Don’t give up? It’s a little complicated: Action Crisis Moderates Consequences of goal support

Abstract

Social support for goals can be beneficial for goal pursuit, but often has unintended negative consequences for the recipient. We propose that action crisis—the state in which an individual is considering disengaging from a goal they are currently pursuing—may result in people experiencing more ambivalent reactions to goal support. Drawing on both experimental and longitudinal methods, we show that action crisis increases negative consequences of goal support, but does not reduce positive consequences of goal support. In Study 1, we experimentally manipulated goal phase (action crisis, deliberative, or implemental) and had participants imagine support or neutral interactions. In Study 2, we measured experiences of action crisis and receipt of goal support in first-year pre-health students over the course of the academic year. Action crisis predicted more negative appraisals of support, but did not impact positive appraisals of support. Similarly, action crisis predicted more negative emotions and depressive symptoms among people who received goal support, but did not impact positive emotions. These results suggest that action crisis increases the extent to which support is received as a “mixed blessing”. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11031-022-09977-8.

Mastery‐approach and performance‐approach goals predict distinct outcomes during personal academic goal pursuit

“…The finding that an action crisis has negative correlations with same‐day progress towards goals, goal‐directed effort and positive emotions and positive correlations with negative emotions on the same day supports our hypotheses and aligns with prior studies (Brandstätter et al., 2013; Light & Chodos, 2022). It supports the assumption that the experience of an action crisis is unpleasant and accompanies difficulties in the process of goal pursuit.…”

Commentary: Engage or disengage? Interpretations from a resource conservation perspective

“…Also Light and Chodos (2022) highlighted action crises and focused on the affective consequences of receiving social support in that situation. They found that social support during an action crisis predicted negative emotions and depressive symptoms-which have been shown to systematically influence effort and disengagement by increasing the level of subjective demand (see ).…”

You have to let go sometimes: advances in understanding goal disengagement

“…As such, romantic partners serve as role models for persisting (or not) in goal pursuit, but also in disengaging from futile tasks. Moreover, social support may have more negative consequences during an action crisis than otherwise, while, at the same time, not having fewer positive consequences either (Light & Chodos, 2022). Again, future research should aim at comparing the impact of social relationships for action crises with actual goal disengagement and examine social support explicitly directed at goal disengagement in contrast to supporting goal pursuit.…”