How to really achieve your goals Friday, 29 January 2021
People continuously set goals for themselves: they decide to visit the gym once a week, to save 20 per cent of their income, and to attend 12 out of 15 university lectures. Specifying goals is common and important: specific goal levels are often more effective than vague goals like ‘do your best’. While previous research extensively examined the consequences of goal setting, remarkably little is known about its antecedents. That’s why new research by Dr Mirjam Tuk and Dr Bram van den Bergh from Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (RSM) and Prof. Sonja Prokopec from ESSEC Business School in Singapore studies how people determine their goal levels and investigate how people can be influenced to set more ambitious goal levels. How to motivate them to decide to work out twice rather than once per week, to save 25 per cent instead of 20 per cent of their discretionary income, or how to get students to attend 13 instead 12 lectures.
The researchers asked participants to set specific goal levels for a variety of activities. This question was always framed in one of two ways. Participants either indicated how many goal-consistent acts they planned to do, or how many they planned to skip. For example, students were asked to indicate how many hours they planned to study for a course versus how many hours they planned to skip studying for that course. A different set of students was asked how many vegetable bites they would plan to eat versus skip eating, and yet another group of participants was asked how many different fundraising tasks they would want to do versus forego in order to raise money for charity.
“When you want to achieve more ambitious goals, it is more effective to think about how many times you will not work towards your goal. So think about how many times you want to skip the gym this week. You will end up going more often.”
The researchers asked participants to set specific goal levels for a variety of activities. This question was always framed in one of two ways. Participants either indicated how many goal-consistent acts they planned to do, or how many they planned to skip. For example, students were asked to indicate how many hours they planned to study for a course versus how many hours they planned to skip studying for that course. A different set of students was asked how many vegetable bites they would plan to eat versus skip eating, and yet another group of participants was asked how many different fundraising tasks they would want to do versus forego in order to raise money for charity.
Skipping study hours and vegetables
They found that students plan to study more when asked how many study hours they would skip (versus spend), that students plan to eat more vegetables and actually eat more vegetables when asked how many they would forego (versus consume), and they found that research participants plan to work on more fundraising tasks and raise more money when asked how many of these tasks they would forego versus how many they plan to do.
More ambitious goals can be achieved
It is of vital importance for individuals and also for many organisations to get people to reach more ambitious goals – such as saving more, working more efficiently, eating more healthily and exercising more. This study provides evidence for a highly effective nudge that prompts people to set more ambitious goals which in turn also increases their performance.
Public policy-making often aims to improve well-being by encouraging people to save more, exercise more, and eat more healthily. The default approach to goal setting is thinking about how many goal-directed opportunities you want to engage in, for example how many times to go to the gym; and how much of one’s discretionary income to save. The research shows that the exact opposite consideration (how many times to skip the gym) is much more effective.
The paper has been published in the Journal of Consumer Research under the title do versus don’t: the impact of framing on goal-level setting.
Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (RSM) is one of Europe’s top-ranked business schools. RSM provides ground-breaking research and education furthering excellence in all aspects of management and is based in the international port city of Rotterdam – a vital nexus of business, logistics and trade. RSM’s primary focus is on developing business leaders with international careers who can become a force for positive change by carrying their innovative mindset into a sustainable future. Our first-class range of bachelor, master, MBA, PhD and executive programmes encourage them to become to become critical, creative, caring and collaborative thinkers and doers. Study information and activities for future students, executives and alumni are also organised from the RSM office in Chengdu, China. www.rsm.nl
For more information about RSM or this article, please contact Danielle Baan, Media Officer for RSM, via +31 10 408 2028 or baan@rsm.nl.
