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Benign and malicious envy are a consequence of an unfavorable upward comparison to another individual (i.e., a negative self-other discrepancy). Benign (malicious) envy occurs when people believe the envied individual deserves (does not deserve) his/her advantage. Prior research has shown that benign envy motivates a person to address the self-other discrepancy via self-improvement, whereas malicious envy does not. This research shows that both types of envy, not just benign envy, can motivate self-improvement, provided that the opportunities to do so occur outside the envy-eliciting domain. Benign envy increases the accessibility of the belief that effort determines whether people are rewarded; hence, it motivates process-focused goal pursuit and the use of products that emphasize effort-dependent self-improvement. Malicious envy increases the accessibility of the belief that the effort does not determine whether people are rewarded; hence, it motivates outcome-focused goal pursuit and the use of products that emphasize effort-independent self-improvement. Implications and potential extensions in the areas of envy, self-conscious emotions, and goals are discussed.

A person can use a variety of strategies to sustain the pursuit of a conscious goal (e.g., deliberate on the goal, monitor goal progress, increase goal commitment). However, less is known about how to sustain the pursuit of a nonconscious goal, a reality that is reflected in the common finding that nonconscious goal pursuit typically persists for only one choice episode. This research investigates two factors that help sustain the pursuit of a nonconscious goal: increasing the level of goal activation prior to goal pursuit and limiting the extent of goal deactivation after a goal-consistent behavior. When one of these two factors is present, nonconscious goal pursuit is sustained, as evidenced by a longer sequence of goal-consistent choices. Five studies compare and contrast strategies for sustaining conscious and nonconscious goal pursuit and provide insight into how the goal system manages the pursuit of a nonconscious goal. In addition, the findings inform when a consumer is more or less likely to pursue opposing goals across sequential choices (e.g., being virtuous after being indulgent).

Consumers often pursue goals that lack specific end states, such as goals to lose as much weight as possible or to pay off as much debt as possible. Yet despite considerable interest in the consequences of setting nonspecific (vs. specific) goals, how goal specificity affects motivation throughout goal pursuit is less well understood. The current research explores the role of reference points in shaping goal specificity’s effects. We propose that goal specificity alters what reference point consumers spontaneously adopt during goal pursuit: for specific goals, the end state tends to be more salient, but for nonspecific goals, the initial state should be more salient. Five studies investigate how this difference in focal reference points shapes (1) the relationship between goal progress and motivation, (2) when (i.e., at what level of goal progress) goal specificity produces the greatest difference in motivation, and (3) the underlying process driving these effects. Our findings advance understanding of the relationship between goal specificity, goal progress, and motivation, and in doing so, underscore the critical role that reference points play in goal-directed behavior. In addition, the findings offer practical insight into how best to set important financial, health, and other consumer goals to enhance motivation.

Even though 80% of a shopper’s time in the store is spent moving from place to place, little is known about managing the pace of in-store traffic flow. Based on the store atmospherics literature, this article introduces interventions to optimize the pace of locomotion. A series of lab and field experiments demonstrates that changes in flooring affect customers’ walking speed. The number, the nature, and the relative salience of progress markers along a walking path toward a physical location communicate goal progress and thus the motivation to reach a particular destination. Consistent with a goal gradient account, customers walk faster when fewer progress markers are placed along the walking path to the goal. The effect of the number of progress markers diminishes when the markers are unrelated to the goal and reverses when the markers are relatively more salient than the goal. This article contributes to the goal literature by showing how markers affect perceptions of goal progress (i.e., level vs. rate of progress) and provides concrete insights to speed up and slow down customers’ walking speed in a retail environment.

This research examines how self-construal (i.e., independent vs. interdependent) and goal type (i.e., attainment vs. maintenance) are conceptually linked and jointly impact consumer behavior. The results of five experiments and one field study involving different operationalizations of self-construal and goal pursuit activities suggest that attainment (maintenance) goals can be more motivating for participants with a more independent (interdependent) self-construal and that differences in salient knowledge about pursuing the goals are one potential mechanism underlying this effect. This interaction effect was found within a single culture, between cultures, when self-construal was experimentally manipulated or measured, and when potential confounding factors like regulatory focus were controlled for. The effect was also found to impact consumer behavior in real life—self-construal, as reflected by the number of social ties consumers had, impacted the likelihood that they opted to reduce versus maintain their bodyweight. Further, after setting their goal, consumers who were more independent exhibited more (less) motivation, as measured by the amount of money they put at stake, when their goal was weight reduction (maintenance). These findings shed light on the relationship between self-construal and goal type, and offer insights, to both consumers and managers, on how to increase motivation for goal pursuit.

