Ambivalence towards the childbearing goal is a source of significant distress to pregnant women with planned pregnancies and its effects seem to extend into the postpartum period. These findings may have important clinical implications for maternal and child well-being. Future studies should examine whether goal ambivalence during pregnancy affects the maternal-child relationship in the long term.

This research introduces low goal ambivalence as a relevant correlate of goal self-concordance. In three studies, we tested the hypothesis that university freshmen's ambivalence toward the goal of completing their degree mediates the effect of goal self-concordance on subjective well-being. In Studies 1 and 2, differences in goal ambivalence accounted for effects of goal self-concordance on concurrent life satisfaction and affect at the end of the freshman year. Study 3 evidenced a longitudinal mediation effect of goal ambivalence on 1-year post-entry increases in life and study satisfaction, which were explained through perceptions of goal progress at the end of the freshman year. Decomposing self-concordance into autonomous and controlled motivation revealed non-redundant parallel effects for both subcomponents. These results point to ambivalence as a significant experience in goal pursuit and suggest that it represents an additional explanatory variable in the self-concordance model of goal striving and longitudinal well-being.

Abstract. The present research conceives of morally courageous behavior as goal-directed behavior and extends its investigation from a mere situational approach to a more comprehensive understanding including dispositional determinants related to self-regulatory processes. We tested the assumption that individual difference variables differentially affect the appraisal of the two core constituents of moral courage, namely, norm violation and risk of intervention. In two samples from different cultural (Switzerland/Austria vs. The Netherlands) as well as educational (university vs. representative population sample) backgrounds, participants evaluated norm violation and risk of intervention for six vignettes of situations calling for moral courage. Across both samples, self-transcendence values (benevolence, universalism) predicted the perception of norm violation, whereas personality factors related to affective self-regulation in stressful situations (behavioral inhibition system, state orientation) predicted the perception of intervention risk. These results provide evidence for the imperative of accounting for individual differences in the self-regulation of moral courage behavior.

This research extends previous work on the self‐regulation of goal striving as well as effects of temporal and psychological distance on motivation. Borrowing from classic work on goal gradients and approach‐avoidance conflicts, we predicted that the experience of ambivalence toward a personal goal moderates the extent to which feeling or being close to goal attainment affects motivation, such that greater proximity to the goal has a negative effect on motivation at higher levels of experienced goal ambivalence. We find evidence for the hypothesized effect across three studies examining different goals (pursuing a degree, running a half‐marathon) with varying operationalizations of goal proximity (self‐reported, manipulated, temporal) and motivation (goal commitment, intention strength). These results validate that classic concepts of motivation science such as goal gradients and approach‐avoidance conflict are both relevant and applicable to the everyday pursuit of self‐set personal goals.

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