Self-Regulation Through Goal Setting

By Alexander K. Koch, Julia Nafziger. Social Science Research Network, 2011

746 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Goals are an important source of motivation. But little is known about why and how people set them. We address these questions in a model based on two stylized facts from psychology and behavioral economics: i) Goals serve as reference points for performance. ii) Present-biased preferences create self-control problems. We show how goals permit self-regulation, but also that they are painful self-disciplining devices. Greater self-control problems therefore lead to stronger self-regulation through goals only up to a certain point. For severely present-biased preferences, the required goal for self-regulation is too painful and the individual rather gives up.

Subfields: Applied Psychology, General Decision Sciences, Safety Research

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/f9fcae99dc17dc2521d495b9d7e85af2c7435f14

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Citations in the corpus

Character Strengths Interventions: Building on What We Know for Improved Outcomes (2011, background): “Goal theory suggests that setting and planning clear and specific goals makes an individual more likely to follow through on their goals (Latham and Locke 1991; Locke and Latham 2002).”
Self-leadership in organizational teams: A multilevel analysis of moderators and mediators (2009, background): “…research the employee’s motivation is often considered as a process that is triggered by leadership techniques (e.g., feedback, goal setting, task or outcome interdependence) to subsequently influence performance (Campion, Medsker, & Higgs, 1993; Latham & Locke, 1991; Shea & Guzzo, 1987).”
The Mediating Role of Appraisal Feedback Reactions on the Relationship Between Rater Feedback-Related Behaviors and Ratee Performance (2010, background): “Thus, feedback is central to goal setting theory, as Locke and his colleagues (Latham & Locke, 1991; Locke, 1996) have reported that goal setting is most effective when there is feedback showing progress toward the goal.”
Executive Function in Education: From Theory to Practice. (2007, background): “Goal setting has also been found to enhance self-efficacy, achievement, and motivation (Schunk, 2001).”
Reference-Dependent Preferences: Evidence from Marathon Runners (2014, methodology): “For example, recent models by Hsiaw (2013) and Koch and Nafziger (2011) propose that goals (set by “planners”) can address the self-control or present-bias problems of agents (or “doers”).”
Adolescent goal content and pursuit: A review of the literature from the past 16 years. (2008, background): “Goal-Setting Theory (Latham & Locke, 1991; Locke & Latham, 1990) proposes goal-directed action to be conscious and purposeful and that difficult but realistic goals lead to better performance.”
Using Goals to Motivate College Students: Theory and Evidence From Field Experiments (2020, positive): “Indeed, Koch and Nafziger (2011) developed a simple model of goal setting based on this idea. Unlike us, however, Koch and Nafziger (2011) did not use their model to compare the effects of performance-based and task-based goals.”
Explaining Change: Theorizing and Testing Dynamic Mediated Longitudinal Relationships (2010, background): “…the mediational paths are stable over time or are subject to change, thus addressing the issue of the dynamics of the mediated relationship over time—precisely as hypothesized in numerous theories (e.g., Austin & Vancouver, 1996; Latham & Locke, 1991; Lewicki & Bunker, 1996; Zajac et al., 2000).”
Understanding Employee Motivation and Organizational Performance: Arguments for a Set-Theoretic Approach (2016, background): “Motives and needs Maslow (1943) Hierarchy of needs: psychological, safety, social, ego, self-actualizing.”
COVI White Paper (2020, methodology): “For this, we leverage research in human motivation, such as selfdetermination theory, self-efficacy and self-regulation [105, 106, 107]) to make sure that the user experience is designed for long-term and self-motivated behaviour change.”
A process model of self-regulation and leadership: How attentional resource capacity and negative emotions influence constructive and destructive leadership (2015, background): “We reasoned that most participants in formal leadership roles have reasonably high personal performance standards or goals, as these are essential in positions of leadership responsibility (Latham & Locke, 1991; Yeow & Martin, 2013).”
Self‐leadership skills and innovative behavior at work (2006, background): “Although individuals are motivated to accomplish tasks, not everyone is capable of displaying innovative behavior, because of the absence of self-navigation, a key element in the concept of self-leadership (Latham and Locke, 1991).”
Behavioral Economics of Education (2015, background): “Recently, theoretical studies in behavioral economics have taken up these ideas to study how people endogenously set their goals and how such self-set goals help to overcome self-control problems (Koch and Nafziger, 2011; Hsiaw, 2013).”
Exploring the Mechanisms of Self-Control Improvement (2014, background): “According to goal-setting theory (Locke & Latham, 2006), which synthesizes hundreds of laboratory and field studies, the simple act of setting a specific, challenging, yet attainable goal leads to better self-control (Latham & Locke, 1991) than setting a vague goal or not setting a goal at all.”
`That is my job' (2007, background): “Accepting and being committed to specific and difficult goals lead to better performance than having no goals, easy goals, or general ‘do your best’ goals (Latham & Locke, 1991).”