Thürmer J Lukas, Scheier Michael F, Carver Charles S
Paris Lodron University Salzburg.
Carnegie Mellon University.
Motiv Sci. 2020 Sep;6(3):266-274. doi: 10.1037/mot0000157. Epub 2019 Sep 12.
Carver and Scheier's (1990) account of goal striving predicts that unexpectedly fast goal progress leads to reduced effort at that goal (coasting) and to shifting focus toward other goals (shifting). Although these hypotheses are key to this goal-striving account, empirical evidence of coasting and shifting is scarce. Here we demonstrate coasting and shifting in 2 experiments: Participants performed a lexical decision task and were promised a bonus if they delivered a specific number of correct responses (accuracy goal) and a specific number of fast responses (speed goal). After half of the trials, participants received (randomly allocated) feedback on their progress regarding the 2 goals, in which progress toward 1 goal was either above or below the target. In line with hypotheses, better-than-needed progress toward 1 goal led to (a) reduced subsequent progress toward that goal (as reflected in lower goal-related performance; coasting) and (b) a shift of resources toward the alternative goal (as reflected in higher goal-related performance on the alternative goal; shifting). Experiment 1 further demonstrated that positive feedback led to positive affect, and Experiment 2 demonstrated the causal role of affect in coasting and shifting. The implications of the present findings for future research on goal striving are discussed.
卡弗和谢耶（1990年）对目标追求的阐述预测，意外快速的目标进展会导致在该目标上的努力减少（放松），并将注意力转向其他目标（转移）。尽管这些假设是这一目标追求阐述的关键，但关于放松和转移的实证证据却很稀少。在此，我们通过两项实验证明了放松和转移：参与者执行一项词汇判断任务，并被告知如果他们给出特定数量的正确回答（准确性目标）和特定数量的快速回答（速度目标），就会得到一笔奖金。在一半的试验之后，参与者收到（随机分配的）关于他们在这两个目标上进展的反馈，其中在一个目标上的进展要么高于要么低于目标。与假设一致，在一个目标上比所需更好的进展导致（a）随后在该目标上的进展减少（如较低的与目标相关的表现所反映；放松），以及（b）资源转向替代目标（如在替代目标上较高的与目标相关的表现所反映；转移）。实验1进一步证明积极反馈会导致积极情绪，实验2证明了情绪在放松和转移中的因果作用。本文讨论了这些研究结果对未来目标追求研究的启示。
