Personal Goals and Psychological Growth: Testing an Intervention to Enhance Goal Attainment and Personality Integration

Abstract

We hypothesized that semester goal attainment provides a route to short-term psychological growth. In an attempt to enhance this process, we randomly assigned participants to either a goal-training program or to a control condition. Although there were no main effects of program participation on later goal attainment, important interactions were found. Consistent with a "prepared to benefit" model, participants already high in goal-based measures of personality integration perceived the program as most useful and benefited the most from the program in terms of goal attainment. As a result, they became even more integrated and also increased in their levels of psychosocial well-being and vitality. Implications for theories of short-term growth and positive change are discussed, as is the unanswered question of how to help less-integrated persons grow.

The Financial Life Well-Lived: Psychological Benefits of Financial Planning

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In search of meaning: Values in modern clinical behavior analysis

“…Kennon Sheldon has examined the effect on growth, development, and overall well-being of value-relevant behavior that he refers to as goal striving (e.g., Sheldon, Kasser, Smith, & Share, 2002). Sheldon et al have provided evidence to link chronic (or lifelong) goal striving with psychological health.…”

Goal Motives, Well-Being, and Physical Health: Happiness and Self-Realization as Psychological Resources Under Challenge

“…Conversely, the pursuit of controlled goals will thwart well-being because these goals do not accurately reflect the interests and values of one's deeper self, and are thus unlikely to satisfy the basic psychological needs. Numerous researchers have conducted studies examining the motives associated with the goals one pursues and their relation with either happiness (e.g., Sheldon & Elliot, 1999;Koestner, Lekes, Powers, & Chicoine, 2002;Sheldon & Kasser, 1998) or self-realization (e.g., Sheldon, Kasser, Smith, & Share, 2002). Because all of these studies have assessed goal motives with a relative autonomy score (i.e., subtracting the sum of intrinsic and identified reasons-defined as strong interest and personal convictions, respectivelyfor pursuing goals from the sum of the introjected and external reasons-defined as internal and external pressures, respectively-for pursuing these goals), they do not directly provide empirical evidence on the distinctive relationship between pursuing goals for autonomous and controlled motives and happiness or self-realization.…”