perception on goal setting essay

Goal Setting for Achieving Growth and Development Essay

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Setting goals is an important activity that everyone should engage in to achieve growth and development. In setting our goals, we should think critically on the type of goals we set to avoid disappointment which can reduce one’s morale to develop.

We should make sure the goals we are setting are ours and are not as a result of the influence of another party.

One should also have a reason for setting the goals and the goals set should be encouraging to engage in, because if they are boring, then one might lose interest in developing the goal.

When the goal is set, one should be able to visualize himself enjoying the benefits from the target after the specified time has elapsed, to avoid engaging in unachievable ventures (Robbins & Coulter, 2009)

In setting goals, we should have a method or some kind of approach to enable one to choose fruitful goals. The best method of goal setting is the SMART goal setting process. The acronym stands for:

M-Measurable

A-Attainable, but challenging

R-Rewarding

This model can be used to set any type of goals, and whether personal or professional they are all achievable. For example, I would like to set a specific goal which is opening a new branch for my fashion business, and I expect to be worth half a million dollars by the end of this year.

T hat is not enough to set a specific goal; hence I should set a measurement to determine my success in the undertaking.

I should be able to measure the operations of the new branch to determine my progress. Measuring the goal would entail taking into account all the sales, costs and revenues from the new branch.

My goal should also be attainable in that; it should be easy to achieve and manage to avoid discouragement, but they should not be too easy to achieve otherwise that would be wastage of resources and time.

However, our goals should not be complicated or set to a very high mark that is not realistic.

In setting my goal I considered that it took me a year and a half to achieve a half a million worth business in my first venture hence now that am more experienced, I should be able to achieve that in a year if all other things remain constant (Robbins & Coulter, 2009).

One should also be able to predict whether the goal will be achievable through measurement and if it appears otherwise, then the strategies used should be changed. Goals set should also be rewarding; they should yield benefits or revenues.

This is the main reason for setting goals, and hence one should evaluate the progress of the venture.

Rewards depend on the type of goal, or venture one is involved in, and for my purpose, I should be able to determine the revenues of my new parlor to know whether am making profits and how I can to make the profits more so that the business can expand more.

The achievement of goals should be timely, and this involves setting deadlines or a time frame in which the goals should be achieved. Otherwise one can spend too much time on one venture instead of using that time to perform other activities.

The time frame will also be determined by the type of goals set; for example, one can not expect to lose weight in two weeks nor can you wait for five years without any change in the weight.

My goal is business oriented, and in setting the time frame, I should consider all eventualities that characterize the fashion market and also consider previous experience; my time frame is one year. The approach is very effective because it is easy to analyze, logical and applicable.

Once we have set the goals we need to make plans on how to achieve them and planning can be managerial or operational; managerial planning is done by the managers and in my case am obligated to do that, while the operational planning involves the first level managers and who are not present in my business because it is not very big to have such employees hence I and the sales staff will do that since they are the only employees.

We should always set well-written goals for easy planning of their implementation.

In planning developing plans to pursue a goal, we should always consider the level of the business the environmental uncertainties and any other future commitment because this is some of the major factors that are likely to influence the implementation of our plans (Robbins & Coulter, 2009)

In making good goals we should review the mission of the organization, in this case, the business, we should also consider the available resources required for the implementation of the goals and finally other people that will be involved in its implementation should also be involved in setting the goal.

Goal setting is very important to achieve success hence the need for proper planning, implementation, and evaluation of our goals. By using the smart approach, one will always stay motivated to achieve the goals and is less likely to fail.

The approach encourages creativity and allows for flexibility hence enables you to work at your pace and capacity while still keeping you alert. It is a good method and very recommendable especially for in setting business goals.

Reference list

Robbins, J & Coulter, M. (2009) Management , New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

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Perception and Motivation in Goal Achievement

It may be challenging for students to find motivation to reach set goals. People may be intrinsically or extrinsically motivated to succeed.  However, there are different theories about what motivates behavior.  Some people believe that reinforcement is necessary for people to truly feel motivated to change behaviors. Albert Bandura is a name often associated with discussions of motivation and learning.  Bandura is a Canadian psychologist responsible for social learning theory. Along with Skinner, Freud, and Piaget, Bandura is one of the most frequently cited psychologists . Bandura believed that reinforcement alone did not account for all learning or motivation.  He felt people could learn through observation, intrinsic reinforcement, and modeling the behaviors of others. Intrinsic reinforcement occurs when people receive an internal reward, such as pride, satisfaction, and a sense of accomplishment.

Part of wanting to achieve a goal is to have the expectancy of reward associated with that goal.  Self-efficacy is another important component that is developed as students feel confidence in performing well.  An article by Nacada.KSU.edu explained the factors associated with motivation include:  Intrinsic goal orientation, extrinsic goal orientation, task value, control of learning beliefs, test anxiety, and self-efficacy for learning and performance.  The authors noted, “The self-efficacy construct postulated by Bandura in his social learning theory has guided extensive motivational research.”

Students must not only be motivated to achieve the goal, but be able to make the goal measurable.  The mnemonic “ SMART ” is often referred to in goal-setting. SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely.  In the article Set Specific Goals to Increase Success , the author suggests using the following formula in order to make goals measurable:  “I will (goal + performance measure) by (specific actions).” If a student wanted to receive an A as their goal, he or she would fill in the blanks with something like this:  I will receive an A in BUS101 by studying 2 hours a night Monday through Friday from 6-8 pm.”  Students often will state the goal without remembering to include the steps required to reach that goal.  By making the goal measurable, students can measure their progress toward attaining that goal.  This creates a roadmap to achieving the goal.

Reaching goals requires motivation. ZenHabits does a nice job of explaining motivation, as well as ways to achieve it and sustain it during times of struggle.  To find out more about motivation, check out the self-motivation quiz from Mindtools. After the quiz, there is a nice explanation of factors involved in self-motivation including:  self-confidence and efficacy, positive thinking, focus, and environment. The author from the article How Self-Motivated Are You noted, “Self-motivation doesn’t come naturally to everyone. And even those who are highly self-motivated need some extra help every now and then. Build your self-motivation by practicing goal-setting skills, and combining those with positive thinking, the creation of powerful visions of success, and the building of high levels of self-efficacy and self-confidence.”

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How Changing Your Perception Can Help You Achieve Your Goals Faster

I spent a summer in college training in different warfare specialties as part of my Navy ROTC scholarship. One week during the training, my fellow cadets and I were invited to go out on one of the Navy’s crown jewels: an Aegis destroyer. 

These extraordinary ships were the first of their kind. The technology of them is beyond the scope of my full understanding, but at the basic level, they work like this: When a missile fired from the ship neared its target, it was able to detect the scattered energy coming from that target and adjust both its trajectory and momentum based on this data.

This was called  painting the target , and these ships could do it with incredible precision. 

Why am I telling you this? Because painting the target is exactly what your brain must do anytime it wants to accomplish a goal. 

Related: 4 Tips for Setting Powerful Goals

Your brain is goal-oriented. When you set a goal, your mind subconsciously makes a number of assessments about how far away that goal is (proximity), how likely you are to achieve it (the size of the target), and the effort (thrust) it will take to get there. As you work toward the goal, your brain is constantly calculating and recalculating these three variables.

Creating more positive perceptions of our goals can dramatically increase our engagement, focus, productivity and motivation, and thus increase the speed by which we attain them. Here’s how you can start painting the target in your own life: 

Strategy 1: Zoom in on the target (proximity). 

Research has shown the closer people get to a target, the harder and faster they work. Write down all of the work you’ve done and all of the strides you’ve made so far. Reminding yourself of past successes will help your brain perceive that you are closer to the ultimate target. 

Strategy 2: Magnify the target (likelihood of success). 

The bigger a target appears, the more your brain believes you will hit it. Look at your current circumstances. Are there areas where you believe you could never hit a home run because the fences seem a mile away? Simply move the fences in so it seems easier.

Strategy 3: Recalculate thrust (energy required). 

To achieve any goal, a certain level of energy is required. The lower the mental cost, the faster your speed toward success. Research has shown that by changing your perception of these costs, you can increase your speed toward your target by as much as 35 percent. 

Read next: 12 Efficiency Secrets of the World’s Busiest People

This article originally appeared in the May/June 2020 issue of SUCCESS magazine. Photo by @chantalao007/Twenty20.com

Shawn Achor

Shawn Achor is a Harvard-trained researcher and best-selling author of The Happiness Advantage and  Before Happiness .  Get a daily dose of happy at Shawn's Facebook page .

