We identify a novel way in which setting goals can backfire. In 13 studies and 4 supplemental studies, using both incentive-compatible and hypothetical designs across a range of domains, we demonstrate that setting an explicit goal and making progress toward it decreases the likelihood of switching to alternative means of pursuit. This occurs because means seem more effective relative to alternatives if they have been used to progress toward a reference point. Consistent with this mechanism, we show that the perceived effectiveness of the means used to pursue a goal, relative to an alternative, partially mediates the effect of setting a goal on the decision to switch means. Furthermore, the effect occurs only after people make initial progress toward a specified reference point. Setting a goal does not decrease switching if people are reminded to consider the advantages of both the initial and alternative means. We conclude with a discussion of the theoretical and practical implications of our findings.

Non-informational cues, such as facial expressions, can significantly influence judgments and interpersonal impressions. While past research has explored how smiling affects business outcomes in offline or in-store contexts, relatively less is known about how smiling influences consumer choice in e-commerce settings when there is no face-to-face interaction. In this article, we use a longitudinal Airbnb dataset and a facial attribute classifier to quantify the effect of a smile in the host's profile photo on property demand and identify factors that influence when a host's smile is likely to have the biggest effect. A smile in the host's profile photo increases property demand by 3.5% on average. This effect is moderated by a variety of host and property characteristics that provide evidence for the role of uncertainty underlying why smiling increases demand. Specifically, when there is greater uncertainty regarding either the quality of the accommodations or the interaction with the host, a host's smile will have a greater effect on demand. Online experiments confirm this pattern, offering further support for uncertainty perceptions driving the effect of smiling on increased Airbnb demand, and show that the effect of smiling on demand generalizes beyond Airbnb.

An important step in averting climate change is shifting consumers’ diets to contain less meat. While preliminary work suggests sustainability labels can shift consumers’ preferences, there is no clear guidance on what makes an effective labeling system. Across five experiments (N=6,001), we find that multi-icon systems (traffic light) are the most effective in reducing the carbon impact of consumers’ choices, but also generated the most negative attitudes toward the restaurant. We further find that single-icon systems (e.g., labeling only sustainable options) are effective at shifting consumer choices, particularly when combined with numeric information (e.g., kg of CO2), and generally produce no negative attitudes relative to control. These results replicate using an incentive-compatible design and an externally valid population (tech employees). Overall, we provide a systematic empirical investigation of different approaches to sustainability labeling. We conclude by discussing limitations, future directions, and advice for implementing sustainability labels.

Despite widespread knowledge and acceptance of the importance of climate-friendly behavior, consumers often fail to take the necessary actions to engage in more sustainable consumption. We propose a framework for structuring reminder messages to drive desired climate-friendly actions in a way that helps consumers build better long-term habits. Specifically, we formally test where to place the reminder in the consumption decision process (refilling of reusable water bottles) and find that simple action-oriented reminders, if placed early in the decision process, where they can benefit from contextual triggers, can motivate habits that endure even after the reminder period has ended. Furthermore, we find that specific sustainability-focused reminders (bringing a reusable bottle or bag) can motivate climate-friendly behaviors without negatively affecting overall consumption of the underlying good.

The pursuit of desirable outcomes is often hindered by the threat of failure. While extant research largely characterizes self-threatening outcomes as eliciting an avoidance motivation, the current work demonstrates a novel intervention that can shift people towards an approach motivation: ambivalence towards the outcome. Within professional and personal domains, we show in seven experiments that considering both the pros and cons, rather than just the pros, of a self-threatening outcome encourages people to pursue it. We find that this heightened approach motivation occurs because ambivalence reduces an outcome’s desirability, in turn reducing self-threat, serially mediating the relationship between ambivalence and likelihood of pursuing the outcome. Further, we show that people do not intuit this effect and are likely not taking advantage of it. We conclude by discussing the managerial and theoretical implications of ambivalence in the face of self-threat.

As traditional computer interfaces (mouse, keyboard) are increasingly replaced by touchscreens, an interesting question that arises is how, and for whom, might this shift in interface technology affect choice processes and outcomes. Our main proposition is that consumers who gain confidence in their choices from touching products in physical contexts-that is, who are high in instrumental need-for-touch-experience an analogous boost in confidence when they make product choices using touchscreen-based devices. Four studies support our proposition and demonstrate that consumers with high instrumental need-for-touch are more confident in their choices, less likely to see risks associated with their choices, and they are more likely to make (vs. defer) purchase decisions when using touchscreens. Our studies explore the mechanism behind these effects, indicate that consumers find these effects undesirable, and show that informing consumers about our findings helps them to become less susceptible to these effects.

