Psy of Motivation Chapter 9

Ways to Avoid the Planning Fallacy: Imagine the goal belongs to someone else.

Research by Polman and Emich (2011) found that people solved a problem better when they imagined a stranger in the problem situation instead of themselves. So by imagining the goal is someone else's rather than your own, you may come up with a less biased plan.

Two such factors have been shown to improve the quality of a goal plan:

flexibility and accountability

Mediator vs Moderator

-A [mediator] is a variable that comes in between two other variables (like the median in a highway). -That is, a change in variable X causes a change in the mediator, and this in turn causes a change in variable Y. -For example, research on video games has found that the violence level of video games (variable X) results in desensitization to violence (mediator), and this in turn results in greater aggressive behavior (variable Y) -Conversely, a [moderator] does not come between two variables, and it is not influenced by changes in variable X. Instead, it exists outside of the relationship between X and Y but it exerts an impact on this relationship, either by making it weaker or stronger at different levels of the moderator. Returning to the video game example, research shows the effect that violent video games (variable X) have on aggression (variable Y) is stronger for men than women (moderator = gender;

Why exactly are process simulations so beneficial? To get at this question, Taylor and colleagues (1998) included several other measures in their midterm exam study and found some interesting patterns.

-First, students who visualized the process were lower in test anxiety than those in the other two conditions. -By imagining every step of the process beforehand, they felt better prepared for what was to come. -Second, students who visualized the process were forced to develop a goal plan to better deal with potential distractions and disruptions. -These students had to anticipate problems beforehand (e.g., invited to a party the night before the exam) and come up with solutions that would keep them on track toward their goal (e.g., will skip the party to get enough sleep). -So when the inevitable distraction occurred, these students were better equipped to deal with it compared to those students who had not developed these problem solving strategies. -Thus, students who adopted the process simulation were forced to create a goal plan and this in turn led to better goal performance.

Implimentation intention EX

-Goal: To write a novel -When: I will write at 8 a.m. each Saturday and Sunday. -Where: To avoid distractions at home, I will write at the local coffee shop. -How: I will spend the first hour writing new material and the second hour editing what I have just written. -How long: I will write for 2 hours each session. -Back up plan (if-then): If I can't fit both writing days in during the weekend, then I will set aside time on Sunday night to do my writing.

Books like The Power of Positive Thinking, Think and Grow Rich, or The Secret all claim that ...?

-Imagining ourselves having already achieved our goal increases our motivation and keeps us focused on the goal at hand.

STUDY 3

-In another study on mental simulations, women who were trying to lose weight were asked to form an outcome or process simulation regarding their weight loss goal (Lukaszewski & Jarczewska-Gerc, 2012). -Women who formed the outcome simulation imagined themselves in a new, slimmer body engaging in various activities, including trying on new clothes in a smaller size and attending a party in a tight red dress. -Women who formed the process simulation imagined the activities they would need to do to lose the weight, including purchasing low-calorie foods, engaging in physical activity, and turning down a slice of cake at a party. - Finally, a third group of women received no instructions. -Five weeks later, the women who formed the process simulation lost more than double the weight (8.6 lbs) than women who formed the outcome simulation (3.7 lbs) or women who were given no instructions (3.1 lbs).

STUDY 16

-In one of the earliest studies on this fallacy, Buehler, Griffin, and Ross (1994) asked a group of undergraduate students who were working on their honors thesis to estimate how long it would take to complete their project. Researchers then compared this estimate to the time students actually took to complete their thesis. Results showed that only 30% of the sample completed their project within the estimated time -This means that over two thirds of these students took longer than they had anticipated, which shows that most of the time, we fail to take into account how long it will take to reach our goals. Armed with this knowledge, is there anything we can do to make our plans more accurate? Buehler and colleagues (1994) wondered if people would be more accurate when they are asked to take into account potential setbacks, so they asked these same students to also estimate how long it would take to complete their project if everything went as poorly as it possibly could. In a sense, these students were instructed to take into account Murphy's law (the folk belief that anything that can go wrong will go wrong). Surprisingly, only 49% of students completed their project within this worst-case scenario estimate (see Figure 9.7). Even when we are forced to anticipate everything that could possibly go wrong with our goal, our plans are still way too optimistic