5473 Blair Road, Suite 100 PMB 30053 Dallas, TX 75231

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The impact of self-assessment, planning and goal setting, and reflection before and after revision on student self-efficacy and writing performance

• Open access
• Published: 04 July 2021
• Volume 34 , pages 1885–1913, ( 2021 )

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• Huy Q. Chung   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-3048-3678 1 ,
• Vicky Chen 1 &
• Carol Booth Olson 1  

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Writing on-demand, text-based analytical essays is a challenging skill to master. Novice writers, such as the sixth grade US students in this study, may lack background knowledge of how to compose an effective essay, the self-efficacy skills, and the goal setting skills that will help with completing this task in accomplished ways. This sequential mixed-method study explored the impact of guiding a predominantly Redesignated English Learner group of students in a large, urban, low-SES school district in a timed, on-demand essay into a multiple draft process paper through a self-assessment, planning and goal setting, and reflection process as they revised this process paper over a three week period. Both treatment and comparison students completed a pre-test on demand writing assessment, a pre and post self-efficacy in writing survey, and a post-test on demand writing assessment. Students in both conditions were participating in a year-long writing intervention called The Pathway to Academic Success, developed and implemented by the UC Irvine site of the National Writing Project (UCI Writing Project), during the 2017–2018 school year and received identical training from their teachers on how to revise a pre-test essay. However, only the treatment group engaged in self-assessment, planning and goal setting, and reflection during this revision process. Students in the treatment condition demonstrated improved self-efficacy in the writing sub-domain of revision ( p  < .05) and had statistically significant greater gains on the post-test writing assessment (r = .57; p  < .001). These results suggest that engaging students in a planned revision process that includes student reflection, planning, and goal setting before revision, and reflection and self-assessment after revision, positively impacts self-efficacy and writing outcomes.

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Introduction

A person’s self-efficacy, or beliefs about his or her ability to succeed in a specific domain (Bandura, 1997 , 2006 ), plays an important role in both how well a person performs and how long he or she persists at a particular task, especially when the task is complex. Few academic tasks may be as difficult as those required of students in secondary school to demonstrate mastery of the text based analytical writing called for by the Common Core State Standards (Barzilai et al., 2018 ; Biancarosa & Snow, 2004 ; Graham & Perin, 2007 ; National Governors Association, 2010 ; Olson et al., 2012 ). Greater mastery of this skill has been highly correlated with postsecondary success and career readiness (Perin et al., 2017 ). From grade 6 through 12, students are expected to demonstrate increasing complexity as they “write arguments to support claims with clear reasons and relevant evidence” (NGA, 2010 , p. 42). Sub-skills to master this standard include conducting extensive research, discerning fact from opinion, writing a defensible and nuanced claim, organizing essays logically, and revising their papers for clarity.

Recent results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress for Writing (NCES, 2012) highlight the need to help students become proficient writers, especially in the area of analytical writing and revision which students often find especially challenging (Olson et al., 2012 ). Only about 27% of the nation’s students—and only 1% of English Learners (ELs)—scored proficient or advanced in writing (NCES, 2012 ). This is cause for concern, because being able to write well is an important skill for success in both higher education and the workplace across a variety of disciplines and industries (National Commission on Writing for America’s Families, Schools, and Colleges, 2004 ). Additionally, the achievement gap between our English learners and their English only peers is an issue of equity and access.

ELs represent the fastest growing segment of the K-12 population with the largest increases occurring in grade 7–12 (U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Educational Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics, 2017 ). In 2013–14, over 9% of K-12 public school students were ELs. California leads the nation with almost 23% ELs (U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Educational Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics, 2016 ). Although ELs in the United States speak more than 350 languages, 73% speak Spanish as their first language (Batalova & McHugh, 2010 ), 40% have origins in Mexico (Hernandez, Denton, & Macartney, 2008 ), and 60% of ELs in grades 6 through 12 come from low-income families (Batalova et al., 2005 ; Capps et al., 2005 ). The largest numbers of ELs in our schools today are referred to as long-term ELs (LTELs) (Menken & Kleyn, 2009 ). According to Olsen ( 2010 ), these are students who have been educated in the United States since age six, are doing poorly in school, and have major gaps in knowledge because their schooling was disrupted. In Olsen’s study of 175,734 ELs, the majority (59%) were LTELs who were failing to acquire academic language and struggling to do well in high school. They may come from homes where the primary language is not English, but they themselves may speak English only or they may switch between multiple languages and still have features in their writing attesting to their multilingual status (Valdés, 2001 ). Limited in their knowledge of academic registers in any language, these students are often mainstreamed into regular English language arts classrooms, though they may be disadvantaged in not only writing skills, but also in soft skills.

One possible contributor to flat-lined scores between administrations of the NAEP-Writing, is the lack of self-efficacy or motivation to perform well on standardized tests for all secondary writers, but particularly for English learners. Kiuhara et al. ( 2009 ) found that students are constrained by more complex essay writing tasks and timed on-demand tasks due to textual, affective, and genre constraints. Students often are either given very brief instructions/prompts, may be unfamiliar with or under-practiced in the genre being assessed, or are overwhelmed by the information given to them in these settings (Blake et al., 2016 ). The fact that students may not know how to approach the writing task or even understand what is expected of them in these situations is a problem that must be addressed. Because text-based analytical writing is a gatekeeper for college access and persistence and a “threshold skill” for hiring and promotion for salaried workers (National Commission on Writing for America’s Families, Schools, and Colleges, 2004 ), failure to close these achievement gaps in academic writing will have serious social and economic consequences. Again, in these circumstances, a student’s self-efficacy plays a large role in completing these tasks.

Self-efficacy is particularly important in completing complex writing tasks. In a study exploring self-efficacy in writing, Pajares and colleagues ( 2007 ) found that how students interpret the results of their own past writing performance, such as how successful they believe they were at completing a writing task, can make a key contribution to their sense of self-efficacy. In fact, Graham and colleagues ( 2018 ) found that students’ beliefs (i.e., sense of self-efficacy) contributed to 10% of the variance in predicting students’ writing outcomes and the percentage is even higher (16.3%) for students with disabilities. On-demand writing, ubiquitous in educational settings, compounds the impact of self-efficacy in writing as students have the added pressure to perform cognitively demanding tasks in a short amount of time that may not mirror the more thoughtful stage process that they are given during regular instruction to take a paper through the writing process, which includes pre-writing, drafting, revising, and editing phases. When students are often asked to revise papers before they submit them for evaluation they are asked to improve their drafts through careful reading and writing that globally impacts their message or purpose for writing the paper. However, few students give themselves enough time to revise their writing during the more intense situations of timed writing assessments. Moreover, even when they do have time to revise their efforts may actually have the opposite effect. Changes they make are constrained by the time they have to reflect on the impact the revision has on the rest of the paper and make more local changes that may or may not help with the overall assessment of the quality of the paper (Worden, 2009 ).

The current study, a sequential mixed methods design study, on testing the impact of self-efficacy in essay writing is an extension of a large-scale intervention called The Pathway to Academic Success, developed and implemented by the UCI Writing Project, that aims to close the achievement gap for English learners in mainstreamed ELA classrooms and their native English speaking peers, particularly in the area of text-based analytical writing by demystifying the process that expert readers and writers use to approach domain-specific tasks, targeting teacher professional development, and fostering students’ habits of mind. By focusing on students’ self-efficacy in writing (SEW) in classroom settings, this work can positively impact teachers’ practices and influence students’ motivation and ability to write analytically. To this end, we focus on answering the following three research questions:

Do students with higher self-efficacy have better writing outcomes?

What is the impact of students’ self-assessment, planning and goal setting, and reflection on their self-efficacy in writing as they revise a text-based analytical essay?

What do students cite as most helpful in revising their writing and how does this contribute to their self-efficacy?

Literature review

The following section reviews the research literature that informs our study. First, we review the concept of self-efficacy in writing to address the first research question. Then, we review the literature on students’ self-assessment, planning and goal setting, and reflection in relation to revision of writing in order to study the second research question. Finally, we discuss factors that are known to impact students’ successful revision of writing such as teacher instruction, motivation, prior knowledge, and conditions of the writing task to explore the third question.

Self-efficacy in writing

As mentioned previously, a person’s self-efficacy, or beliefs about his or her ability to succeed in a specific domain (Bandura, 1997 , 2006 ), influences how anxious people feel, the goals that they set for themselves, and the strategies that they adopt when working towards those goals. A greater sense of self-efficacy tends to correlate with lower levels of anxiety, the use of more effective learning strategies, greater enjoyment of the task, a greater willingness to seek help when needed, and better overall performance (Bong, 2006 ; Sanders-Reio et al., 2014 ; Williams & Takaku, 2011 ).