Heritage branding is a common marketing strategy that has been shown to increase product appeal. Here, we find that certain forms of heritage branding can also have potentially negative consequences by leading consumers to react negatively to changes made to the brand’s original, flagship product—even if those changes objectively improve it. We demonstrate that when firms engage in heritage branding that emphasizes a brand’s longevity, consumers evaluate enhanced products less favorably than the original versions of those same products due to decreased perceptions of continuity authenticity. We demonstrate this effect across a variety of product domains (e.g., cosmetics, cookware, and food products), using online experiments as well as in-person product trials. Moreover, we provide a framework that distinguishes between types of heritage branding cues that lead to negative evaluations of enhanced products versus those that do not. Finally, beyond identifying an important boundary condition based on specific aspects of heritage branding, we further show how the negative evaluations of enhanced products can be attenuated if brands reframe product changes as continuous with the brand’s origins. Together, these studies contribute to existing theory regarding heritage branding and authenticity, while also providing a number of practical recommendations for heritage brands.

Despite marketers' efforts to make consumers feel attractive in many sales and advertising contexts, little is known about how consumers' self-perceived physical attractiveness influences their decision making. The authors examine whether a boost in consumers' self-perceived attractiveness influences subsequent choices in domains unrelated to beauty. Across six studies, the authors find converging evidence that a boost in consumers' self-perceived attractiveness enhances their general self-confidence and reduces preference uncertainty, resulting in less reliance on the choice context and thus fewer choices of compromise, all-average, and default options. The findings further show that consumers use self-confidence as metacognitive information for inferring preference uncertainty in subsequent decisions. This process is a misattribution that can be attenuated when consumers attribute their self-confidence to the self-perceived attractiveness. The article concludes with a discussion of theoretical and managerial implications.

Extensive use of incentives in practice suggests that they play a key role in motivating behavior. However, conflicting findings have emerged about the effectiveness of various types of incentives (e.g., a cash incentive vs. a donation to charity). We propose a theoretical framework to explain when and why different types of incentives may be more effective. We posit that motivational efficacy of an incentive is jointly determined by its cognitive and affective value. Thus, an incentive offering a donation to charity can be more motivating than an equivalent cash incentive for the self when the incentive amount is low because, although both lack a motivating cognitive valuation, superior affective valuation of the prosocial incentive can increase its relative effectiveness. Consistent with this account, we demonstrate that low-amount self-benefiting incentives become more motivating when their affective value is enhanced, and low-amount prosocial incentives become less motivating as their affective value is attenuated.

Whether it is clothing, meals or an exercise regimen, consumers purchase a wide range of goods on a recurring basis using a subscription model. While past research indicates that people continue to subscribe to these services even when they rarely use them, no work to date has examined how identity considerations affect preferences in this domain. Building on research on signaling and self-concept structure, we propose that quitting an ongoing subscription can threaten the stability of the self-concept by signaling a change in identity. Consumers who are uncertain about their self-concept (i.e., low self-concept clarity) and motivated to maintain a stable self-concept are thus more likely to keep unused subscriptions than those who are more certain. In support of the underlying mechanism, we demonstrate that self-concept clarity affects choices only for identity-relevant subscription choices, and that it affects choices for subscriptions, but not one-shot product choices that are a weaker signal of identity. Finally, because signing up for a new subscription also signals an identity change that can threaten the stability of the self, consumers with low self-concept clarity are also less likely to subscribe to a new service compared to those with more certain self-concepts.

Extrinsic incentives play a key role in motivating behavior. However, conflicting findings have been observed with respect to how the nature of an extrinsic incentive (e.g., a cash reward vs. a donation to charity) and its associated monetary amount shape motivation. We propose a framework to address these inconsistencies. Our framework decomposes the total value of an extrinsic incentive into its cognitive value (i.e., the tangible benefits to the self) and its affective value (i.e., the emotional response it triggers). By establishing these bases for valuation, we reconcile several conundrums including when donation incentives can be more motivating than monetary rewards to the self, and why monetary incentives of the same amount can be differentially motivating. The research thus addresses important practical questions about how to design incentives, and contributes to theories of motivation under incentives.