STUDY 8

-In one study, children were asked to complete the tedious task of sorting various pegs on a large peg board (Patterson & Mischel, 1976). -Near the peg board was a colorful box filled with toys that the researchers had planted as a distraction. -Children who had formed a general goal intention ("Don't play with the toys") were less able to resist the toys than children who had formed an implementation intention ("IF I look at the toy, THEN I will focus my attention back on the peg task"). -So even if the children stopped working and took a moment to look at or play with the toys, the implementation intention helped them refocus their attention and continue working toward their goal.

STUDY 7

-In one study, participants were seated in front of a computer and were asked to solve a series of complex mathematical problems (reported in Gollwitzer & Schaal, 1998). -As participants worked on a math task, distracting video clips would randomly play on an adjacent monitor. -The video clips were actually award-winning commercials that were colorful, fun to watch, and included exciting music. -Before the task, some of the students had formed an implementation intention to avoid the distracting videos ("as soon as the video clip starts, ignore it and focus attention on the math problems") whereas others just formed a goal intention ("don't get distracted"). -In the end, those who formed the implementation intention correctly completed more math problems than those who did not. - Without the benefit of an implementation intention, those in the control group were easily distracted by the video clips and had trouble refocusing their attention on the task at hand.

STUDY 4: DEMONSTRATES one more thing we can do to increase the effectiveness of process simulations even more.

-In one study, people watched a video of a woman flossing her teeth and were asked to create a process simulation whereby they imagined themselves also flossing their teeth (Sherman, Gangi, & White, 2010). -However, half of the participants also touched a piece of floss while they formed the process simulation. -In the following week, the participants who touched the floss reported flossing more than the participants who did not touch the floss. -And in another study by these researchers, people who created a process simulation for their weight loss goal while walking in place exercised more during the following week than people who created a process simulation while sitting down (Sherman et al., 2010). -Thus, by combining process simulations with physical reminders of the goal, we can greatly reduce the intention-behavior gap.

STUDY 6

-In the first investigation of implementation intentions, Gollwitzer and Brandstätter (1997) asked college students to list two goals they wanted to complete over their winter break. -One of the goals listed had to be something that was difficult to implement and the other had to be easy to implement. -Students listed a variety of different goals, such as writing a paper, reading a book, or resolving a family conflict. -For each goal, the students indicated if they had already formed implementation intentions by identifying when and where they would start on the goal -After the winter break, Gollwitzer and Brandstätter (1997) contacted these students again to see if their goals were successfully achieved. -When it came to the goals that were easy to initiate, implementation intentions had little impact. -But when it came to goals that were difficult to initiate, implementation intentions had a big impact.

reasons why implementation intentions backfire

-One is because they can focus our attention too much on a specific course of action -This focus is beneficial if we only pursue the goal one way, but in many cases we use multiple courses of action when striving for a goal (i.e., goal equifinality). -For example, to lose weight, we may exercise and diet. To save money, we may eat out less and also use coupons at the grocery store. To eat healthier, we may cut out processed foods and homemade sweets. -Another concern about implementation intentions has to do with the quality of the goal plan (see Figure 9.3). Every goal has good and bad ways to approach it. For example, people who are trying to lose weight often skip breakfast, but research shows this approach backfires and causes people to consume unhealthy foods throughout the day (Keski-Rahkonen, Kaprio, Rissanen, Virkkunen, & Rose, 2003). But if an individual created an implementation intention to skip breakfast each morning, this would only lock them into this faulty strategy even more.

reasons why we are unable to persist at our goals

-One is that we become bogged down by other distractions. In an ideal day, we would wake up early, eat a healthy breakfast, hit the gym, eat a healthy lunch, complete all of our homework, and still get home in time to take the dog for a walk. But in reality, life is full of distractions. -when their goal behavior is disrupted, they have a hard time getting back on track.