There is no worse time to be interrupted than right now. Being close to attaining a goal to complete a focal task increases the attractiveness of that task compared to an interrupting task (study 1), makes people less willing to take on some otherwise attractive interruption than if they were farther away from completion (studies 2, 3, and 4), and causes them to perceive that in that moment they have little spare time (studies 3 and 4). Consumers immersed in goal pursuit are affected by local progress on an individual subgoal that supports an overarching goal even if this has no effect on the timing of attaining the overarching goal. Observers do not appreciate the motivating power of proximity to completing subgoals, and this leads them to mispredict the behavior of others (study 5).

In the face of an opportunity to indulge, individuals may consult their memories in order to ascertain whether enough progress has been made toward a self-regulatory goal in order to justify indulgence. This research demonstrates that in such situations, impulsive individuals who possess a regulatory goal are likely to distort memories of past behavior, manufacturing goal progress in order to license indulgence in the present. In four studies, this effect is demonstrated in the domains of eating, spending, and studying, and alternative processes are ruled out. Furthermore, it is shown that perceptions of goal progress drive impulsive (vs. nonimpulsive) people's greater likelihood of engaging in behavior inconsistent with their regulatory goal. These findings provide insights into the domains of goal pursuit, impulsivity, and memory distortion.

This article uses the functionalist perspective of emotion to demonstrate that the influence of sadness on indulgent consumption depends on the presence of a hedonic eating goal. Sadness heightens a person's sensitivity to the potentially harmful consequences of indulgent consumption, which decreases indulgence when a hedonic eating goal is salient. As sadness is often associated with a loss, this protective function is geared toward preventing future losses. The execution of this function is mitigated by feelings of safety, a counterforce to concerns about the harmful consequences of goal pursuit. Alternatively, when a hedonic eating goal is not salient, or a salient goal does not have harmful consequences, sadness results in emotion regulation (i.e., indulging as a means of feeling better). This conceptualization and findings show that the effects of emotions on indulgent consumption can be goal-dependent, and that emotions can aid consumers in the balancing of long-term goals and well-being.

The current research explores how the structure of a goal, more specifically whether its completion requires completing a set of actions in a fixed sequence or in a flexible order, influences consumers' decision to adopt the goal and how individuals actually fare once they have initiated the goal pursuit. Four experiments demonstrated that although the requirement to complete all goal-related actions following a fixed sequence discourages consumers from adopting the goal, this rigidity turns out to be more effective in inducing actual goal completion. This reversal occurs because consumers are unable to foresee the extent to which a fixed goal structure can help reduce the difficulty in goal pursuit.

This article examines a small-area hypothesis: individuals striving toward a goal end state exhibit greater motivation when their attention is directed to whichever is smaller in size—their accumulated or remaining progress. The result is that, at the beginning of goal pursuit, directing attention to accumulated progress increases goal adherence relative to directing attention to remaining progress (e.g., 20% completed is more impactful than 80% remaining). However, with closeness to the goal, directing attention to accumulated progress lessens goal adherence relative to directing attention to remaining progress (e.g., 20% remaining is more impactful than 80% completed; studies 1–2). The focus on small areas increases motivation by creating an illusion of fast progress (study 3). Therefore, when individuals wish to prolong goal pursuit and avoid reaching the goal's end state, they slow down goal adherence when their attention is directed to small areas (study 4).

Because consumers ask different questions to establish commitment at beginning versus advanced stages of goal pursuit, we propose that progress that they attribute to themselves and to the situation will have a distinctive impact on motivation, depending on their relative position in goal pursuit. When progress on achieving a goal is low, people are concerned about its attainability. Because attributing low progress to self (vs. to the situation) signals a higher difficulty of goal attainment, it leads to lower goal commitment and, subsequently, decreased motivation. Conversely, when progress on achieving the goal is high and attainment of the goal is relatively secured, people are more concerned about the value of the goal. Because attributing a high progress to self (vs. to the situation) signals a greater value of the goal, it should lead to greater goal commitment and, subsequently, higher motivation.

It is generally accepted that forming an implementation intention promotes goal pursuit and achievement. Forming an implementation intention encourages people to develop a plan, to prepare for events that allow for the execution of the plan, and to efficiently respond to these opportunities. Yet, forming an implementation intention may not be universally beneficial. An implementation intention may encourage the use of means that are part of the plan but may discourage the use of efficacious means that are not part of the plan. Four experiments show that forming an implementation intention decreases the likelihood of responding to goal-directed, out-of-plan behaviors when a person is in a concrete mind-set. Limitations, implications, and directions for future research are discussed.

