Goal constructs in psychology: Structure, process, and content.

Austin, James T.; Vancouver, Jeffrey B.

doi:10.1037/0033-2909.120.3.338

Cited by 1,686 publications

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References 421 publications

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“…Influencing People's Goals Austin and Vancouver (1996) Religion may influence goals in four ways. First, religious belief systems may influence the goals that people adopt and assist people in prioritizing those goals.…”

Section: Proposition 2: Religion Influences Self-regulation Bymentioning

confidence: 99%

Religion, self-regulation, and self-control: Associations, explanations, and implications.

McCullough

Willoughby

2009

Psychological Bulletin

909

773

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Many of the links of religiousness with health, well-being, and social behavior may be due to religion's influences on self-control or self-regulation. Using Carver and Scheier's (1998) theory of self-regulation as a framework for organizing the empirical research, the authors review evidence relevant to 6 propositions: (a) that religion can promote self-control; (b) that religion influences how goals are selected, pursued, and organized; (c) that religion facilitates self-monitoring; (d) that religion fosters the development of self-regulatory strength; (e) that religion prescribes and fosters proficiency in a suite of self-regulatory behaviors; and (f) that some of religion's influences on health, well-being, and social behavior may result from religion's influences on self-control and self-regulation. The authors conclude with suggestions for future research.Keywords: religion, self-control, self-regulation, motivation, personalityReligion is a potent social force. History testifies to religion's ability to focus and coordinate human effort, to create awe and terror, to foster war and peace, to unify social groups, and to galvanize them against each other. In addition to religion's social power, however, religion is a psychological force that can influence the outcomes of individual human lives. Indeed, the range of health-related, behavioral, and social outcomes with which religiousness is associated is both provocative and puzzling.Consider these well-replicated findings. First, religiousness (measured variously as high levels of traditional religious belief; frequent involvement in religious institutions such as churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples; and engagement in religious practices such as reading scripture, worship, and prayer) has a small, positive association with longevity. In a meta-analytic review of 42 independent effect sizes, McCullough, Hoyt, Larson, Koenig, and Thoresen (2000) discovered that people who were highly religious were, on average, 29% more likely to be alive at any given follow-up point than were less religious people (95% confidence interval: 1.20 to 1.39). In a traditional narrative review of studies considered by the authors to be of high quality (e.g., studies with large, representative samples and adequate statistical control of potential confounds), Powell, Shahabi, and Thoresen (2003) likewise concluded that frequent religious service attendance was associated with a 25% reduction in mortality.Studies published after McCullough et al.'s (2000) and Powell et al.'s (2003) reviews have yielded similar conclusions in random samples of U.S. adults (Musick, House, & Williams, 2004); older Mexican Americans (T. D. Hill, Angel, Ellison, & Angel, 2005); and adults in Denmark (la Cour, Avlund, & Schultz-Larsen, 2006), Finland (Teinonen, Vahlberg, Isoaho, & Kivela, 2005), and Taiwan (Yeager et al., 2006). These latter studies have also revealed 25% to 30% reductions in mortality for religiously active people, even after controlling for reasonable sets of potential confounds...

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Section: Proposition 2: Religion Influences Self-regulation Bymentioning

confidence: 99%

Religion, self-regulation, and self-control: Associations, explanations, and implications.

McCullough

Willoughby

2009

Psychological Bulletin

909

773

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…According to this perspective, human behaviour is organised around the pursuit of goals, which energise activities and give structure and meaning to people's lives and are thus closely linked with their subjective well-being (19)(20)(21). Indeed, negative associations have consistently been observed between perceived disruptions in goal attainment and psychological outcomes following illness and disability (22).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Goal Pursuit and Goal Adjustment as Predictors of Disability and Quality of Life Among Individuals With a Lower Limb Amputation: A Prospective Study