STUDY 9

-Participants with arachnophobia (intense fear of spiders) were recruited to view various pictures of spiders. -Under normal conditions, when someone with arachnophobia is exposed to pictures of spiders, they experience negative emotions (e.g., anxiety and arousal). -To override this old habitual response, these people needed to learn to prevent these negative emotions from occurring and to instead feel calm and relaxed in the situation. - In this study, one group of participants formed a goal intention ("I will not get frightened"), one group formed an implementation intention ("IF I see a spider, THEN I will remain calm"), and a third control group did nothing. -Next, all participants were shown a series of spider photographs and after each photograph, they indicated how anxious and aroused they felt -participants who formed the implementation intention reported feeling less anxious and aroused by the spider photographs than those in goal intention or no intention groups. Amazingly, their responses looked nearly identical to the reactions of people without arachnophobia

Overly rigid plans also reduce one's sense of autonomy.

-People have a strong need to feel in control of their own lives, but the more regimented our goal plan is the less choice we feel we have in our daily activities. -A diet regimen that prohibits lots of different foods (e.g., no carbs and no fats) and requires you to monitor every single thing you eat is one that you will probably give up on by the end of the week. -Conversely, plans that are flexible spell out specific goal-directed behaviors but also allow for some choices. -This suggests a diet regimen that allows you to make choices (e.g., if you eat a salad for lunch, then you can have a small dessert with dinner) is one you are more likely to stick with. Perhaps this explains the successful weight-loss programs like Weight Watchers where people are given a set of "food points" to use up each day but are allowed to choose exactly how they spend those points.

what-the-hell effect

-Refers to the tendency for people who make one slip up to see it as a license to completely abandon the goal (Cochran & Tesser, 1996). -Its name reflects people's tendencies to say, for example, "I just messed up my diet by eating that scoop of ice cream so what the hell, why not finish off the entire pint?" or "I already went $20 over my budget so what the hell, why not make it $100?" -In support of this effect, dieters tricked into thinking they had overeaten during lunch were more likely to follow up the meal by eating cookies than those who did not think they had overeaten (Polivy & Herman, 1985). Interestingly, the exact opposite pattern occurred for non-dieters. When non dieters were tricked into thinking they overate, they actually ate fewer cookies than those who were not tricked. This suggests that dieters are more likely to display the what-the-hell effect because they feel if they have blown their diet, they may as well make the most of it and dig in.

Types of Individual Differences That Moderate Implementation Intention: Goal commitment

-The higher people are in goal commitment, the greater the benefits are of forming implementation intentions. -Let's say that you are not particularly committed to the goal of performing well on your organic chemistry exam. -If this is the case, then forming an implementation intention to study for this exam will not be particularly beneficial. - However, let's say that you are very committed to performing well on your motivation exam. In this case, you would greatly benefit from forming an implementation intention to study for this exam. In fact, this exact pattern was found for college students who were low or high in commitment to studying for an exam

Types of Individual Differences That Moderate Implementation Intention: Self-efficacy

-The higher people are in self-efficacy, the greater the benefits are of forming implementation intentions. Koestner and colleagues (2006) were interested in examining whether high self-efficacy could boost the benefits of implementation intentions so they conducted a study using the New Year's resolutions of college students. Participants in the implementation intention condition were asked to plan out when, where, and how they would pursue their most important New Year's resolution. Participants in the implementation intention + self-efficacy condition did the same thing, but they also reflected on their past goal achievement experiences as a way of boosting their self-efficacy. Finally, participants in the control condition completed a task unrelated to their New Year's resolution. Five months later, participants in the implementation intention + self-efficacy condition showed greater goal progress than people in the other two conditions. Thus, implementation intentions have their greatest benefits for goals in which we feel competent.

Clearly, process simulations are an effective way to reduce ..?

-The intention-behavior gap

Simulation heuristic

-The tendency for people to judge the likelihood of an event by how easily it can be imagined or simulated in their mind - It plays an important but often overlooked role in the goal planning process. -Suppose a student is struggling in one of his courses but his goal is to get a 4.0 GPA so he considers cheating on his next exam. -While considering this dangerous move, he mentally simulates what would happen if he gets caught. -His professor could make him retake the exam, give him a zero on the exam, give him an F in the class, or report him to the higher authorities and possibly have him expelled from school. -Given all these possible outcomes, which does he think is most likely? Based on the simulation heuristic, the outcome that most easily comes to mind will be the one he thinks is most likely to occur. If our student recently watched a news story where a student in another state was expelled for cheating, he may conclude that this outcome is likely to happen to him too. But if he just watched a movie about a student who cheats and gets away with it, he may think that this outcome is the most likely to happen. Rather than using sound information to make his goal plan—such as the professor's past behavior with cheaters or the school's level of tolerance for cheating—the student relies on incomplete and biased information when deciding what to do next.

