Dr Christian Ehrlich

Self-concordance theory and the goal-striving reasons framework both measure the quality of people’s reasons for their goal pursuits. Both have provided substantial evidence for their predictive power for people’s well-being. However, it remains unclear which of the two goal-reason models is the better predictor for different forms of well-being. The paper analyses the distinct relationships of the two models in relation to hedonic well-being (Subjective Well-Being, Life Satisfaction, Affect Balance) and indicators of eudaimonic well-being (Basic Need Satisfaction, Purpose and Self-Acceptance). The findings are based on a cross-sectional, correlative research design based (N = 124). Using multiple regression analyses the results show that the goal-striving reasons framework is overall more strongly associated with hedonic and eudaimonic well-being. However, the differences for hedonic well-being as well as for self-acceptance and purpose are much larger than they are for the three basic needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Here, self-concordance achieves nearly similar correlations to the goal-striving reasons framework. The findings have implications for theory and practice as they highlight the theoretical differences between the two goal-reasons models but also help to decide which Positive Psychology Interventions are most suitable to increase which form of well-being.

There has been an increase in the number of UK university students disclosing mental health conditions in recent years. This paper describes the evaluation of the Mind Tutor app, an artificial intelligence based wellbeing app specifically designed for first year undergraduate students, which included a chatbot function that guided students to relevant wellbeing content. The content of the app was developed based on data about mental health and wellbeing issues reported by students and focussed on anxiety, low mood, academic study, transition to university and relationships. Two randomised controlled evaluation studies were conducted with N = 177 and N = 240 first year undergraduate students from two UK universities (the second due to delays in development work and difficulties with recruitment in the first trial). The Mind Tutor had no significant impact on student wellbeing. The study suffered from poor recruitment and retention rates. However, further research is warranted to understand factors that may increase engagement and acceptability of app based tools to increase student wellbeing.

People’s reasons for goal pursuit strongly relate to well-being. An important concept that captures differences in the reasons for goal pursuit is the goal-striving reasons framework. Until today, it remains unclear whether the goal-striving reasons framework relates differently to the well-being of particular groups of people. Using the positive-activity model as a guiding framework, the paper at hand analyses a number of person-related characteristics which are relevant in a goal-setting context and are assumed to change the relationship between goal-striving reasons and well-being. Employing a large cumulative data set the person-related characteristics comprise of demographic variables (age, gender, managerial status) and selected well-being related variables (assertiveness, burnout, engagement, goal progress). Using correlation analyses in conjunction with Fisher’s z-test the results show that contrary to older employees (aged 24 or older) the goal-striving reasons of younger people are not related to their well-being. Women’s self-esteem reasons are more strongly related to well-being than they are for men. People’s goal-striving reasons are more strongly associated with well-being for people with high levels of assertiveness, low levels of burnout, or high levels of engagement. The findings have implications for the delivery of the Happiness through Goal Setting Training, a Positive Psychology Intervention based on the goal-striving reasons framework, as it identifies various alterations of the training to cater for the needs of these subgroups.

This paper describes the evaluation of the Happiness through Goal-Setting Training, a multiple intervention approach which helps participants to reflect on, and modify their reasons for goal pursuit. The training is theoretically grounded in the goal-striving reasons framework. This framework captures four important reasons for goal pursuit and has received a substantial amount of empirical support for its predictive power in relation to positive psychological functioning. The four goal-striving reasons are the pursuit of goals out of pleasure, altruism, fear of self-esteem loss or necessity. The evaluation of the training, employing a before-and-after study design, is based on two data sets comprising data from a face-to-face delivery of the training (N = 41) and an online delivery of the training (N = 40). Overall, the findings from both studies, using paired sample t-tests, show that the Happiness through Goal-Setting Training significantly improves the quality of people’s reasons for goal pursuit as well as their positive psychological functioning measured through life satisfaction, positive affect, negative affect and work-engagement. Thus, the Happiness through Goal-Setting Training complements the existing suite of well-being interventions by providing a happiness training that focusses specifically on improving people’s reasons for goal-pursuit.