When deciding whether to buy an item, consumers sometimes think about other ways they could spend their money. Past research has explored how increasing the salience of outside options (i.e., alternatives not immediately available in the choice set) influences purchase decisions, but whether the type of alternative considered systematically affects buying behavior remains an open question. Ten studies find that relative to considering alternatives that are similar to the target, considering dissimilar alternatives leads to a greater decrease in purchase intent for the target. When consumers consider a dissimilar alternative, a competing nonfocal goal is activated, which decreases the perceived importance of the focal goal served by the target option. Consistent with this proposed mechanism, the relative importance of the focal goal versus the nonfocal goal mediates the effect of alternative type on purchase intent, and the effect attenuates when the focal goal is shielded from activation of competing goals. We conclude with a discussion of the theoretical and practical implications of our findings.

Previous articleNext article FreeIntroduction to the Special Issue: Goals and MotivationUzma Khan, Ayelet Fishbach, and Ravi DharUzma Khan Search for more articles by this author , Ayelet Fishbach Search for more articles by this author , and Ravi Dhar Search for more articles by this author Uzma Khan ([email protected]) is an associate professor of marketing, Miami Business School, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL 33124. Ayelet Fishbach ([email protected]) is the Jeffrey Breakenridge Keller Professor of Behavioral Science and Marketing, University of Chicago, Booth School of Business, 5807 South Woodlawn Avenue, Chicago, IL 60637. Ravi Dhar ([email protected]) is the George Rogers Clark Professor of Management, Yale School of Management, 165 Whitney Avenue, New Haven, CT 06511.PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreMuch human behavior is directed by conscious and nonconscious goals. Successful goal pursuit can result in good health, academic and professional success, financial well-being, and strong interpersonal relationships. However, it is easier said than done, and many people fail at achieving even seemingly simple goals. Understanding the factors that help or hinder goal pursuit is therefore critical for success in several personal and interpersonal domains and has received increasing attention from social and cognitive psychologists, consumer researchers, as well as practitioners. Though goals and motivation research has made great strides in the past few decades (Fishbach and Ferguson 2007), many important questions about how consumers choose their goals and how they navigate toward them remain. For example, how do consumers choose among multiple goals to pursue, and how do they resolve conflicts that may arise from pursuing these goals? What are the antecedents and consequences of pursuing a goal under different affective or cognitive states? How can the dynamics of goals be measured and tracked in the marketplace? Can people predict what motivates them, and does it matter? In conceiving this special issue, we sought insight into some of these questions.Our journey started with a small gathering of researchers in December 2017 in Miami. We invited established thought leaders as well as promising young goals and motivation academics from marketing and psychology departments. The talks were brief and discussions long. Significant dialogue revolved around the strengths and potential impact of the presented works. Perhaps the most inspiring part of this highly constructive conference came during the concluding discussion when two eminent scholars, Tory Higgins (Columbia University) and Yaacov Trope (New York University), called the motivation researchers to find our own “Undoing Project” (a term coined by Michael Lewis to describe Kahneman and Tversky’s groundbreaking work). They urged that while we, as motivation researchers, have made remarkable advances toward theoretical understanding of goals and motivation, our community needs to collectively strive toward making greater societal impact. In this issue we are happy to include several essays that originated from this conference and reflect its spirit. We have curated this issue with thought-provoking works that offer theoretical synthesis, push the boundaries of current knowledge, showcase practical relevance, and offer important directions for future research and practice.We open the issue with an article by Fernandez and Kruglanski, who provide an overview of the current state of research on multiple goal pursuit. They address phenomena such as goal prioritization, multifinality constraint (identifying means that serve multiple goals), and motivational imbalance (when prioritizing a goal results in behaviors classifiable as “extreme”). They then discuss implications for consumer-oriented research. Cornwell, Franks, and Higgins review the advantage of a “proper mix” of motivational orientations that are often portrayed as opposing: locomotion and assessment, as well as promotion and prevention. They argue that when a single motivational orientation dominates the other orientations, the goal pursuit process is compromised. Presence and combination of similarly strong orientations, on the other hand, allow for effective goal pursuit. Keeping on the topic of multiple goal pursuit, Goldsmith, Friedman, and Dhar provide a context where goal conflict is not resolved through balance but rather by highlighting one motivation. They show that in situations where all available options serve a focal goal that conflicts with an incidental goal, people often choose an option that allows them to maximize on the focal goal even when that choice poses the greatest violation of the incidental goal. The choice pattern arises because the most justifiable reason for violating the incidental goal is to maximize on the focal goal. These three papers together raise some interesting tensions: When is it beneficial to consider multiple motivations and when to focus on a single motivation? When is balancing versus highlighting (Dhar and Simonson 1999) a better strategy for goal pursuit? Resolving these questions provides a promising direction for future research.While consumer research often studies choices in isolation, most successful goal pursuit requires a series of goal-consistent behavior. To this end, we know that making progress toward a goal can often result in disengagement from that goal (Fishbach and Dhar 2005; Khan and Dhar 2006). This presents a unique catch-22 situation where goal pursuit hinders goal pursuit. It is therefore important to understand how to avoid goal disengagement post goal progress. Etkin and Laran suggest that restricting consumers’ sense of choice freedom can reduce postchoice goal disengagement. Understanding what other factors can lead to similarly sustained goal engagement presents one more fruitful avenue for future inquiry. Another critical challenge in goals research is to be able to capture and measure the level of conflict people feel between their various