STUDY 5

-To examine the difference between goal intentions and implementation intentions, Orbell and colleagues (Orbell, Hodgkins, & Sheeran, 1997) had women set the goal of conducting a monthly breast examination to check for potential tumors. -For women who just intended to complete this goal, only 53% actually completed the exam during the next month. -But when the women wrote down exactly when and where they would conduct the monthly exam, 100% completed the exam during the next month. -And later studies found similar effects with other goals such as taking vitamins, exercising, eating a low-fat diet, or recycling.

STUDY 2

-To test which simulation is more effective, Taylor and colleagues (1998) conducted a study on their students who were about to take a midterm exam. -These researchers randomly split the students into one of three groups and assigned each group a different visualization technique. 1. One group was instructed to use an outcome simulation. People in this group might imagine getting the midterm exam back from the professor, seeing a big A at the top and feeling happy about the grade. 2. A second group was instructed to use a process simulation. People in this group might imagine themselves studying in the library, reading the text chapters, reviewing their course notes, and skipping that party the night before so they could get enough sleep. 3. A third group was given no instructions and served as the control group -Results: students who focused on the process spent the most hours studying for the exam. Interestingly, students who focused on the outcome spent the least amount of hours studying. Now take a look at the right side of Figure 9.2. Students who focused on the process also earned the best grade on the midterm exam, whereas those who focused on the outcome earned the worst grade.

implementation intention

-Which refers to an if-then plan that specifies the exact behavior the individual will perform in a particular situation (Gollwitzer & Sheeran, 2006). -Referred to as if-then statements because they take the form of IF situation Y occurs, THEN I will engage in behavior X. -So in this case, you might say to yourself, "IF it is 8 a.m. on Monday morning, THEN I will go to the gym. -And IF my schedule gets too hectic and I don't have enough time for a full workout, THEN I will walk around my neighborhood." -In this way, implementation intentions specify exactly when, where, and how the individual will achieve their goal. -Notice how this greatly differs from a goal intention (e.g., "I intend to exercise more"), which only specifies what the end point of the goal process will be.

The [simulation heuristic] typically takes the form of "if only" statements, such as "If only I hadn't switched onto that doomed airplane" or "If only I hadn't stopped at Starbucks on the way to the airport." Such "if only" statements are generally referred to as counterfactual thinking, which involves imagining alternative ways something could have turned out (Epstude & Roese, 2008). Such thinking can take two forms:

-[Upward counterfactuals]: involve thinking of the ways things could have turned out better. The student who plans to arrive to the exam on time but accidentally sleeps in might think, "If only I hadn't hit the snooze button on the alarm, then I would have made it to the exam on time." Upward counterfactuals are more likely to occur with unexpected failures whereas downward counterfactuals are more likely to occur with unexpected successes -[Downward counterfactuals]: involve thinking of the ways things could have turned out worse. The student who is surprised to receive an A on the exam might think, "If only I hadn't spent those two extra hours studying, my score would have been much lower."

mental simulations

-a visualization technique that require the individual to simulate an aspect of the goal in their mind

people who form both strong ________ and_________ are more likely to achieve their goals than people who form either goal intentions or implementation intentions in isolation

-goal intentions - implementation intentions

Are humans just really bad at planning? Or is it that we have a blind spot when it comes to planning for our own behavior? Buehler and colleagues (1994) investigated these questions by

-having participants reflect on a time in the past when they failed to meet a deadline and asked them to indicate why this had happened. The researchers also had them think of a time when someone they knew failed to meet a deadline and again asked them to explain why this happened. What they found is that people are more likely to attribute their own prediction failures to external and unstable causes ("My project took longer because of bad weather but it wasn't my fault and it will never happen again"). However, they tend to attribute someone else's prediction failures to internal and stable causes ("Their project took longer because they failed to anticipate setbacks and chances are this will happen again"). This means that we fail to take responsibility for our own failures at planning and are therefore doomed to repeat our own planning mistakes in the future.