Pajares and colleagues ( 2007 ) explored Bandura’s ( 1997 ) four hypothesized sources of self-efficacy beliefs—mastery experiences, social persuasion, vicarious experiences, and anxiety—Pajares and colleagues found that, while all four factors were significantly correlated with students’ self-efficacy in writing, perceived mastery experiences were the greatest predictor of writing self-efficacy regardless of gender or grade level. In other words, how students interpret the results of their own past performance, such as how successful they believe they were at completing a similar task, makes a key contribution to their sense of self-efficacy. Although this has led to some interventions that focus on giving praise and encouraging students to evaluate themselves in positive ways as a method of improving self-efficacy, theorists and researchers have increasingly emphasized the importance of concrete skill development and the opportunities that it provides for genuine success experiences (Pajares et al., 2007 ). Such experiences provide powerful support for increasing students’ self-efficacy and equip students with the tools they can use to succeed in future writing tasks.

Self-assessment

Studies which focus on the relationship of students’ self-efficacy on past performance and its impact on future performance have explored a variety of activities and their potential for increasing student self-efficacy in writing. One of the most notable of these is self-assessment, which occurs when people evaluate their own work, identify disparities between their current and desired performance, and reflect upon ways in which they can improve (McMillan & Hearn, 2008 ). Guiding students through this self-reflective process and supporting their development of self-assessment skills gives students a sense of agency and control over their own learning, which, in turn, can heighten student motivation and self-efficacy (Panadero et al., 2016 ). Self-assessment can be conducted and expressed in both spoken (e.g., self-explanation) and/or written form (e.g., reflection); it is conjectured that students who are able to articulate their declarative knowledge around task concepts are better able to convert this knowledge to more tacit, procedural knowledge and skills. Not only does this process influence what students are able to do given a task, but it also influences their experiences and identity work around such tasks, in this case writing (Chi et al., 1989 ). The process of self-assessment also contributes to students’ sense of self-efficacy and conditional knowledge as they engage in reflecting on their own learning, and improvement of their own work. However, it is important to note that student self-assessment is more effective when combined with teacher feedback, especially in domains where students lack expertise (Logan, 2015 ; Panadero et al., 2016 ).

Self-assessment, self-efficacy, and revision

The original Flower-Hayes ( 1981 ) model of the composing process focused on three cognitive processes in writing—planning, translating, and revision–-and discussed them within the context of how an individual writer responds to the task environment, all those factors influencing the writing task, and the writer’s long term memory, including the knowledge of the topic, audience, and stored writing plans. Over fifteen years later, in “A New Framework for Understanding Cognition and Affect in Writing” (Hayes, 1996 ), Hayes reorganized his model to include a social component in the task environment to acknowledge that writing is “a communicative act that requires a social context and a medium” (p. 5). Further, within the individual component of his model, he added motivation/affect under which he lists goals, predispositions, beliefs and attitudes, and cost–benefit analyses because “motivation and affect play central roles in writing processes” (p. 5). He specifically links positive and negative dispositions toward writing to self-assessment and self-efficacy, citing Dweck ( 1986 ) and Palmquist and Young ( 1992 ).

Hayes’ ( 2012 ) new framework also posits an evaluation function responsible for the detection and diagnosis of text problems during revision. He further postulates that to understand revision, it is necessary for writers to draw upon a control structure or task schema that enables them to access a “package of knowledge” that includes: “(i) A goal: to improve the text; (ii) An expected set of activities to perform; (iii) Attentional subgoals; (iv) Templates and criteria for quality; and (v) Strategies for fixing specific text problems” (p. 17). The addition of the control level to Hayes’ composing model indicates that motivation, self-assessment, detection and diagnosis, planning and goal setting, reflection, and writing task schemas all play an important role in students’ self-efficacy as writers. Hayes points out that students who believe writing is a gift rather than a craft one can work at and improve have higher levels of writing anxiety and lower self-assessments of their ability as writers.

In light of Hayes’ new framework, we hypothesize that engaging students in activities that prompt them to detect and diagnose areas for revision, plan and set goals for making both local and, more importantly, global changes (Hayes, 1996 ), and to reflect upon and assess their growth after revising will enhance their self-efficacy as writers and potentially impact their writing outcomes.

Teacher impacts on self-efficacy in writing

Studies have indicated that teachers can play an important role in developing student self-efficacy in writing. Corkett et al. ( 2011 ) found that teachers’ perceptions of students’ self-efficacy in writing are highly correlated with their students’ actual writing performance– indicating that teachers enact different instructional practices based on their perceptions of how prepared their students are for tackling different writing assignments. Their study also found that students’ perceptions of their own abilities are not predictive of their actual abilities, indicating that students still need specific instructional supports to develop their own perceptions of how they can improve their writing.

The nature of how teachers structure a writing task can also impact how certain students develop their self-efficacy in writing. In a study of gifted elementary school children, the treatment group that received formative feedback as they learned and practiced specific writing skills (e.g., topic sentences) and created assigned written products (e.g., a paragraph), better learned these skills and were more proficient at producing certain written products than the comparison group (Schunk & Swartz, 1993 ). However, goal setting and teacher feedback did not improve student self-efficacy with students with learning disabilities (LD) (Sawyer et al., 1992 ). It is conjectured that students with LD tend to overestimate their abilities, as is true for students with general low writing abilities, further necessitating classroom interventions or processes that will help students recognize areas of improvement in their writing and how to improve such skills.

Teachers’ own self-efficacy can also be impacted by teacher professional development (Locke et al., 2013 ) which provides them with more effective and “transformative” ways of teaching writing that can lead to improved student learning and student self-efficacy in writing. However, Locke and colleagues also indicate that teachers’ self-efficacy is moderated by the type of writing their students produce in their classrooms. This feedback loop of student data, teacher interpretation, and reflection on next steps demonstrates the importance of developing both teacher and student self-efficacy in writing.

In sum, studies on teacher self-efficacy and how it interacts with student self-efficacy demonstrate the influence the former has on the latter. Though self-efficacy is often an individual activity, when it comes to writing, input from a teacher influences how well students will approach their own writing tasks. Moreover, teacher self-efficacy beliefs also influence how positive and/or confident teachers themselves feel about teaching writing to students, which again impacts how positive students approach these tasks (Troia & Graham, 2016 ).

Contributing factors to self-efficacy in writing

Beyond teachers, other factors that may impact students’ self-efficacy in writing are their motivation, their prior knowledge around the topic they are writing about, and the conditions under which they are being asked to write. Students who are highly motivated to receive feedback (e.g., help-seeking) on their performance are more likely to do well on writing tasks, indicating that students who are more motivated to improve will produce better writing (Williams & Takaku, 2011 ). Similarly, students are also motivated if they have past success with writing, have been exposed to positive writing habits, have been praised by their peers for their writing, and have associated positive feelings with their writing (Bruning & Kauffman, 2016 ). Students who study for mastery and depth have higher self-efficacy than students who only have surface-level knowledge and have lower self-efficacy because of their motivations and success with past learning experiences (Prat-Sala & Redford, 2010 ). Students also benefit from seeing how other people write and approach writing and self-calibrating to these examples (Schunk & Zimmerman, 2007 ). Moreover, the feedback that they receive around their writing, from both teachers and peers, can impact their self-efficacy. Students tend to internalize the feedback they receive and associate this feedback with whether they are good or bad at writing, along with the emotions that come with these self-assessments (e.g., guilt, confusion, anxiety, or fear) (Smith, 2010 ). Hidi and Boscolo ( 2006 ), for instance, noted that emotions (negative or positive) can serve as a mediating variable between self-efficacy and writing quality. In other words, feeling good while writing is its own reward, and encourages one to see oneself as a good writer and to engage in more writing.

Finally, the context or situation in which students are asked to write can also impact their perceptions of their own self-efficacy. Elementary school students tend to have higher self-efficacy in writing than middle and high school students, and these effects are also stronger for female students across grade levels that report having lower anxiety when it comes to writing tasks (Pajares et al., 2007 ). As expectations increase, the more potential there is for students to feel challenged by these expectations.

