The Progress Bias in Goal Pursuit: When One Step Forward Seems Larger than One Step Back

Abstract

Consumers often pursue goals (e.g., losing weight) where the chance of attaining the goal increases with some behaviors (e.g., exercise) but decreases with others (e.g., eating). Although goal monitoring is known to be a critical step in self-control for successful goal pursuit, little research investigates whether consumers accurately monitor goal progress. Seven experiments demonstrate that consumers tend to show a progress bias in goal monitoring, perceiving that goal-consistent behaviors (e.g., saving $45) help progress more than goal-inconsistent behaviors of the equivalent size (e.g., spending $45) hurt it. Expectations of goal attainment moderate the progress bias; reducing the expectation that the goal will be reached reduces the tendency to perceive goal-consistent behaviors to have a larger impact on goal progress than equivalent goal-inconsistent behaviors. A study on exercise and eating shows that although the progress bias can increase initial goal persistence, it can also lead to premature goal release due to poor calibration of overall progress.

The Primacy of “What” over “How Much”: How Type and Quantity Shape Healthiness Perceptions of Food Portions

“…A recent survey of American adults found that 54% had a goal to lose weight, and 25% had a goal to maintain their weight (International Food Information Council Foundation 2012). With weight loss or weight management as one's main health goal, calories can be considered a key objective indicator of health impact (Cochran and Tesser 1996, Chandon and Wansink 2007a, Huang et al 2012, Campbell and Warren 2015. However, particularly when health is defined in terms of decreasing and managing caloric intake, consumers can pursue health via food consumption in two main ways: changing what they eat, or how much they eat.…”

“…Imagine a consumer with a healthy eating goal who is deciding whether to consume a particular portion of chocolate candies. Like most consumers with healthy eating goals, this consumer's main health goal consists of losing or maintaining weight (International Food Information Council Foundation 2012), such that calories are typically considered a major objective indicator of health goal impact (Cochran and Tesser 1996, Chandon and Wansink 2007a, Huang et al 2012, Campbell and Warren 2015. Given the importance of calories as a major aspect of healthiness for most consumers' health goals, there are two main aspects of the food consumed that ought to combine to jointly determine how a given food portion will affect the consumer's health goals: the type of food and the quantity of the food.…”

Self‐control: Information, priorities, and resources

“…The inferences that people make about their performance can influence how much self‐control they will execute. One such inference is goal progress (Campbell & Warren, ; Huang, Zhang, & Broniarczyk, ). While progress toward a goal may be a signal of commitment (Fishbach & Dhar, ; Kivetz, Urminsky, & Zheng, ), many times progress decreases self‐control by signaling that it is not necessary to do more for the goal (Etkin & Laran, ; Koo & Fishbach, ).…”

The effects of anticipated goal‐inconsistent behavior on present goal choices

“…Goal-consistent behavior is considered virtuous (Metcalfe & Mischel, 1999) and has positive psychological (e.g., increasing self-esteem; Khan & Dhar, 2006) and practical (e.g., reducing debt, losing weight; Achtziger, Hubert, Kenning, Raab, & Reisch, 2015;Crescioni et al, 2011) (Flegal et al, 2012;Pressman & Scott, 2009). Positive and negative consequences are processed very differently (Campbell & Warren, 2015;Kahneman & Tversky, 1979), suggesting that anticipating future goal-consistent and goalinconsistent behaviors may be processed quite differently, may elicit different reactions, and therefore may lead to different behaviors.…”