STUDY 15

-one group of incoming freshman students wrote down their plan for how they would cope with the stress of starting college and another group wrote about an unrelated topic. By the end of the semester, those who wrote down their coping plan had fewer illness-related visits to the school health clinic than those who wrote on another topic. Interestingly, the beneficial outcomes of writing down your goal plan are quite similar to what is experienced in cognitive-behavioral therapy.

The self-help literature suggests which simulation is more likely to result in goal achievement?

-outcome

intention-behavior gap

-refers to the weak relationship between what people intend to do and what they actually do -Although forming a goal intention is the first step required to set you on your path toward goal achievement, it is not the only step. -People with strong goal intentions fail to attain their goals all the time, often because they formed a strong intention on a bad goal. -People who adopt difficult, specific, proximal goals are more likely to be successful. - Therefore, adopting goals with these qualities is one way to reduce the intention-behavior gap. -But even when we maximize the quality of our goal intention in this way, we can still fail to reach our goals.

planning fallacy

-which refers to the tendency for people to make overly optimistic plans by underestimating the amount of money, time, and effort required to complete a task, a cognitive bias EX: How many times have you thought you could knock out a class paper in a few hours, only to find yourself pulling an all-nighter to get the paper finished on time? -Experiences like this are quite common among college students, but students aren't the only ones who underestimate the amount of time it will take to complete a task. -The example of the Sydney Opera House that opened this chapter reveals that architects and contractors enormously underestimate the time and money required to finish a building. -Even your professors underestimate how long it will take to design a lecture or write a grant proposal. Such examples demonstrate a common cognitive bias

To form implementation intentions, people must:

1. Identify a behavioral response that promotes goal achievement 2. Link it with a situational cue to initiate that response.

Two Types of Mental Simulation

1. Outcome Simulation: -People may fantasize about what it will be like when they achieve their goal -Seems to most closely match the advice given by many self-help books and pop psychology sources 2. Process Simulation: -People may focus on the steps required to achieve their goal. -it focuses on the process required to reach the goal.

Ways to Avoid the Planning Fallacy

1. Rely on other people's estimates. 2. Imagine the goal belongs to someone else. 3. Reflect on past experiences. 4. Use implementation intentions. 5. Take it one step at a time.

loss aversion

Because bad exerts a stronger influence on our judgments and behaviors than good does, when it comes to planning for the future, people are prone to loss aversion, meaning they are more interested in avoiding possible losses than in acquiring possible gains

Benefits and costs of implimentation intention

Benefits: -More likely to start goal -More likely to persist at goal -More likely to overcome disruptions -Better able to override old habits Costs: -Less attentive to alternative ways to pursue goal -Less likely to abandon faulty plans

LOSS AVERSION EXAMPLE 1

Imagine you are headed to the movie theater and you have two $20 bills in your wallet. But when you arrive at the theater you discover that somewhere along the way, you lost one of the bills. Will you spend your remaining $20 to buy your ticket? >In this situation, most people say yes.

STUDY 17

In a study by Radecki and Jaccard (1995), students indicated how knowledgeable they thought they were regarding nutrition. Participants completed an actual test of nutrition knowledge, which included questions about familiar nutrients (e.g., protein and carbohydrates). They were then told that they would be given a second nutrition test, but before doing so, they would be given an opportunity to study for the exam. The researchers had two questions that they sought to answer with this study: Do people who think they are nutrition experts actually know more about nutrition than people who do not consider themselves experts? Do people who think they are nutrition experts seek out more or less information when given an opportunity to learn? Surprisingly, the level of perceived knowledge of the participants was in no way related to their actual knowledge. People who thought they were experts in nutrition were no more knowledgeable about the topic than people who thought they were nonexperts. Even worse is the fact that these incorrect beliefs held by perceived experts were actually harmful. People who perceived themselves as experts gathered less information during the study session than those who did not perceive themselves as experts. This result suggests that people who label themselves as experts are likely to worsen, not improve, goal plans. So before you go labeling yourself an expert on a particular topic, you may want to reassess. Better yet, regardless of whether you think you are an expert or not, realize that there is always room for improvement and take advantage of every opportunity to learn new information that can improve your future planning.