Contributions of this study

This study explores the relationship between self-assessment, planning and goal setting, and reflection on self-efficacy in student writing by having students use a revision planner as part of their writing process during a strategy-based reading and writing intervention. The revision planner encourages students to analyze what they did well on a selected piece of writing, with feedback from an experienced reader, quite similar to the mastery experiences Pajares and colleagues ( 2007 ) identified as promoting student self-efficacy in writing. Additionally, beyond identifying the strengths and needs of their writing assignment, students also plan and create achievable goals before revising their essay as well as reflect upon how well they met those goals after revising (McMillan & Hearn, 2008 ). Like a rubric (Andrade et al., 2010 ), a planner can serve as a tool to support students in revising and improving their work. Unlike a rubric, a planner focuses students’ attention on actionable steps that they can take to reach specific goals that they can set for themselves—based upon what they have learned throughout the intervention—to help them manage their revision process and revise their writing successfully. We are particularly interested in the impact that goal setting, supported by the use of a planner, might have on student writing performance, self-assessment, and self-efficacy in writing.

Study context

This sequential mixed methods study took place during the last year of a five-year grant awarded to our institution to validate the effectiveness of a cognitive-strategies approach to writing instruction in partnership with Norwalk La Mirada Unified School District (NLMUSD) and three other school districts in California. The previous four years were spent on designing and conducting a randomized control trial involving the districts’ grade 7 to 12 grade students. During the year we conducted this study (2017–2018), NLMUSD exclusively requested that grade 6 teachers be provided with the same professional development in an effort to institutionalize and scale-up the intervention (Olson et al., 2019). NLMUSD is a large, urban school district that serves 80% Hispanic students, 8% White students, 7% Asian students, 3% African American students, and 2% are Other Ethnicities. Additionally, 61% of their students are English Only students, 17% of their students are English Learners, 16% are Reclassified Fluent English Proficient students, and 6% of their students are Initially English Proficient. About 75% of the district’s students participate in the Federal Reduced Price Lunch program. Participating teachers and students were recruited from NLMUSD specifically as the other three school districts institutionalized the intervention in other ways. Teachers in this grade 6 cohort all received the same intervention as previous cohorts of teachers. However, in addition to testing the efficacy of the teacher intervention with all teachers and students, we were also interested in testing a student intervention, that we hypothesized would have implications on their self-efficacy as writers. The focus of our student intervention, thus, was at a different level and with a different grade level than that of the larger RCT study. We collected quantitative data on students first, then followed by a qualitative component to understand what may have contributed to students’ self-efficacy while revising.

Teacher and student participants

This cohort of participating grade 6 teachers consisted of 13 teachers. Each teacher had one focal class. Approximately 401 students were part of this cohort. All teachers participated in our professional development intervention. The student intervention component differed between randomly assigned groups. Of these students, 131 students were in the treatment group and 83 were in the comparison group, as one teacher declined to participate in the random assignment, representing an 8% attrition rate of teachers (leaving 12 teachers to be randomized). Across both groups, 52% of the students were female, 76% were Hispanic, and 62% of the students are Redesignated English Learners, a percentage that is much higher than the overall district demographics, since focal classes with higher percentages of ELs and RFEPs for all teachers’ classes (treatment and comparison) were selected for the study. The Self-Efficacy in Writing (SEW) means at baseline for both groups were not statistically different (m tx  = 3.61; m c  = 3.56).

Professional development intervention for teachers

In order to distinguish between the grade 7 to 12 study and this sub study of grade 6 teachers, we are providing a description of the professional development program since all teachers in this study were in the same PD and were trained together. We will subsequently explain what the “treatment” teachers in our self-efficacy intervention did that was above and beyond the PD all teachers attended to account for differences in student outcomes. Participating teachers attended 46 h of professional development throughout the school year, consisting of six full-day meetings and five after-school meetings.

The professional development intervention is informed by cognitive, sociocognitive, and sociocultural theory. In their cognitive process theory of writing, Flower and Hayes ( 1981 ) posit that writing is best understood “as a set of distinct thinking processes which writers orchestrate and organize during the act of composing” (p. 375), including planning, organizing, goal setting, translating, monitoring, reviewing, evaluating, and revising. They liken these processes to a “writer’s tool kit” (p. 385), which is not constrained by any fixed order or series of stages.

In describing the difficulty of composing written texts, Flower and Hayes ( 1980 ) aptly conceptualized writers as simultaneously juggling “a number of demands being made on conscious attention” (p. 32). While all learners face similar cognitive, linguistic, communicative, contextual, and textual constraints when learning to write (Frederiksen & Dominic, 1981), the difficulties younger, inexperienced, and underprepared students face are magnified. For these students, juggling constraints can cause cognitive overload. For example, ELs are often cognitively overloaded, especially in mainstreamed classrooms where they are held to the same performance standards as native English speakers (Short & Fitzsimmons, 2007 ).

Graham ( 2018 ) has pointed out that “available cognitive models mostly ignore cultural, social, political, and historical influences on writing development” (p. 272). He asserts that writing is “inherently a social activity, situated within a specific context” (p. 273). This view echoes Langer ( 1991 ) who, drawing on Vygotsky ( 1986 ), suggests that literacy is the ability to think and reason like a literate person within a particular society. In other words, literacy is culture specific and meaning is socially constructed. From a sociocognitive perspective, teachers should pay more attention to the social purposes to which literacy skills are applied, and should go beyond delivering lessons on content to impart strategies for thinking necessary to complete literacy tasks, first with guidance and, ultimately, independently.

Finally, sociocultural theory views meaning as being “negotiated at the intersection of individuals, culture, and activity” (Englert et al., 2006 , p. 208). Three tenets of sociocultural theory are applicable to the intervention (Adapted from Englert et al., 2006 ): (1) Cognitive apprenticeships: in which novices learn literate behaviors through the repeated modeling of more mature, experienced adults or peers to provide access to strategies and tools demonstrated by successful readers and writers (Vygotsky, 1986 ). (2) Procedural facilitators and tools: where teachers are most effective when they lead cognitive development in advance of what students can accomplish alone by presenting challenging material along with procedural and facilitative tools to help readers and writers address those cognitive challenges. (3) Community of practice: the establishment of communities of practice in which teachers actively encourage students to collaborate and provide ongoing opportunities and thoughtful activities that invite students to engage in shared inquiry.

The central core of the PD is the use of cognitive strategies to support all students in reading and writing about complex text. Cognitive strategies are conceptual tools and processes that can help students become more meta-cognitive about their work. The following are the cognitive strategies introduced in the PD:

Planning and Goal Setting, Tapping Prior Knowledge, Asking Questions and Making Predictions, Constructing the Gist, Monitoring, Revising Meaning, Reflecting and Relating, and Evaluating. Some sub-components are: Visualizing, Making Connections, Summarizing, Adopting an Alignment, Forming Interpretations, Analyzing Author’s Craft, and Clarifying Understanding (Olson, 2011 , p. 23)

The primary intent of the professional development is to provide teachers with lessons and materials to introduce the cognitive strategies to students toward the intended goal of improving students’ analytical essays about either fiction or non-fiction texts.

Teachers also learned specific writing strategies to help students revise their writing. To avoid “teaching to the test,” teachers use a different text, but similar in topic as the text used for the writing assessment as a training tool in order to model how to revise the pre-test into a multiple draft essay. Throughout a series of mini-lessons, students are taught a variety of skills through examining a mentor text/essay based on the training text. Students first read the training text using the aforementioned 15 cognitive strategies. Then, they are given a writing prompt similar to the one they used on the writing assessment. This writing prompt is dissected by having students fill out a Do/What Chart which instructs students to circle all of the verbs (Do) and underline all of the task words (What) in the prompt and transfer the verbs and tasks words onto a T-chart to help them understand what they are being asked to do (for example, “Select one important theme and create a theme statement.”) Then, students are given a mentor text/essay addressing the prompt they just dissected. This mentor text/essay is analyzed for the moves the writer makes, particularly in how he or she constructed the introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion.

When working with the introduction, students are taught the HoT S-C Team (Hook/TAG/Story-Conflict/Thesis) acronym. The students are to identify that a writer often starts with an engaging hook that could be a quote, question or statement to make people think, fact, or even anecdote; then identifies the title-author-genre (TAG) of the text being written about to set the context for writing; adds purposeful summary of the story or conflict, and includes a thesis (claim).

Each component of the mentor text is color-coded using yellow (for summary sentences), green (for textual evidence), and blue (for student commentary) to help the students understand that a balance of purposeful summary, textual evidence, and commentary is important when constructing an analytical essay. Additionally, students are also taught about grammar brushstrokes (Noden, 2011 ) such as adding adjectives out of order, appositives, or using active verbs and are encouraged to revise some of their sentences with these brushstrokes to enhance sentence variety.