This paper compares the relative predictive power of approach goal motivation and autonomous goal motivation for work engagement among public sector employees. To do so, it employs the goal-striving reasons framework within which people’s approach goal motivation is measured as well as the self-concordance theory which measures people’s autonomous goal motivation. Findings are based on cross-sectional and longitudinal data of 132 public service employees at time 1 and 78 employees at time 2. Overall, the results show, using multiple regression analysis, that approach goal motivation significantly predicts work engagement whereas autonomous goal motivation is not a significant predictor of work engagement. On an individual goal-reason level, a similar picture emerges. Pleasure and altruism, the two approaching goal-striving reasons, are descriptively more strongly correlated with work engagement than their comparable self-concordance reason of intrinsic and identified goal motivation. When testing the predictive power of pleasure and altruism with intrinsic and identified goal motivation simultaneously, using multiple regression analysis, pleasure remains the only significant predictor of work engagement at time one and time two. The findings suggest that approach motivation is a stronger predictor of work engagement than autonomous goal motivation for public sector employees. Additionally, the findings also indicate that pleasure is more important for the work engagement of public sector employees than their altruistic goal motivation on an individual goal-reason level.

Background: Plastic waste is a major societal and environmental issue contributing to climate change as well as affecting the health of humans and animals across the globe. Tackling plastic pollution requires dramatic change from everyone because one of the key factors contributing to the amount of plastic waste is consumer behaviour.

Objective: The aim of this research is to test the predictive power of the goal-striving reasons framework for plastic waste behaviour of UK households to analyse whether the reasons why people voluntarily engage in plastic reducing actions can predict plastic consumption of households. 

Method: The predictive power of the goal-striving reasons framework was tested by correlating the overall goal-striving reasons index and, each goal of the six goal-striving reasons individually, with i) a newly developed self-report measure of plastic consumption and; ii) with an objective measure of plastic waste.  The objective measure required households to count their plastic waste for three consecutive weeks. The study is based on N = 66 households in Oxfordshire, United Kingdom.

Results: Findings suggest that the approach goal-striving reasons of pleasure, altruism and positive consequences are related to self-reported plastic waste whereas the two avoidance reasons of not wanting to feel bad about oneself or to avoid any negative consequences are related to objective plastic waste.

Conclusion: The findings of this study highlight the relevance of the goal-striving reasons framework as an important concept for the prediction of plastic waste behaviour of individuals, and as a potential tool for facilitating change behaviour in household plastic waste consumption.

Background: Plastic waste is a major societal and environmental issue contributing to climate change as well as affecting the health of humans and animals across the globe. Tackling plastic pollution requires dramatic change from everyone because one of the key factors contributing to the amount of plastic waste is consumer behaviour.

Objective: The aim of this research is to test the predictive power of the goal-striving reasons framework for plastic waste behaviour of UK households to analyse whether the reasons why people voluntarily engage in plastic reducing actions can predict plastic consumption of households. 

Method: The predictive power of the goal-striving reasons framework was tested by correlating the overall goal-striving reasons index and, each goal of the six goal-striving reasons individually, with i) a newly developed self-report measure of plastic consumption and; ii) with an objective measure of plastic waste.  The objective measure required households to count their plastic waste for three consecutive weeks. The study is based on N = 66 households in Oxfordshire, United Kingdom.

Results: Findings suggest that the approach goal-striving reasons of pleasure, altruism and positive consequences are related to self-reported plastic waste whereas the two avoidance reasons of not wanting to feel bad about oneself or to avoid any negative consequences are related to objective plastic waste.

Conclusion: The findings of this study highlight the relevance of the goal-striving reasons framework as an important concept for the prediction of plastic waste behaviour of individuals, and as a potential tool for facilitating change behaviour in household plastic waste consumption.

This paper describes the development of the short form of the goal-striving reasons questionnaire. The short form was developed by re-examining data from four previously published studies which employed the long form of the goal-striving reasons questionnaire. Additionally, a further cross-validation study was employed using the short form by itself (N = 125). Overall, the analyses reveal that the short form has equally good internal reliability, construct validity and predictive power with regard to affective and cognitive subjective well-being, work engagement and burnout when compared to the long form. Based on these results, it can be concluded that the short form, which reduces the number of items for each self-reported goal from 16 to eight, does provide a reliable and valid instrument and therefore offers a more parsimonious way to measure the reasons why people pursue their most important goals. Implications, particularly for practice, are discussed. 

Background/Research aim

This study analyses the relevance of intrinsic and identified goal motivation within self-concordance indices for work engagement. Classical self-concordance indices assume equal importance for intrinsic and identified motivation whereas self-determination theory and research on implicit-explicit motives suggest that intrinsic motivation is more relevant when predicting engagement. Thus, this study aims to empirically test the individual predictive power of intrinsic and identified goal motivation for work engagement.