STUDY 10

In another study, researchers examined whether implementation intentions could help people to suppress another unwanted response: stereotypes. Research shows that stereotypes are often activated automatically, even for people who are low in prejudice (Devine, 1989). Thus, when people see an old person, they may automatically assume the person is a slow driver. And when people see a Muslim man with a long beard and headscarf, they may automatically think he is a terrorist. The problem is because these stereotypes pop up so quickly we are often unable to control them, and as a result they can impact the way that we behave toward others. Stereotypes are a lot like our other bad habits, but a number of studies demonstrate that implementation intentions can help prevent such stereotypes from becoming automatically activated

STUDY 12

In one study, dieters who formed an implementation intention regarding their favorite snack food ("IF I think about my chosen food, THEN I will ignore that thought") consumed less of this food over the following week than those who did not form the implementation intention (Achtziger, Gollwitzer, & Sheeran, 2008). In a different study, competitive tennis players were asked to identify the inner states that typically impaired their performance (e.g., feeling stressed, angry, exhausted, distracted). The athletes who formed a personalized implementation intention regarding their problematic inner state (e.g., "IF I feel stressed, THEN I will calm myself and tell myself 'I will win!'") performed better in their next tennis match than those who did not form the implementation intention (Achtziger et al., 2008).

STUDY 1

In one study, researchers analyzed the responses of several hundred people collected across 30 different goal types (Fife-Schaw, Sheeran, & Norman, 2007). Using a statistical simulation technique, these researchers examined what would happen if they maximized the quality (rather than the strength) of people's goal intentions. Although the results showed that people with intentions toward good quality goals performed better than people with intentions toward bad quality goals, nearly one third of the people with good quality goals still failed to reach their goal. So although it is important to form an intention around a good quality goal, this step alone does not guarantee goal success.

Ways to Avoid the Planning Fallacy: Rely on other people's estimates.

In the Buehler and colleagues (1994) studies, people who estimated the completion date of another person were more accurate and were five times more likely to anticipate problems than people who estimated their own completion date. This suggests that when you have an upcoming project, you should ask someone who knows you (and knows how you have behaved in similar situations in the past) and ask them to estimate how long it will take for you to complete the task. If you think you can write a term paper in 3 days but your roommate thinks it will take you a week, odds are your roommate's estimate is more accurate.

Ways to Avoid the Planning Fallacy: Reflect on past experiences.

In the Buehler and colleagues (1994) study, students who thought of a time when they failed to meet a deadline and listed how this situation was similar to the current task had more accurate completion estimates. In fact, certain companies have software (e.g., Fog Creek's Evidence-Based Scheduling) that tracks how long it takes their workers to complete tasks. This helps the workers avoid the planning fallacy. When the worker starts a new task, instead of estimating how long it will take to complete, they are presented with a graph that tells them how long they took to complete similar tasks in the past (Spolsky, 2004). You may want to consider starting a chart like this for yourself: The next time you write a paper for class, record how long it actually took; the next time you study for an exam, record how many hours it required. If you keep these records consistently and check them each time you have an upcoming task, you will be better able to gauge how long the task will take given your prior track record.

But why does publicly declaring our goal increase goal attainment? It may have to do with goal commitment.

In the previously mentioned study by Hollenbeck and colleagues (1989), students in a college course were asked to set a GPA goal for the semester. For half of the students in the class, their name and GPA goal were written down on a sheet of paper and distributed to the entire class; the other half kept their GPA goal private. Four weeks later, just before the midterm, the researchers assessed the students' level of commitment to their GPA goal and found that those who had publicly declared their goal were higher in goal commitment than those whose goal remained private.

