We May Not Know What We Want, But Do We Know What We Need? Examining the Ability to Forecast Need Satisfaction in Goal Pursuit

Abstract

Do we have the necessary perceptual abilities to set goals that are congruent with our own values and needs? In a prospective study, participants (n=185) identified three goals that they planned to pursue throughout the week. For each goal they then rated their motivation for pursuing it and made predictions about the extent to which goal attainment would satisfy their needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness. One week later, participants rated their progress on each goal, as well as the actual need satisfaction they experienced. Using Bayesian analysis, we found support for our (null) hypothesis that participants predicted that their goals would satisfy their psychological needs, irrespective of goal self-concordance. While people sometimes overestimated need satisfaction, we found that people who pursued more self-concordant goals actually benefited more from their pursuits, both compared to others who pursued less concordant goals and among their own goals.

Motivation and self‐regulation: The role of want‐to motivation in the processes underlying self‐regulation and self‐control

“…Goal motivation refers to an individual's personal reasons for pursuing a goal, and this varies extensively across the many goals that each person sets for themselves. Studies that examine goal motivation for multiple goals consistently find that approximately 60% to 80% of the variance is at the within-person (goal) level (Holding, Hope, Harvey, Marion Jetten, & Koestner, 2017;Milyavskaya et al, 2015;Werner & Milyavskaya, 2017;Werner, Milyavskaya, Foxen-Craft, & Koestner, 2016)-that is, there is much more variation between the many goals that a person sets for themselves than there are between people. Although research on the origins and causes of goal motivation are scarce, some research suggests that people have more want-to motivation for goals set in those domains that support basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness (Milyavskaya, Nadolny, & Koestner, 2014) or as a function of being in a supportive social environment (e.g., Werner, 2015;Koestner, Powers, Milyavskaya, Carbonneau, & Hope, 2014).…”

“…On one hand, Sheldon and Elliot (1999) proposed the idea of self-concordance, which refers to "the degree to which stated goals express enduring values and interests" (p. 482). From a measurement perspective, goal self-concordance is typically operationalized as an index calculated by subtracting have-to motivation from want-to motivation (e.g., Koestner, Otis, Powers, Pelletier, & Gagnon, 2008;Sheldon & Elliot, 1999;Sheldon & Houser-Marko, 2001;Werner & Milyavskaya, 2017). The underlying assumption here is that motivation is a continuum and that want-to and have-to motivation fall along opposite sides.…”

Motivation and self-regulation: The role of want-to motivation in the processes underlying self-regulation and self-control

“…Goal motivation refers to an individual's personal reasons for pursuing a goal, and this varies extensively across the many goals that each person sets for themselves. Studies that examine goal motivation for multiple goals consistently find that approximately 60 to 80% of the variance is at the within-person (goal) level (Holding, Hope, Harvey, Marion Jetten, & Koestner, 2017;Milyavskaya, Inzlicht, Hope, & Koestner, 2015;Werner & Milyavskaya, 2017;Werner, Milyavskaya, Foxen-Craft, & Koestner, 2016) -that is, there is much more variation between the many goals that a person sets for themselves than there are between people. Although research on the origins and causes of goal motivation are scarce, some research suggests that people have more want-to motivation for goals set in those domains that support basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness (Milyavskaya, Nadolny, & Koestner, 2014).…”

“…On one hand, Sheldon and Elliot (1999) proposed the idea of self-concordance, which refers to "the degree to which stated goals express enduring values and interests" (p. 482). From a measurement perspective, goal self-concordance is typically operationalized as an index calculated by subtracting have-to motivation from want-to motivation (e.g., Koestner et al, 2006;Sheldon & Elliot, 1999;Sheldon & Houser-Marko, 2001;Werner & Milyavskaya, 2017). The underlying assumption here is that motivation is a continuum, and that want-to and have-to motivation fall along opposite sides.…”

Do Narcissists Benefit from Materialistic Pursuits? Examining the Relation Between Narcissistic Tendencies, Extrinsic Goals, and Well-Being

“…To us, how "meaningful" a goal is to a person is likely just a proxy measure of importance (indeed, within self-determination theory, these two constructs are often described together), and may not reflect whether or not a person will derive any sense of real meaning in life from these goals. In other words, just because a person finds something is important and/or meaningful doesn't necessarily mean that it will translate to positive benefits, as people are often misguided in their goal pursuits (Sheldon, Gunz, Nichols, & Ferguson, 2010;Werner & Milyavskaya, 2018). Results indicate that the REVO composites for perceived meaningfulness and perceived importance were practically identical, r(567) =.94, p < .001.…”