One of the essential activities in this intervention is to have teachers help students revise their on-demand writing samples into a more polished analytical essay, after these writing samples have been read and commented on by trained readers. It is during this part of the main study that our team decided to conduct the sub study on student self-efficacy. Given that all teachers experienced and received the same professional development and, in turn, taught the same revision strategies to their students, the only difference that we tested rested solely on asking the treatment students to use the Pre-Test Essay Revision Planner and Revised Pre-Test Reflection form. This self-assessment, planning and goal setting, and reflection strategy is aligned to Hayes’ ( 2012 ) control level of writing, which involves student self-efficacy. A more detailed explanation of this new intervention strategy follows.

Student intervention: pre-test revision planner and revised pre-test reflection form

In prior studies of our intervention, we have routinely asked teachers to analyze their students’ pre-tests as a formative assessment and to fill out their own reflection planner regarding their students’ strengths and areas needing growth as a tool to help with instruction. After reading about how much student self-efficacy influences writing outcomes (Bruning et al., 2013 ), we wondered if having students participate in assessing their own strengths and areas for improvement as writers and fill out a reflection similar to the one their teachers created would lead to better writing outcomes. With the consent of teachers participating in the intervention, we randomized the teachers’ classes into two groups. The comparison group received instruction from their teacher on how to revise their pre-test essays and were provided with comments from a trained reader. The treatment group not only received instruction from the teacher and comments from a trained reader, but also conducted a self-assessment of their work and filled out the Pre-Test Essay Revision Planner and Revised Pre-Test Reflection form to describe their process and assess the quality of their product after revising. Since all the students, treatment and comparison groups, participated in the same intervention and were taught the same strategies, this study tests the impact of the Pre-Test Essay Revision Planner and Revised Pre-Test Reflection form on students’ self-efficacy and writing quality. To promote treatment fidelity, all teachers, treatment and comparison, were required to submit their students’ revised pre-tests to the intervention developers in order to receive their stipend for participating in the year-long study. Treatment teachers were also required to submit the Pre-Test Essay Revision Planner planner.

To elaborate, the process we took treatment students involved two steps. The first part of the Pre-Test Essay Revision Planner (see Appendix 1) asked students to self-assess what they did effectively as writers on their essay and what they might have struggled with on the writing task. They were then asked to decide on goals for revisions in bulleted form, weighing suggestions by trained readers who commented on their papers. These were action steps the student proposed to take when revising his or her essay. After they have completed their revision, students reflected on what changes they made, what they were most proud of, and what their teacher did to help them reach their revision goals using the Revised Pre-Test Reflection form. In the comparison condition, students revised their pretests, but without the use of a planner, keeping everything else equal.

Sample student pre-test, revision planner, and revised pre-test

This section illustrates the multi-faceted components of the intervention. We start by examining a student’s pre-test with commentary from an experienced reader, then her revision planner, next her revised pre-test, and finally her self-assessment and reflection and consider how these components affect a student’s self-efficacy in writing.

The prompt the student responded to was an analysis of Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve’s short story “The Medicine Bag” for its theme as exhibited through the evolving relationship between the narrator and his great-grandfather as he visits him unexpectedly and the symbolism behind the gift he leaves the narrator prior to his passing (Fig. 1 ):

Student’s Pre-test with some commentary

The student’s attempt at the on-demand essay consists almost exclusively of summary, indicating that her command of analytical writing is still developing. The student starts the analysis with “In the beginning of the story…” followed by a long summary of the plot and puts forth the claim “this proves that Martin is embaress [sic] of his grandpa…” While this is not a theme statement it does indicate the writer’s understanding of the text. The trained reader also notes the writer’s recognition that the character changes over time and encourages her to focus on the author’s message or lesson when she revises (Fig. 2 ).

Trained reader’s letter to the student

The comments the student received from the trained reader focused revision on connecting commentary to textual evidence, developing a theme statement, and the role symbols play in the story. These types of comments are quite typical of the responses many students in this study received from our trained readers. After teachers received these comments and reviewed them, they passed these papers back to their students and treatment teachers had students fill out the Pre-Test Essay Revision Planner (see Fig.  3 ). We conjecture that this opportunity to self-assess may contribute to her persistence through the revision process better than her comparison peers who may only rely on given feedback, but no reflection nor goal setting (Bruning & Kauffman, 2016 ).

Student’s Pre-test essay revision planner

In her Pre-Test Essay Revision Planner, the student first focused on the strengths of her essay—what she did well. Then she addressed what she struggled with or didn’t do as well in her essay. Next, she set a goal to revise the introduction, by including a hook and TAG which indicates Title, Author, and Genre, and especially to “talk more about the message.” Much of what the student plans to do is quite specific to revising the introduction; revising an introduction and knowing what is expected can help students produce more focused papers that are organized with a clear direction in terms of analysis. Below is her revision of the writing assessment (Fig. 4 ):

Student’s revised Pre-test

The student’s revision is a noticeable improvement over her original pre-test. The revision has included a hook (e.g., an anecdote around traditions), attempts a theme statement (e.g., the importance of traditions), addresses the changing the relationship between the narrator and his grand-father, and also focuses on the medicine bag as a symbol. Notice how the student meets her revision goals, but also takes up the suggestion to focus on symbolism. The moves the student makes from pre-test to revision are akin to a student that makes a transition from knowledge-telling (e.g., summary) to knowledge-transformation (e.g., commentary) in their writing (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1987 ). For example, in the students’ pre-test, she summarized how Martin exaggerates about his grandfather but did not explain how this exaggeration relates to his embarrassment. In the revision of this paper, the student explains, in detail, why Martin was embarrassed by his grandfather and why he felt compelled to make him seem more “glamorous” and larger than life. Moreover, the reflection on the revisions she made (below) demonstrates ownership over her revision process, with her teacher’s help (Fig. 5 ):

Student’s Revised Pre-Test Reflection

The student recognizes the changes she made from her pre-test to the revised version, particularly the inclusion of a message or theme statement and the improvements she made. She also emphasized how helpful her teacher was in helping her revise her body paragraphs, which was a goal that was not particularly emphasized on her revision planner, but proved to be a writing move that was successfully executed. The student exhibited a strong sense of self-efficacy. Note, her expression of pride in working on and completing the assignment).

Data collection and measures

Self-efficacy for writing scale.

To examine student growth in self-efficacy, particularly in writing, we adapted a pre-existing self-efficacy in writing measure called the Self-Efficacy for Writing Scale (SEWS), reliably measured by another research team (Bruning et al., 2013 ), by adding additional questions regarding revision practices. After cleaning the data for complete entries at pre and post-survey, our sample size consisted of 214 students who had completely filled out a pre and post-survey. The SEW survey had 22 Likert-scale questions on a scale from 1 to 5 in terms of how much they agree with each statement. To further analyze the SEW survey, but to also simplify the analytical process, we also conducted a factor analysis to reduce the number of components and created four composites, for specific areas of self-efficacy, as a result. The four composites used in our analysis, the questions that pertained to each one, and the factor loadings after applying orthogonal varimax rotations (Abdi, 2003 ) are in Table 1 below:

Ideation groups questions regarding students’ ideas and content in their essays together; Syntax pertains to students’ focus on grammar, spelling, and paragraph formation; Volition pertains to students’ abilities to follow-through with their assignment and complete it; and Revision questions pertain to students’ abilities to revise their paper for specific skills.

Academic writing assessment

In order to test the impact of an increase in self-efficacy in writing on students’ analytical writing, we used students’ scores on the Academic Writing Assessment, a writing assessment created for our intervention, that is administered to students prior to the intervention and after revision of the pre-test. Two prompts (one on “The Medicine Bag” and one on “Ribbons”) were created regarding two texts where the main character’s relationship with a grandparent changes throughout the story. The students stated a claim or theme statement about relationships and use textual evidence to support this theme. To control for prompt effects half of the students wrote to one of these prompts at pre-test and wrote to the other prompt at post-test, and vice versa.

Approximately twenty papers were randomly selected for scoring per teacher. Assessments were scored in a double blind process over four hours where the scorer neither knew if the paper they were scoring was written by a treatment or comparison student nor whether they were scoring a pre-test or post-test. Each paper was read twice and given a score from a range of 1 to 6, with possible score points from 2 to 12. If the two readers differed by more than two points (e.g., a 2 and 4) then a third, more experienced reader also gave the paper a score. If the third reader’s score matches either the first or the second reader, the third reader’s score was added to the score it matched. If the third reader’s score fell in between the first and second reader’s score, the third reader’s score was kept and the average of the first and second reader’s score was added to the kept score. All papers were scored in such a manner during a scoring event held over four hours. Raters agreed within a score point or better for 95% of the papers; 5% required a third reading, and 49% of the papers had exact agreements between the two scorers.