The present research explores a self-control operation, namely, counteractive construal, that helps consumers resolve the conflicts between an important goal and a short-term temptation by altering the construal of the temptation. We propose that when experiencing a self-control conflict, consumers intentionally construe temptation as more damaging to the attainment of a long-term goal and use these distorted construals to help resolve the conflict in favor of the goals. Four studies in two self-regulatory domains (a dieting goal and an academic goal) provided converging evidence for the counteractive construal hypothesis. We found that people who were experiencing self-control conflict expected tempting food items to contain more calories or expected parties to take more time away from studying and were consequently less interested in consuming these temptations.

Two studies examine the impact of adding parity features to an advertising message that compares a dominant target brand to a competitor. We document that in some instances the presence of parity features prompts more favorable target evaluations (enhancement), whereas in others it results in more negative evaluations of the target (dilution). We predict when each of these outcomes will occur on the basis of a fit between an individual's regulatory goal focus and the means of goal pursuit depicted in the message presentation. Enhancement occurs when there is a fit between an individual's regulatory goal and how message information is presented, and dilution occurs when there is nonfit.

We propose that, in the pursuit of ongoing goals, optimistic expectations of future goal pursuit have greater impact on immediate actions than do less optimistic considerations, such as retrospections on past goal pursuit or less optimistic expectations. Further, we propose that the direction of the impact is determined by the framing of goal pursuit: it motivates goal-congruent actions when goal pursuit is framed as commitment to the goal but motivates goal-incongruent actions when the pursuit is framed as progress toward the goal. Four studies provided consistent support for the proposed hypothesis.

An important but relatively neglected area of consumer behavior--the pursuit of goals--is addressed. Two recent modifications of the Fishbein model are discussed, and an extension is introduced to better explain goal pursuit. Major revisions include (1) specification of three dimensions of attitude--toward success, failure, and the process of trying, (2) the incorporation of self-efficacy judgments as expectations of success and failure, and (3) refinement in the specificity of referents and their correspondence to reflect trying as the focal explanatory concept. Recency and frequency of past trying are independent variables in three models tested with weight loss data. Copyright 1990 by the University of Chicago.

Consumers often pursue goals (e.g., losing weight) where the chance of attaining the goal increases with some behaviors (e.g., exercise) but decreases with others (e.g., eating). Although goal monitoring is known to be a critical step in self-control for successful goal pursuit, little research investigates whether consumers accurately monitor goal progress. Seven experiments demonstrate that consumers tend to show a progress bias in goal monitoring, perceiving that goal-consistent behaviors (e.g., saving $45) help progress more than goal-inconsistent behaviors of the equivalent size (e.g., spending $45) hurt it. Expectations of goal attainment moderate the progress bias; reducing the expectation that the goal will be reached reduces the tendency to perceive goal-consistent behaviors to have a larger impact on goal progress than equivalent goal-inconsistent behaviors. A study on exercise and eating shows that although the progress bias can increase initial goal persistence, it can also lead to premature goal release due to poor calibration of overall progress.

This research examines how individuals' relationship with others sharing the pursuit of the same individual goal may change from early to later stages of the pursuit. In one qualitative field study, one lab study, and a 7-day field experiment, consumers demonstrated a tendency to view others in shared pursuit as “friends” to seek support from and alleviate uncertainties during the early stage of the pursuit; however, once they reached the advanced stage and felt more certain about how to approach and complete the goal, this closeness significantly reduced. This shift in the relationship further influenced consumers' interaction with others, such as the sharing of helpful tips and information. The findings provide insights into the autonomous information-sharing behaviors of consumers in shared goal pursuit and the key drivers behind the effectiveness of shared-pursuit programs (e.g., Weight Watchers, AA).

Compatibility between the degree of similarity among means to goal attainment and the anticipated timing of goal pursuit increases goal-directed motivation. Six studies demonstrate that consumers are more motivated and willing to pay for means to goal attainment in the near term when they plan to use a set of different (vs. similar) means. In contrast, consumers are more motivated and willing to pay for means to goal attainment in the long term when they plan to use similar (vs. different) means. For example, consumers paid more for a personal training session when told it would include exercises for different (similar) muscle groups and would take place this week (next month). These effects are driven by the ease of processing differences (similarities) when considering the near (far) future. Similar results were obtained across various domains, including health and fitness, saving money, and academic performance.

Consumers often have a variety of products that they may use to help them pursue their goals. These products constitute a set of means toward consumers’ goal attainment. This article investigates (1) how the amount of variety (high vs. low) among a set of means affects motivation to pursue the associated goal and (2) how this relationship changes over the course of goal pursuit as progress is made toward goal attainment. Five studies demonstrate that when progress toward goal attainment is low, having more variety within a set of means to goal attainment increases motivation to pursue the goal. However, when progress toward goal attainment is high, having less variety within a set of means to goal attainment increases motivation to pursue the goal. These findings suggest perceived variety among means is an important determinant of motivation in goal pursuit.