Goals as excuses or guides: the liberating effect of perceived goal progress on choice.
Abstract
Consumer choices are often driven by multiple goals (e.g., career and family), each of which if viewed in isolation may appear to suggest conflicting choices. This article examines the effect of initial goal pursuit on consumers' interest in pursuing unrelated or even conflicting goals. Four studies were conducted to test whether perceived goal progress hinders the pursuit of the focal goal. These studies demonstrate that in the course of self-regulation progress along one goal liberates people to pursue inconsistent goals. Furthermore, merely planning to make goal progress in the future may facilitate incongruent choice of immediate action.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Perception of value and achievability of a goal such as buying can change quickly and dynamically.
“perception of value and achievability of a goal such as buying can change quickly and dynamically (e.g., Fishbach and Dhar, 2005; Louro et al., 2007).”
From Motivational and Affective Factors Underlying Consumer Dropout and Transactional Success in eCommerce: An Overview (2020) · cites this paper as Fishbach and Dhar, 2005
Cites
Implementation intentions: Strong effects of simple plans.
Gollwitzer, P. M. (1999) · American Psychologist · doi:10.1037/0003-066x.54.7.493 · Cited by 5,478 · see citing works
Bem, D. J. (1972) · Advances in Experimental Social Psychology · doi:10.1016/s0065-2601(08)60024-6 · Cited by 5,241 · see citing works
Self-regulation and depletion of limited resources: Does self-control resemble a muscle?
Muraven, M., & Baumeister, R. F. (2000) · Psychological Bulletin · doi:10.1037/0033-2909.126.2.247 · Cited by 4,510 · see citing works
Kruglanski, A. W., Shah, J. Y., Fishbach, A., Friedman, R., Chun, W. Y., & Sleeth-Keppler, D. (2002) · Advances in Experimental Social Psychology · doi:10.1016/s0065-2601(02)80008-9 · Cited by 1,386 · see citing works
Soman, D., & Cheema, A. (2004) · Journal of Consumer Research · doi:10.1086/383423 · Cited by 172 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
On conceptualizing self-control as more than the effortful inhibition of impulses.
Fujita, K. (2011) · Personality and Social Psychology Review · doi:10.1177/1088868311411165 · Cited by 734 · see citing works
Kivetz, R., Urminsky, O., & Zheng, Y. (2006) · Journal of Marketing Research · doi:10.1509/jmkr.43.1.39 · Cited by 731 · see citing works
Dynamics of multiple-goal pursuit.
Louro, M. J., Pieters, R., & Zeelenberg, M. (2007) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/0022-3514.93.2.174 · Cited by 465 · see citing works
Nonconscious goals and consumer choice.
Chartrand, T. L., Huber, J., Shiv, B., & Tanner, R. J. (2008) · Journal of Consumer Research · doi:10.1086/588685 · Cited by 329 · see citing works
How positive and negative feedback motivate goal pursuit.
Fishbach, A., Eyal, T., & Finkelstein, S. R. (2010) · Social and Personality Psychology Compass · doi:10.1111/j.1751-9004.2010.00285.x · Cited by 304 · see citing works
Self-citationThe Effect of Goal Specificity on Consumer Goal Reengagement
Scott, M. L., & Nowlis, S. M. (2013) · Journal of Consumer Research · doi:10.1086/670766 · Cited by 48 · see citing works
Bell, L., McCloy, R., Butler, L., & Vogt, J. (2020) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01546 · Cited by 43 · see citing works
- Authors
- Fishbach, A., & Dhar, R.
- Affiliations
- Yale University (US)
- ORCID
- Dhar, Ravi
- Venue
- Journal of Consumer Research
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2005-12
- Volume
- 32
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 370-377
- ISSN
- 0093-5301 (ISSN-L)
- 1537-5277
- OpenAlex
- W2167272869
- Cited by
- 704
- References
- 5
- Citations by year
- 2026: 27 · 2025: 36 · 2024: 33 · 2023: 30 · 2022: 28 · 2021: 42 · 2020: 51 · 2019: 36 · 2018: 56 · 2017: 36 · 2016: 35 · 2015: 62 · 2014: 60 · 2013: 27 · 2012: 34
- FWCI
- 19.32
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of Consumer Research (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Applied Psychology › Behavioral Health and Interventions
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › General Decision Sciences › Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Marketing › Consumer Behavior and Marketing Influence
- Keywords
- goal pursuit, conflicting objectives, self-regulation, goal commitment, consumer choice, goal planning
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