Methodology

Participants completed a self-administered, online questionnaire whereby self-concordance was based on their two most important work-related goals. The sample consisted of N = 388 non-profit sector employees in paid employment. The study employed multiple regression analyses as well as t-test for independent samples.

Results

Findings, based on multiple regression analyses show that intrinsic goal motivation is a significant predictor of work engagement whereas identified motivation is not. Furthermore, t-tests for independent samples indicate that high intrinsic/low identified individuals report higher levels of engagement than high identified/low intrinsic motivated individuals. Based on these findings, a more parsimonious self-concordance index without identified motivation is proposed.

Discussion

The findings of this study suggest that intrinsic goal motivation is the only relevant predictor of work engagement which suggest that the way self-concordance is typically measured, whereby intrinsic and identified goal motivation are seen as equally important, seems incorrect.

Conclusion

Based on the findings of this study, a more parsimonious measure of self-concordance, without identified goal motivation, is proposed when used to predict work engagement.

This paper compares the predictive power of the goal-striving reasons model and the self-concordance model on a sub-dimensional and an individual goal-striving reasons level based on a cross-sectional research design (N = 139). Multiple regression analyses on a sub-dimensional level show that approach, as well as avoidance goal motivation, have higher predictive power in the prediction of affective and cognitive subjective well-being than autonomous and controlled goal motivation. Equally, the predictive power of the four individual goal-striving reasons is generally stronger than the predictive power of the individual self-concordance reasons. The analyses of the theoretical differences between goal-striving reasons and self-concordance show that on an overall goal-striving reasons index level, on a sub-dimensional level as well as on an individual goal-striving reasons level that the goal-striving reasons framework is generally more strongly related to measures representing people’s tendency to be influenced by others in their goal pursuit. Self-concordance is not significantly associated with either of these measures. Based on these findings, it is concluded that the goal-striving reasons framework is more sensitive to the influence of others than self-concordance. The theoretical implications of these findings revolve around the fact that goal-striving reasons can be seen as a more comprehensive goal reason measure than self-concordance. Practical implications point towards the importance of personal assertiveness as a correlate of positive goal-striving reasons.

Aims

The present study is aimed at studying the research question whether high satisfaction levels achieved through either (1) the fact that one’s quality of life is truly satisfactory (i.e., stabilised life satisfaction) or through (2) adapting a more favourable perception of one’s quality of life by lowering standards (i.e., resigned life satisfaction) are associated with different levels of positive (PA) and negative affect (NA) when compared to each other but also when compared to dissatisfied individuals.

Methods

A sample of 104 adults completed measures assessing stabilised and resigned life satisfaction, PA and NA, and global life satisfaction (i.e., no explicit consideration of differences in standards) in an online survey. Participants were not paid for participation but received feedback on results of the study if interest was expressed.

Results

Stabilised life satisfaction and global life satisfaction showed highly similar correlation pattern with PA and NA. Resigned satisfaction was negatively associated with PA and positively correlated with NA. Stabilised and resigned satisfied individuals showed more favourable levels of PA and NA compared to dissatisfied individuals, but did not differ from each other with regard to their levels of PA and NA.

Conclusion

Although showing a less favourable correlation pattern with PA and NA, adopting a resigned form of satisfaction (i.e., taking a more favourable view of one’s quality of life by lowering individual standards) seemed to prevent individuals from experiencing the same high levels of NA like dissatisfied ones. This has not been studied in detail so far, and therefore, the present paper opens a further area of research within the context of life satisfaction.

The paper at hand extends the goal-striving reasons framework in three different ways, using two empirical studies. The first cross-sectional study (N= 146) extends the framework by analysing the degree to which goal-striving reasons predict subjective well-being (SWB) over and above classical measures of goal content, approach-avoidance goals and self-concordance. The second study contributes to the extension of the framework in the following two ways. By providing longitudinal data (n = 43), study 2 allows to test whether goal-striving reasons have any causal impact on future SWB levels. Study 2 also contains further cross-sectional data (N = 69) to investigate the degree to which people’s core self-evaluations, proactivity levels, and self-actualisation tendencies are associated with more SWB-enhancing goal-striving reasons. The findings of study 1 suggest that goal-striving reasons have incremental validity over other goal-related measures in the prediction of affective and cognitive SWB. The findings of study 2 further show that goal-striving reasons influence future SWB levels, and that core self-evaluations are positively correlated with SWB-enhancing goal-striving reasons.