Reflection examples of avoiding planning fallacies #2

Janine is planning to remodel her kitchen. She has never done a renovation before, but she estimates it will take 2 weeks and $10,000 to complete the task. -Rely on other people's estimates -Imagine the goal belongs to someone else

Reflection examples of avoiding planning fallacies #3

Manuel is planning a road trip from California to New York City. He estimates that if he keeps his stops minimal and his overnight stays short, he can complete the trip in 5 days and under $1,000. -Rely on other people's estimates -Use implementation intentions -Take it one step at a time

STUDY 14

One study on goal flexibility examined college students who had the goal to study for an upcoming exam. Some of the students made a detailed daily plan for their studying goal, some made a monthly plan, and some made no plan at all (Kirschenbaum, Tomarken, & Ordman, 1982). Although the researchers expected the daily plan to produce the most success, they were wrong. Students with a monthly plan were the ones who showed the greatest improvement on the exam. Although the daily goal was high in specificity, it was low in flexibility and students struggled to keep up with its rigid demands. Conversely, the monthly plan had a moderate level of specificity (i.e., it was more specific than no plan), but it also afforded students with some flexibility, which made it easier to stick with. It is worth noting that although most students in this study did better with the monthly plan, the most academically skilled students actually did best with the daily plan.

Ways to Avoid the Planning Fallacy: Take it one step at a time.

People are more successful when they break up a large goal into its smaller components. The same thing can be said of goal plans. Instead of estimating how long it will take for you to complete your entire goal plan, it may be better to break your plan into segments and then estimate how long each segment will take. In a study by Forsyth and Burt (2008), people completed a series of tasks. Half of the participants were asked to estimate how long it would take for them to complete the entire group of tasks. The other half were asked to estimate how long it would take to complete each individual task. The results showed that people who judged the tasks as a group underestimated how long it actually took, thereby demonstrating the planning fallacy. But those who judged each task individually actually overestimated how long it took to complete all the tasks. That is, the estimated time for the group of tasks was smaller than the sum total of the time estimated for each task individually. Thus, if you divide your goal plan into segments and estimate how long each segment will take, you are less likely to suffer from the planning fallacy (and may even complete your goal ahead of schedule!).

LOSS AVERSION EXAMPLES EXPLANATION

So what is going on here? In both cases you lost something worth $20. In the first case it was a piece of paper with a president's face printed on it; in the second case it was a piece of paper with a movie ticket printed on it. But in both cases, the item you lost was valued at $20. So why is there a difference in the way people respond to these two scenarios? Well, the difference is that in the second case, the loss of the ticket makes it feel as if the ticket cost more than the $20 we spent on it. In a sense, we say to ourselves, "I'm not paying $40 for a movie ticket."

Types of Individual Differences That Moderate Implementation Intention: Self control

The weaker a person's self-control is, the more likely the person is to benefit from forming implementation intentions. Self-control is important for the pursuit of any goal, but there are certain groups of people who lack these important self-control abilities, including people with schizophrenia, drug addicts experiencing withdrawal, patients who have frontal lobe damage, and children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Because these individuals lack the self-control skills necessary to stick with their goals, they are especially likely to benefit from the use of implementation intentions

STUDY 13

To test this possibility, Jaudas and colleagues (2006; reported in Parks-Stamm & Gollwitzer, 2009) gave students a faulty plan and then watched to see how quickly it took them to realize the plan was bad and abandon it. Specifically, participants in this study had to complete a maze, and they were told that when a green arrow appeared at a particular junction it indicated a short cut. In truth, following the green arrow only led to a short cut 30% of the time, so it was not a particularly good strategy to use. Prior to starting the maze, half of the participants created a goal intention ("finish the maze quickly") whereas the other half created an implementation intention regarding the green arrow ("IF I see a green arrow, THEN I will take the turn"). The results showed that those with an implementation intention were reluctant to abandon the use of the green arrow and therefore took longer to complete the maze than those with a goal intention. However, this cost was only incurred when participants were not given explicit feedback about their maze performance. This means that when participants had to evaluate the effectiveness of their plan themselves, they were reluctant to see the flaw in their plan and stubbornly held onto it. However, when participants were given explicit feedback about their maze performance, even those with an implementation intention were willing to abandon their flawed plan.

