated individuals working on competitive goals. Conversely, MCII predicted a reduction in obstacles, which in turn was associated with easier goal striving but not goal attainment. Although MCII did not support goal attainment in the current study, its ability to minimize the influence of obstacles may still be useful for other types of goals or for sustaining long-term goal pursuit.
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institution Curtin University Malaysia
institution_category Local University
language English
last_indexed 2025-11-14T11:46:39Z
publishDate 2024
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spelling curtin-20.500.11937-964822025-01-10T03:51:51Z Autonomous motivation promotes goal attainment through the conscious investment of effort, but mental contrasting with implementation intentions makes goal striving easier Riddell, Hugh Lamont, Wesley Lombard, Merrill Paduano, S. Maltagliati, S. Gucciardi, Daniel F. Ntoumanis, Nikos Social Sciences Psychology, Social Psychology Motivation effort obstacles SELF-CONCORDANCE MODEL COPING STRATEGIES PROGRESS Motivation effort obstacles Humans Motivation Intention Goals Achievement Humans Motivation Achievement Goals Intention People with autonomous motives (e.g., personal importance) may use automated strategies to effortlessly sustain goal-directed behavior and overcome obstacles. We investigated whether conscious effort, ease of goal striving, physiological effort, and the number of obstacles encountered mediate relations between motives and goal attainment for a competitive cycling goal. Additionally, half the participants (n = 57) were trained in Mental Contrasting with Implementation Intentions (MCII)–a technique that facilitates development of goal-directed behavior–with remaining participants (n = 54) treated as controls. Conscious investment of effort mediated relations between autonomous motives and goal attainment. Subjective ease of goal striving and physiological effort did not. This result indicates that successful goal striving is not perceived as effortless for autonomously motivated individuals working on competitive goals. Conversely, MCII predicted a reduction in obstacles, which in turn was associated with easier goal striving but not goal attainment. Although MCII did not support goal attainment in the current study, its ability to minimize the influence of obstacles may still be useful for other types of goals or for sustaining long-term goal pursuit. 2024 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/96482 10.1080/00224545.2022.2163610 English http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/DP200101555 ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD fulltext
spellingShingle Social Sciences
Psychology, Social
Psychology
Motivation
effort
obstacles
SELF-CONCORDANCE MODEL
COPING STRATEGIES
PROGRESS
Motivation
effort
obstacles
Humans
Motivation
Intention
Goals
Achievement
Humans
Motivation
Achievement
Goals
Intention
Riddell, Hugh
Lamont, Wesley
Lombard, Merrill
Paduano, S.
Maltagliati, S.
Gucciardi, Daniel F.
Ntoumanis, Nikos
Autonomous motivation promotes goal attainment through the conscious investment of effort, but mental contrasting with implementation intentions makes goal striving easier
title Autonomous motivation promotes goal attainment through the conscious investment of effort, but mental contrasting with implementation intentions makes goal striving easier
title_full Autonomous motivation promotes goal attainment through the conscious investment of effort, but mental contrasting with implementation intentions makes goal striving easier
title_fullStr Autonomous motivation promotes goal attainment through the conscious investment of effort, but mental contrasting with implementation intentions makes goal striving easier
title_full_unstemmed Autonomous motivation promotes goal attainment through the conscious investment of effort, but mental contrasting with implementation intentions makes goal striving easier
title_short Autonomous motivation promotes goal attainment through the conscious investment of effort, but mental contrasting with implementation intentions makes goal striving easier
title_sort autonomous motivation promotes goal attainment through the conscious investment of effort, but mental contrasting with implementation intentions makes goal striving easier
topic Social Sciences
Psychology, Social
Psychology
Motivation
effort
obstacles
SELF-CONCORDANCE MODEL
COPING STRATEGIES
PROGRESS
Motivation
effort
obstacles
Humans
Motivation
Intention
Goals
Achievement
Humans
Motivation
Achievement
Goals
Intention
url http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/DP200101555
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/96482