Self-Regulatory Responses to Unattainable Goals: The Role of Goal Motives

Abstract

Does motivation for goal pursuit predict how individuals will respond when confronted with unattainable goals? Two studies examined the role of autonomous and controlled motives when pursuing an unattainable goal without (Study 1) or with (Study 2) the opportunity to reengage in alternative goal pursuit. Autonomous motives positively predicted the cognitive ease of reengagement with an alternative goal when the current goal was perceived as unattainable, especially when participants realized goal unattainability relatively early during goal striving. Autonomous motives, however, were negative predictors of cognitive ease of disengagement from an unattainable goal. When faced with failure, autonomously motivated individuals are better off realizing early the goal unattainability. Otherwise, they will find it difficult to disengage cognitively from the pursued goal (despite reengaging cognitively in an alternative goal), possibly due to interfering rumination.

Examining the unique and combined effects of grit, trait self-control, and conscientiousness in predicting motivation for academic goals: A commonality analysis

“…Research from self-determination theory also indicates that motivation plays a key role in disengagement -although it may be difficult to disengage from an unattainable goal, people may be better off disengaging earlier on rather than trying to stick it out, especially in the case of pursuing a goal that is tied to one's sense of self (i.e., an autonomous goal) (Ntoumanis, Healy, Sedikides, Smith, & Duda, 2014).…”

Effect of a Sport Education season on the technical learning and motivational climate of junior high performance swimmers.

“…Alternately, in an ego-oriented motivational climate, focus is placed upon the specific indicators of competition and athletic performance. Numerous studies have been completed using this construct (Duda, Chi, Newton, Walling, and Catley, 1995;Duda and Nicholls, 1992;Jiménez, 2004;Newton and Duda, 1993;Ntoumanis, Healy, Sedikides, Smith, and Duda, 2014) with the general conclusions indicating a stronger association between boys and an ego-oriented motivational climate, and girls showing a greater tendency toward a motivational climate task-oriented.…”

Self‐image and psychological distress in treatment‐seeking adolescents

“…Differently, a possible explanation for our finding is that although high levels of self‐confidence are considered adaptive for adolescent development, some problems may arise if high levels of self‐confidence lead adolescents to pursue exceedingly unrealistic goals that they are unable to reach. Previous research has reported that striving for goals that are out of reach without adopting goal disengagement strategies can set the stage for a chronic failure to reach one's goals, which in turn may lead one to experience negative affects and enhanced levels of psychological distress (Ntoumanis, Healy, Sedikides, Smith, & Duda, ). Finally, the present study showed that higher degrees of openness to sexuality and sexual experiences were associated with greater impairment in psychosocial functioning.…”