Reflection examples of avoiding planning fallacies #1

Tom has an upcoming research paper due next week and he wants to get an accurate estimate of the time he will need to complete the task. Tom thinks he should be able to finish the paper in 2 days. -Rely on other people's estimates -Imagine the goal belongs to someone else -Reflect on past experiences

STUDY 18

Two men are headed for the airport but get caught in traffic and arrive late. When the first man finally arrives at the airport, he learns that his flight left on time and he missed it by half an hour. When the second man arrives at the airport, he learns that his flight departed 25 minutes late and that he has missed it by only 5 minutes. Do you think both men will be equally upset with missing their flight? If not, who do you think will be more upset? When Kahneman and Tversky (1979) posed this question to a group of participants, 96% of them stated they thought the second man would be more upset. But why? In both cases the men failed to achieve their goal of making their flight, so shouldn't both men be equally disappointed? The problem is that when we run through this scenario in our mind, it is easier for us to think of things the second man could have done to make his flight. If only he hadn't hit the snooze button on his alarm, or dropped his keys when he headed out to the driveway, or stopped off at Starbucks before he got on the highway. Conversely, it is a lot harder for us to think of ways that the first man could have shaved off 30 minutes from his routine. So, the easier it is to think of ways something could have turned out differently, the more upset we feel.

Ways to Avoid the Planning Fallacy: Use implementation intentions.

You already learned that implementation intentions increase the likelihood of goal attainment, but they also help us to more accurately estimate the time and effort required to achieve our goals. Students who formed an implementation intention were more likely to reach their goal within the predicted amount of time than students who simply formed a goal intention (Koole & Spijker, 2000). One reason why implementation intentions help us overcome the planning fallacy is that people who form these intentions have fewer interruptions while working toward their goal. By anticipating such disruptions beforehand and developing a contingency plan to deal with them, these people are better able to smooth out the bumps along the road.

LOSS AVERSION EXAMPLE 2

You are headed to the movie theater and in your wallet you have the movie ticket for which you paid $20 and also a $20 bill. But when you arrive at the theater you discover that somewhere along the way, you lost the movie ticket. Will you spend your remaining $20 to buy another ticket? >Most people say no.

STUDY 11

in one study, non-Black participants played a video game where they were instructed to shoot characters that carried guns and not shoot characters holding non gun objects. Prior research had found that people were more likely to make a mistake and shoot an unarmed character if that character was Black, thereby demonstrating an influence of anti-Black stereotypes. Half of the participants playing this video game were first instructed to form an implementation intention to prevent the influence of negative stereotypes ("IF I see a person, THEN I will ignore his race") and the other half did not form an implementation intention. The results indicated that participants who did not form the implementation intention were twice as likely to mistakenly shoot an unarmed Black character as participants who did form the implementation intention. This suggests that implementation intentions help us to control our automatic unwanted responses.

STUDY 19

one study asked students to reflect on a recent academic performance that was disappointing (Roese, 1994). The students were asked to generate three ways their performance could have been better (upward counterfactual), three ways it could have been worse (downward counterfactual), or were given no instructions (control). Next, the students indicated their commitment to pursue their academic goal in the future. Those who generated the upward counterfactual were more committed to their goal than those in the other two conditions. Thus, even when our goal plans fail, if we imagine ways that our future plans could be better, we feel more committed to our goals. And this increase in commitment that results from counterfactual thinking is likely to result in a greater likelihood of future goal achievement Roese, 1994).

One strategy to increase accountability is to ..?

write down the goal plan because doing so makes the goal seem more real, brings greater awareness and clarity to the goal, helps people to reorganize their priorities, and helps them focus on the process required to achieve the goal -We can also increase our accountability by telling someone about our goal. Because humans have a strong need to feel accepted by others (i.e., need to belong, we go to great lengths to ensure that others see us in a positive light. Imagine if you told your friends from high school that when you grew up, you were going to be some hot-shot artist living in Paris. How embarrassed would you be if you showed up to your 10-year reunion never having visited Paris or completed a single painting? To avoid such embarrassment, we often work harder toward our goal once we have publicly declared our plan to others.