goals. The article by Stillman and Ferguson sheds light on this problem. They report a new method for measuring goal conflict in the context of self-control and show that it predicts impatience. Specifically, participants made choices between immediate gratification (e.g., $5 today) and long-term benefit (e.g., $10 in two weeks). The two options appeared in the top corners of the screen, and the researchers measured participants’ mouse movements while they made their decision—a technique known as “mouse-tracking.” The more participants’ mouse movements curved toward the unchosen, short-term option, the more impatient they tended to be in their self-control choices. This research thus develops an unobtrusive method for evaluating consumer impatience.The next couple of papers speak to cognitive and affective antecedents of goal pursuit. Fujita, Scholer, Miele, and Nguyen review research on “metamotivation,” which is defined as people’s understanding of their motivational states and how to motivate themselves. To illustrate people’s impressive metamotivation abilities, they studied it in the context of construal-level theory. They find that people recognize which tasks benefit from high- versus low-level construals. They then discuss implications for consumer behavior research. Khan, DePaoli, and Maimaran look at the affective antecedents of goal pursuit. They show that anger results in more goal-directed choices compared to neutral mood. As a result, anger can reduce susceptibility to context effects (that arise from resolving the trade-offs presented in the choice set rather than focusing on one’s goals) and can counterintuitively increase choice satisfaction. They further show that sadness and fear do not have this facilitative effect on goal pursuit. In addition to highlighting important factors that may facilitate goal pursuit, these papers also shed light on another matter that we believe offers a promising path for future research, namely, whether people can predict what motivates them best. The implications from these two papers diverge somewhat. While Fujita et al. suggest that people are good at understanding their motivational states and at motivating themselves, Khan et al.’s article suggests that people may not be able to predict the motivational impact of their affective states. After all, the common wisdom is that one should not make decisions when angry, as it could result in regrettable choices. Perhaps the two papers diverge because people may be more accurate in predicting the effect of cognitive states than that of affective states on motivation. The larger question regarding when and why people are correct in predicting what would motivate them remains largely open. Understanding predictions regarding motivation is essential, as people often design their environments and make choices hoping to motivate themselves to pursue their goals. For instance, people sign up for gym memberships, stock up on healthy food, buy clothes a size small, and choose different incentives to motivate themselves toward their desired goals. However, if we err systematically in predicting what motivates us best, we may be self-sabotaging our goals.The articles by Huang et al. and Gamlin et al. speak directly to the importance of social relevance of goals and motivation research. Huang, Kupor, Maimaran, and Weihrauch report the results of a field experiment in Panamá that tested the effectiveness of communicating different means-goal associations in promoting children’s consumption of water. They find that interventions that employ weak means-goal associations can backfire. Specifically, promoting how drinking water boosts health increased water consumption whereas promoting how drinking water leads to popularity decreased consumption of water. Gamlin, Dong, Labroo, and Robinson demonstrate how consumer goals and choice can be shaped by the macro-institutional influences such as political environment. They show that political cues in the environment can steer consumers to make more utilitarian rather than hedonic choices. For example, these authors show that utilitarian choice increases on Election Day, and marketers advertise for relatively more utilitarian (hedonic) products during political podcasts than during nonpolitical podcasts.Echoing the sentiment of our conference, we would like to suggest one more potentially fruitful and impactful avenue for future research. Our field has witnessed how choice architecture tools, popularly referred to as nudges, can be successfully employed to steer behavior in a desirable direction. Most nudges, however, focus on single-choice instances in a given context and do not require behavior change to accompany a change in underlying motivations. Thus, what we may expect at best is change in behavior in that single choice. For example, placing fruit closer than cookies may increase choice of fruit over cookies in that context but is unlikely to sustain the healthy choice over time or in other contexts. We urge researchers and marketers to consider designing nudges and incentives that can engage consumer goals and possibly sustain behavior change for longer times.In conclusion, while the field of goals and motivation is a relatively mature one, there is still a significant uncharted territory and much to be understood. The papers in this issue are examples of the remaining scope of inquiry, and we hope that they excite your imagination and enthusiasm as they did ours.ReferencesDhar, R., and I. Simonson (1999), “Making Complementary Choices in Consumption Episodes: Highlighting versus Balancing,” Journal of Marketing Research, 36 (1), 29–44.First citation in articleCrossrefGoogle ScholarFishbach, A., and R. Dhar (2005), “Goals as Excuses or Guides: The Liberating Effect of Perceived Goal Progress on Choice,” Journal of Consumer Research, 32 (3), 370–77.First citation in articleCrossrefGoogle ScholarFishbach, A., and M. F. Ferguson (2007), “The Goal Construct in Social Psychology,” in Social Psychology: Handbook of Basic Principles, ed. A. W. Kruglanski and T. E. Higgins, New York: Guilford, 490–515.First citation in articleGoogle ScholarKhan, U., and R. Dhar (2006), “Licensing Effect in Consumer Choice,” Journal of Marketing Research, 43 (2), 259–66.First citation in articleCrossrefGoogle ScholarLewis, M. (2016), The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds, New York: Norton.First citation in articleGoogle Scholar Previous articleNext article DetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Journal of the Association for Consumer Research Volume 4, Number 1January 2019Goals and MotivationGuest Editors: Uzma Khan, Ayelet Fishbach, and Ravi Dhar Sponsored by the Association for Consumer Research Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/701525 HistoryPublished online December 12, 2018 © 2018 the Association for Consumer Research. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:John A. Clithero, Uma R. Karmarkar, and Ming Hsu Toward an Integrative Conceptualization of Maladaptive Consumer Behavior, Journal of the Association for Consumer Research 6, no.33 (May 2021): 334–341.https://doi.org/10.1086/714364