Pre-test essay revision planner and revised pre-test reflection form

To reiterate, the form asked students to self-assess, plan and goal set during revision, and reflect on the process after finishing their revisions. The reflection side of the planner was inspired by Daniel et al. ( 2015 ) who found that students who wrote a cover letter to their instructors detailing the changes they made to a revised paper, based on instructor feedback, submitted higher-quality revised papers than their control peers. The theory of change behind this planner is that it encourages students to identify problem areas, set goals, and remind them of these goals as they revise their pretest, encouraging them to accomplish these goals (see Daniel et al., 2015 ).

Student interviews

A sub-set of students from both the comparison and treatment classrooms were selected for interview purposes. Without knowing students’ AWA scores, teachers were asked to nominate one developing writer and one more proficient writer for the interviews. Selected students were provided with their pre-test, their revised pre-test, and their post-test; treatment students also were provided with their Pre-Test Essay Revision Planner and Revised Pre-Test Reflection form. Students were interviewed in the same room, but sat far away enough from each other so that ambient noise from the other interview being conducted would not be captured. Students were asked a series of open-ended questions (see Appendix 2) about their identities as writers (e.g., From a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate yourself as a writer?); about their revision process; and what helped them to revise their papers/to meet their goals.

Research procedures

Randomly selected teachers chose one focal class with which to conduct these research activities:

Students in the selected classes were asked to take two timed on-demand writing assessments–one at the beginning of the school year and one at the end of the school year. These essays were scored during a double-blind session based on the Academic Writing Assessment (AWA) rubric that we created and validated in other studies (see Olson et al., 2017 ).

The students also took two self-efficacy in writing (SEW) surveys, one at the beginning of the school year and one at the end of the school year.

In between the two SEW surveys students’ teachers either were randomly assigned to have students reflect on their writing or not to reflect on their writing using the Pre-Test Essay Revision Planner and Revised Pre-Test Reflection form while revising their pretests.

Afterwards, two students from each class were randomly interviewed on their writing process with questions that focused on their identity as a writer and what helped them as writers.

Data analysis

To analyze growth on our SEW measure, we ran t-tests to measure change from pre to post on each of our aforementioned components from our factor analysis (ideation, syntax, volition, and revision). We then also ran t-tests to measure change from pre to post on the AWA differentiating between the treatment and comparison groups in order to test the impact of self-efficacy in writing on timed on-demand writing tasks.

Students’ revision-planners and post-revision reflections were analyzed for the types of goals students created for themselves by looking at idea units. Student interviews were transcribed by the first and second author, divided into idea units, and coded for students’ revision processes and what strategies/resources might have assisted them in doing so. Codes were independently generated and then verified between the two coders until they were agreed upon (Miles & Huberman, 2008).

Students with higher self-efficacy have better writing outcomes

When analyzing AWA scores, treatment students grew 1.90 points and the control students grew 1.33 points from pre to posttest. Both gains were statistically significant ( p  < 0.001), indicating that the intervention had a positive impact on all participating students. However, differences in differences confirm that the treatment students had statistically significant greater gains than their control peers (△ = 0.57; p  < 0.001).

Students’ reflections have positive impact on students’ self-efficacy in writing

At post-survey, the treatment SEW mean increased to 3.63 ( p  < 0.76) and the control mean decreased to 3.47 ( p  < 0.37). Differences in differences analysis revealed a slight statistical difference ( p  < 0.10; △ = 0.11). The alpha level reported for the SEW items was 0.90.

Table 2 displays the pre to post means for the four composites from our factor analysis of the SEW questions: Ideation (idea formation); Syntax (grammar); Volition (persistence), and Revision (revision for clarity and content).

Based on these results, treatment students grew more than their comparison peers in the area of Revision strategies by 0.21 points; whereas, they both decreased in their Volition scores. However, the treatment students had less of a decline (e.g., -0.05 rather than -0.28 points). It is possible that both treatment and comparison students, who are in sixth grade, do not yet feel confident in producing high quality-writing samples during on-demand timed conditions; yet both groups managed to do so.

Students cite teacher instruction as most helpful in revising their writing

Qualitative analysis of the student interviews revealed that treatment students perceived the planner as being helpful as it provided them with a road map and check list as to what to focus on in the revision of their pre-test essay. For example, one student explained that her revision planner helped her “to know what I was supposed to do to my new revision.” She was able to reference her planner as she wrote and notice things that she forgot to include, which she then went back to add into the appropriate part of her essay. Additionally, for this student, filling out the planner was a process scaffolded by the written feedback she had received from the aforementioned trained reader as well as from her classroom teacher. It was the feedback and concrete suggestions she received, such as the reader comment that told her “I should add an author name, TAG line, and a title” and her teacher who suggested she “put it [my writing] in paragraphs and organize them,” that she used to set goals for herself in terms of what changes to make in order to improve her pretest. These comments were reflected in the list that the student wrote for herself on her revision planner, which included notes like “add a title,” “add a hook,” “organize paragraphs,” and “add the author’s name.” In her interview, when comparing her drafts, she pointed out these details like the hook and title she added as proof that she had made successful revisions. Other students who found the planner helpful reported similar experiences, such as working on the planner as a class with the guidance of the teacher, focusing on the different elements of essay writing they had learned about through the school year such as the parts of a strong introduction. One student even wrote down “reread the writing prompt” in her planner as part of her list of things to do, highlighting the use of her planner as a list of actionable steps for revising.

Moreover, it was particularly important that teachers taught or modeled specific strategies to address the revisions students needed to make, like showing them examples of how essay writers organize information into multiple paragraphs. One student said, for instance, that one thing that really helped her in her revisions was all the review and practice that her teacher had them do over the course of the year. These included reviewing specific aspects of “what to do in an essay, like how to start it and how to end it and when we should put the body paragraphs.” The fact that her teacher returned to these concepts more than once helped her remember what to consider when it came time to revise her pretest.

Many students felt their teachers modeled helpful strategies to develop a claim and to write a strong introduction. Writing hooks and including important information about the texts they were analyzing like the title, author, and genre, for example, came up frequently. However, students did not provide the same evidence for the development of their body paragraphs, particularly when it came down to providing their own commentary around the evidence they used to back up their claims. Although one student noted that she added details about the story’s characters to her draft to make it better and another stated that she learned that she had to add her own thoughts or opinions into her summary in order to make it a proper essay, there was little mention of specific things to consider or of tying these details or opinions to specific arguments or evidence presented in their papers.

Both treatment and comparison students credited their teachers’ instruction as being most helpful in revising their essay. Some students went so far as to state that before participating in the intervention this year, they had only a vague idea of what an essay was, let alone what parts it was supposed to have. For instance, one student explained that what helped him most in revising was “my teacher” who “was telling us… teaching us basically about theme, the hook, the introduction and the conclusion.” However, treatment students used more self-efficacious words such as the use of the first-person pronoun, “I,” “plans,” “knew what to do,” and were quick to point out exactly which parts of their papers were improved. In contrast, comparison students more often used the more global second-person pronoun, “we” or third-person pronoun “she/he [the teacher,” “told us what to do,” and “lesson” when describing their revision process. Additionally, they were less specific about where and how they improved their papers, explaining that they had improved their papers because they “got an order” or added “more details.” The distinction between the use of pronouns is also a hallmark of self-efficacious individuals who centralize the locus of control around writing to what they can do, rather than external sources such as an authority figure or more knowledgeable other. Though feedback in any form is useful. Individuals who take an active role in their own writing also exhibit better reflective skills (Shantz & Latham, 2011 ), particularly on the items we found on our SEW survey (Parisi, 1994 ).

Our study confirms that the higher a student’s self-efficacy in writing, the higher quality of writing will be produced, even on timed on-demand writing tasks. We also confirmed that teachers’ instructional practices have an impact on students’ self-efficacy in writing (Corkett et al., 2011 ; Schunk & Swartz, 1993 ). Most importantly, our findings suggest that a planned revision process that includes student self-assessment, planning and goal setting, and reflection (McMillan & Hearn, 2008 ) positively impacts self-efficacy. Prompting students to take ownership of their own learning, enabling them to assess their strengths and areas for improvement, providing direction in terms of accomplishing complicated writing tasks, and encouraging them to reflect upon their writing performance are what Hayes’ ( 2012 ) advocated for in his new framework. Students have a goal to improve their pre-test and outline the revision activities that need to be completed, while their teachers provide them with the success criteria and strategies to complete these goals.