Coffey

Desmond

2014

Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation

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Objective: (1) To identify significant changes in disability and quality of life (QoL) across three time points (T1 = admission to rehabilitation, T2 = six weeks post-discharge, T3 = six months post-discharge) in individuals with lower limb amputation, and (2) to examine whether goal pursuit and goal adjustment at T1 were predictive of these outcomes at T3.Design: Prospective cohort study. Setting: Inpatient rehabilitation.Participants: Consecutive sample of 64 persons aged 18 years and over with major lower limb amputation.Interventions: Not applicable. Main Outcome Measures: World Health Organisation Disability Assessment ScheduleVersion 2.0 (WHODAS 2.0); World Health Organisation Quality of Life Questionnaire-Brief Version (WHOQOL-BREF).Results: Mean WHODAS 2.0 scores were in the 95 th percentile at each time point. Scores on the WHODAS 2.0 and the physical, psychological and social relationships domains of the WHOQOL-BREF remained stable across the study period. Environmental QoL scores decreased from T1 to T2, but returned to near-baseline levels between T2 and T3. Having a greater tendency towards goal pursuit at T1 was predictive of higher physical and psychological QoL at T3, while having a stronger disposition towards goal adjustment at T1 predicted lower disability and higher environmental QoL at T3. Conclusions:High levels of disability were experienced from admission to rehabilitation up to six months post-discharge. QoL in the physical, psychological and social relationships domains remained stable over the study period. Stronger goal pursuit and goal adjustment 3 tendencies on admission predicted lower disability and higher QoL six months postdischarge. and health classification system that offers a generic framework for describing the consequences of illness and disability and the dynamic interplay of personal and environmental factors (5), and has been applied to a number of conditions, including LLA (5, 6). The ICF classifies functioning and disability into two components: (1) body functions and structures (at the level of the body or body part), which are interpreted through changes in physiological systems or anatomical structures; and (2) activities (at the level of the whole person) and participation (at the level of the whole person in a social context), which are interpreted through capacity and performance.The primary goal of rehabilitation is to achieve optimal functioning (as appropriate to the individual) at each of these levels (7). Recent reviews indicate that most rehabilitation outcomes research among persons with LLA has been at the level of body functions and structures (2) or specific activities such as mobility (6) Theories of self-regulation may help to increase understanding of adjustment to LLA (17, 18). According to this perspective, human behaviour is organised around the pursuit of goals, which energise activities and give structure and meaning to people's lives and are thus closely linked with their subjective well-being (19-21). Indeed, negative associations hav...

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“…A goal hierarchy, or goal system, (see Figure 1) comprises all of a person's values (e.g., power, creativity), identities (e.g., leader, teacher, researcher), long-term goals (e.g., publishing a paper) and day-to-day behaviors and tasks (e.g., answering emails); these include both work and home values, identities, goals and tasks (Austin & Vancouver, 1996;.…”

Section: Theoretical Underpinnings Of Self-concordancementioning

confidence: 99%

Increasing pro-environmental behaviors by increasing self-concordance: Testing an intervention.

Unsworth

McNeill

2017

Journal of Applied Psychology

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Concordance: Testing an InterventionGlobally, there is a clear need to change our behavior to mitigate climate change. Many people, however, will not find the need for mitigation important enough to make their behavior more environmentally sustainable. Three studies supported the hypothesis that it is possible to overcome this issue by connecting these behaviors to goals that are important to people, even if such goals are unrelated to climate change or the environment in general.Study 1 (N = 305 working adults) showed that stronger self-concordance of behavior related to energy sustainability was related to a greater chance of signing a petition for increasing renewable energy sources. Next, two experimental studies (Study 2: N = 412 working and non-working adults, and Study 3: N = 300 working adults) showed that increasing selfconcordance of environmentally sustainable behaviors by asking people to cognitively connect either sustainable energy use (Study 2) or commuting behaviors (Study 3) to their personal goals increased intentions to engage in these behaviors compared to a control condition (Study 2 and Study 3) and compared to persuasion attempts based on climate change mitigation (Study 3). These findings occurred even after controlling for political orientation and environmental concerns. This research has significant practical implications for workplaces, particularly for those in which employees or managers place a low priority on environmental and climate change considerations.

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Goal constructs in psychology: Structure, process, and content.

Cited by 1,686 publications

References 421 publications

Religion, self-regulation, and self-control: Associations, explanations, and implications.

Religion, self-regulation, and self-control: Associations, explanations, and implications.

Goal Pursuit and Goal Adjustment as Predictors of Disability and Quality of Life Among Individuals With a Lower Limb Amputation: A Prospective Study

Increasing pro-environmental behaviors by increasing self-concordance: Testing an intervention.

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