In this chapter, we share the 4Ps Framework for Behavior Change, designed to organize research findings to make them more easily applicable in the real world. We offer levers the well-meaning planner can employ to support the healthy intentions of others, and share examples of how the 4Ps Framework is being applied at Google. Although our examples focus on nudging people toward healthy food choices, similar strategies can be used to nudge people’s behavior in any direction that supports their own intentions. We offer advice for influence one-time decisions via (1) the combination of choices offered, (2) the choice environment, and (3) communication about the choices. We also offer advice on supporting individuals in the development of good habits, to make better choices in any time or place.

Across many different contexts, individuals consult customer ratings to inform their purchase decisions. The present studies document a novel phenomenon, dubbed “the binary bias,” which plays an important role in how individuals evaluate customer reviews. Our main proposal is that people tend to make a categorical distinction between positive ratings (e.g., 4s and 5s) and negative ratings (e.g., 1s and 2s). However, within those bins, people do not sufficiently distinguish between more extreme values (5s and 1s) and less extreme values (4s and 2s). As a result, people’s subjective representations of distributions are heavily impacted by the extent to which those distributions are imbalanced (having more 4s and 5s vs. more 1s and 2s). Ten studies demonstrate that this effect has important consequences for people’s product evaluations and purchase decisions. Additionally, we show this effect is not driven by the salience of particular bars, unrealistic distributions, certain statistical properties of a distribution, or diminishing subjective utility. Furthermore, we demonstrate this phenomenon’s relevance to other domains besides product reviews, and discuss the implications for existing research on how people integrate conflicting evidence.