Moreover, the process of revising their pre-tests provides students with the opportunities to develop positive affect towards the revision process as they are given opportunities to: (i) reflect on what they did well on their pre-tests and capitalize on their existing knowledge; (ii) observe, learn, and analyze successful writing moves during the revision tutorial by comparing non-examples with examples; (iii) receive constructive written feedback from trained readers on how to revise their pre-test; and (iv) experience and learn explicit writing skills that reduce anxiety as they deconstruct what a prompt is asking for and/or how to provide effective commentary on textual evidence (Bruning & Kauffman, 2016 ; Pajares et al., 2007 ).

The field is looking for interventions that can metaphorically move the needle for students from almost empty to full, particularly in literacy development. In the case of our study, the planner moved the needle for our treatment students because it gave students concrete direction on how to improve their pre-tests and this, in turn, impacted their performance on the post-tests. Our intervention contributes to the knowledge base on the impact reflection and goal setting can have on student writing. All students can benefit from explicit self-regulation and strategy development instruction (Graham & Harris, 1989 ; Harris et al., 2006 ), particularly if they support student reflection, goal setting, and self-monitoring strategies. Similar to Blake et al.’s recommendations ( 2016 ), embedding micro-goals that students can feel are accessible, feasible, and accomplishable can help students feel more in control of the revision process. Having a revision planner makes this process more scaffolded, explicit, and visible to students.

This work also demonstrates the importance of teacher instruction on student writing. As both treatment and comparison students cited their teachers’ instructions as most influential, these findings provide further support that writing instruction requires a teacher who is confident and well-equipped to provide students with guidance on how they can improve their writing. Engaging students in assessing their own strengths and areas for growth and then reflecting on their progress can enhance students’ motivation and commitment. However, a student may not be able to fully meet the goals they have set without explicit (or scaffolded) instruction by the teacher and classroom practice. Such instruction can contribute not only to a student’s self-confidence but also to their sense of competence. Hence, these findings provide further support that students’ self-efficacy is connected to teacher expertise.

Limitations

Though this study has promising results, it is not without limitations. We acknowledge that the sample was small and any findings need to be validated with a larger sample size; however, the fact that statistical significance was achieved demonstrates the potential of the revision planner in helping students develop stronger self-efficacy in writing skills. Additionally, more qualitative studies to triangulate the usefulness of the revision planner are needed to understand how the planner directly translated to results on the post-test.

Implications

Implications from this study demonstrate how important it is to provide students with the skills, strategies, and opportunity to engage in self-assessment and revision processes. This development of their declarative (what), procedural (how), and conditional (why) knowledge of how to compose text-based analytical essays and the pivotal role self-assessment can play in successful revision that can cultivate independent, self-efficacious learners who have the confidence and competence to succeed as analytical writers in secondary school and beyond.

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Chung, H.Q., Chen, V. & Olson, C.B. The impact of self-assessment, planning and goal setting, and reflection before and after revision on student self-efficacy and writing performance. Read Writ 34 , 1885–1913 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-021-10186-x

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The Importance, Benefits, and Value of Goal Setting

We all know that setting goals is important, but we often don’t realize how important they are as we continue to move through life.

Goal setting does not have to be boring. There are many benefits and advantages to having a set of goals to work towards.

Setting goals helps trigger new behaviors, helps guides your focus and helps you sustain that momentum in life.

Goals also help align your focus and promote a sense of self-mastery. In the end, you can’t manage what you don’t measure and you can’t improve upon something that you don’t properly manage. Setting goals can help you do all of that and more.

In this article, we will review the importance and value of goal setting as well as the many benefits.

We will also look at how goal setting can lead to greater success and performance. Setting goals not only motivates us, but can also improve our mental health and our level of personal and professional success.

Before you continue, we thought you might like to download our three Goal Achievement Exercises for free . These detailed, science-based exercises will help you or your clients create actionable goals and master techniques to create lasting behavior change.

This Article Contains

The importance and value of goal setting, why set goals in life, what are the benefits of goal setting, 5 proven ways goal setting is effective, how can goal setting improve performance, how goal setting motivates individuals, why is goal setting important for students, a look at the importance of goal setting in mental health, the importance of goal setting in business and organizations, 10 quotes on the value and importance of setting goals, a take-home message, frequently asked questions.

Up until 2001, goals were divided into three types or groups (Elliot & McGregor, 2001):

• Mastery goals
• Performance-approach goals
• Performance-avoidance goals

A mastery goal is a goal someone sets to accomplish or master something such as “ I will score higher in this event next time .”

A performance-approach goal is a goal where someone tries to do better than his or her peers. This type of goal could be a goal to look better by losing 5 pounds or getting a better performance review.

A performance-avoidance goal is a goal where someone tries to avoid doing worse than their peers such as a goal to avoid negative feedback.

Research done by Elliot and McGregor in 2001 changed these assumptions. Until this study was published, it was assumed that mastery goals were the best and performance-approach goals were at times good, and other times bad. Performance-avoidance goals were deemed the worst, and, in fact, bad.

The implied assumption, as a result of this, was that there were no bad mastery goals or mastery-avoidance goals.

Elliot and McGregor’s study challenged those assumptions by proving that master-avoidance goals do exist and proving that each type of goal can, in fact, be useful depending on the circumstances.

Elliot and McGregor’s research utilized a 2 x 2 achievement goal framework comprised of:

• Mastery-approach
• Mastery-avoidance
• Performance-approach
• Performance-avoidance

These variables were tested in 3 studies. In experiments one and two, explanatory factor analysis was used to break down 12 goal-setting questions into 4 factors, as seen in the diagram below.

Confirmatory factor analysis was used at a later date to show that mastery-avoidance and mastery-approach fit the data better than mastery alone.

The questions for these studies were created from a series of pilot studies and prior questionnaires. Once all of the questions were combined, a factor-analysis was utilized to confirm that each set of questions expressed different goal-setting components.

Results of these studies showed that those with a high motive to achieve were much more likely to use approach goals. Those with a high motive to avoid failure, on the other hand, were much more likely to use avoidance goals.

The third experiment examined the same four achievement goal variables and revealed that those more likely to use performance-approach goals were more likely to have higher exam scores, while those who used performance-avoidance goals were more likely to have lower exam scores.

According to the research, motivation in achievement settings is complex, and achievement goals are but one of several types of operative variables to be considered.

Achievement goal regulation, or the actual pursuit of the goal, implicates both the achievement goal itself as well as some other typically higher order factors such as motivationally relevant variables, according to the research done by Elliot and McGregor.

As we can clearly see, the research on goal setting is quite robust.

Mark Murphy the founder and CEO of LeadershipIQ.com and author of the book “ Hard Goals : The Secret to Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be ,” has gone through years of research in science and how the brain works and how we are wired as a human being as it pertains to goal setting.

Murphy’s book “ Hard Goals: The Secret to Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be” combines the latest research in psychology and brain science on goal-setting as well as the law of attraction to help fine-tune the process.

A HARD goal is an achieved goal, according to Murphy (2010). Murphy tells us to put our present cost into the future and our future benefit into the present.

What this really means is don’t put off until tomorrow what you could do today. We tend to value things in the present moment much more than we value things in the future.

Setting goals is a process that changes over time. The goals you set in your twenties will most likely be very different from the goals you set in your forties.

Whatever your age doesn’t really matter in the end, as long as you continually revisit your life goals and work to update them.

Download 3 Free Goals Exercises (PDF)

These detailed, science-based exercises will help you or your clients create actionable goals and master techniques for lasting behavior change.

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By filling out your name and email address below.

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Edward Locke and Gary Latham (1990) are leaders in goal-setting theory. According to their research, goals not only affect behavior as well as job performance, but they also help mobilize energy which leads to a higher effort overall. Higher effort leads to an increase in persistent effort.

Goals help motivate us to develop strategies that will enable us to perform at the required goal level.

Accomplishing the goal can either lead to satisfaction and further motivation or frustration and lower motivation if the goal is not accomplished.

Goal setting can be a very powerful technique, under the right conditions according to the research (Locke & Latham, 1991).

According to Lunenburg (2011), the motivational impact of goals may, in fact, be affected by moderators such as self-efficacy and ability as well.

In the 1968 article “ Toward a Theory of Task Motivation ” Locke showed us that clear goals and appropriate feedback served as a good motivator for employees (Locke, 1968).

Locke’s research also revealed that working toward a goal is a major source of motivation, which, in turn, improves performance.

Locke reviewed over a decade of research of laboratory and field studies on the effects of goal setting and performance. Locke found that over 90% of the time, goals that were specific and challenging, but not overly challenging, led to higher performance when compared to easy goals or goals that were too generic such as a goal to do your best.

Dr. Gary Latham also studied the effects of goal setting in the workplace. Latham’s results supported Locke’s findings and showed there is indeed a link that is inseparable between goal setting and workplace performance.

Locke and Latham published work together in 1990 with their work “ A Theory of Goal Setting & Task Performance ” stressing the importance of setting goals that were both specific and difficult.

Locke and Latham also stated that there are five goal-setting principles that can help improve your chances of success.

• Task Complexity

Clarity is important when it comes to goals. Setting goals that are clear and specific eliminate the confusion that occurs when a goal is set in a more generic manner.

Challenging goals stretch your mind and cause you to think bigger. This helps you accomplish more. Each success you achieve helps you build a winning mindset.

Commitment is also important. If you don’t commit to your goal with everything you have it is less likely you will achieve it.

Feedback helps you know what you are doing right and how you are doing. This allows you to adjust your expectations and your plan of action going forward.

Task Complexity is the final factor. It’s important to set goals that are aligned with the goal’s complexity.

Goal setting and task performance were studied by Locke and Latham (1991). Goal setting theory is based upon the simplest of introspective observations, specifically, that conscious human behavior is purposeful.

This behavior is regulated by one’s goals. The directedness of those goals characterizes the actions of all living organisms including things like plants.

Goal-setting theory, according to the research, states that the simplest and most direct motivational explanation on why some people perform better than others is because they have different performance goals.

Two attributes have been studied in relation to performance:

In regard to content, the two aspects that have been focused on include specificity and difficulty. Goal content can range from vague to very specific as well as difficult or not as difficult.

Difficulty depends upon the relationship someone has to the task. The same task or goal can be easy for one person, and more challenging for the next, so it’s all relative.

On average though the higher the absolute level is of a goal, the more difficult it is to achieve. According to research, there have been more than 400 studies that have examined the relationship of goal attributes to task performance.

According to Locke and Latham (1991), it has been consistently found that performance is a linear function of a goal’s difficulty.

Given an adequate level of ability and commitment, the harder a goal, the higher the performance.

What the researchers discovered was that people normally adjust their level of effort to the difficulty of the goal. As a result, they try harder for difficult goals when compared to easier goals.

The principle of goal-directed action is not restricted to conscious action, according to the research.

Goal-directed action is defined by three attributes, according to Lock & Latham.

• Self-generation
• Value-significance
• Goal-causation

Self-generation refers to the source of energy integral to the organism. Value-significance refers to the idea that the actions not only make it possible but necessary to the organism’s survival. Goal-causation means the resulting action is caused by a goal.

While we can see that all living organisms experience some kind of goal-related action, humans are the only organisms that possess a higher form of consciousness, at least according to what we know at this point in time.

When humans take purposeful action, they set goals in order to achieve them.

Locke and Latham have also shown us that there is an important relationship between goals and performance.

Locke and Latham’s research supports the idea that the most effective performance seems to be the result of goals being both specific and challenging. When goals are used to evaluate performance and linked to feedback on results, they create a sense of commitment and acceptance.

The researchers also found that the motivational impact of goals may be affected by ability and self-efficacy, or one’s belief that they can achieve something.

It was also found that deadlines helped improve the effectiveness of a goal and a learning goal orientation leads to higher performance when compared to a performance goal orientation.

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Research done by Moeller, Theiler, and Wu (2012) examined the relationship between goal setting and student achievement at the classroom level.

This research examined a 5-year quasi-experimental study, which looked at goal setting and student achievement in the high school Spanish language classroom.

A tool known as LinguaFolio was used, and introduced into 23 high schools with a total of 1,273 students.

The study portfolio focused on student goal setting , self-assessment and a collection of evidence of language achievement.

Researchers used a hierarchical linear model, and then analyzed the relationship between goal setting and student achievement. This research was done at both the individual student and teacher levels.

A correlational analysis of the goal-setting process as well as language proficiency scores revealed a statistically significant relationship between the process of setting goals and language achievement (p < .01).

The research also looked at the importance of autonomy or one’s ability to take responsibility for their learning. Autonomy is a long-term aim of education, according to the study as well as a key factor in learning a language successfully.

There has been a paradigm shift in language education from teacher to student-centered learning, which makes the idea of autonomy even more important.

Goal setting in language learning is commonly regarded as one of the strategies that encourage a student’s sense of autonomy (Moeller, Theiler & Wu, 2012)

The results of the study revealed that there was a consistent increase over time in the main goal, plan of action and reflection scores of high school Spanish learners.

This trend held true for all levels except for the progression from third to fourth year Spanish for action plan writing and goal setting. The greatest improvement in goal setting occurred between the second and third levels of Spanish.

In one study , that looked at goal setting and wellbeing, people participated in three short one-hour sessions where they set goals.

The researchers compared those who set goals to a control group, that didn’t complete the goal-setting exercise . The results showed a causal relationship between goal setting and subjective wellbeing.

Weinberger, Mateo, and Sirey (2009) also looked at perceived barriers to mental health care and goal setting amongst depressed, community-dwelling older adults.

Forty-seven participants completed the study, which examined various barriers to mental health and goal setting. These barriers include:

• Psychological barriers such as social attitudes, beliefs about depression and stigmas.
• Logistical barriers such as transportation and availability of services.
• Illness-related barriers that are either modifiable or not such as depression severity, comorbid anxiety, cognitive status, etc.

For individuals who perceive a large number of barriers to be overcome, a mental health referral can seem burdensome as opposed to helpful.

Defining a personal goal for treatment may be something that is helpful and even something that can increase the relevance of seeking help and improving access to care according to the study.

Goal setting has been shown to help improve the outcome in treatment, amongst studies done in adults with depression. (Weinberger, Mateo, & Sirey, 2009)

The process of goal setting has even become a major focus in several of the current psychotherapies used to treat depression. Some of the therapies that have used goal setting include:

• Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT)
• Cognitive and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CT, CBT)
• Problem-Solving Therapy (PST)

Participants who set goals, according to the study, were more likely to accept a mental health referral. Goal setting seems to be a necessary and good first step when it comes to helping a depressed older adult take control of their wellbeing.

Most of us have been taught from a young age that setting goals can help us accomplish more and get better organized.

Goals help motivate us and help us organize our thoughts. Throughout evolutionary psychology, however, a conscious activity like goal setting has often been downplayed.

Psychoanalysis put the focus on the unconscious part of the mind, while cognitive behaviorists argue that external factors are of greater importance.

In 1968, Edward A. Locke formally developed something he called goal-setting theory, as an alternative to all of this.

Goal-setting theory helps us understand that setting goals are a conscious process and a very effective and efficient means when it comes to increasing productivity and motivation, especially in the workplace.

According to Gary P. Latham, the former President of the Canadian Psychological Association, the underlying premise of goal-setting theory is that our conscious goals affect what we achieve. Our goals are the object or the aim of our action.

This viewpoint is not aligned with the traditional cognitive behaviorism, which looks at human behavior as something that is conducted by external stimuli.

This view tells us that just like a mechanic works on a car, other people often work on our brains, without us even realizing it, and this, in turn, determines how we behave.

Goal setting theory goes beyond this assumption, telling us that our internal cognitive functions are equally important, if not more, when determining our behavior.

In order for our conscious cognition to be effective, we must direct and orient our behavior toward the world. That is the real purpose of a goal.

According to Locke and Latham, there is an important relationship between goals and performance.

Research supports the prediction that the most effective performance often results when goals are both specific and challenging in nature.

A learning goal orientation often leads to higher performance when compared to a performance goal orientation, according to the research.

Deadlines also improve the effectiveness of a goal. Goals have a pervasive influence on both employee behaviors and performance in organizations and management practice according to Locke and Latham (2002).

According to the research, nearly every modern organization has some type of psychological goal setting program in its operation.

Programs like management by objectives, (MBO), high-performance work practices (HPWP) and management information systems (MIS) all use benchmarking to stretch targets and plan strategically, all of which involve goal setting to some extent.

Fred C. Lunenburg, a professor at Sam Houston State University, summarized these points in the International Journal of Management, Business, and Administration journal article “Goal-Setting Theory of Motivation” (Lunenburg, 2011).

Specific: Specificity tells us that in order for a goal to be successful, it must also be specific. Goals such as I will do better next time are much too vague and general to motivate us.

Something more specific would be to state: I will spend at least 2 hours a day this week in order to finish the report by the deadline . This goal motivates us into action and holds us accountable.

Difficult but still attainable : Goals must, of course, be attainable, but they shouldn’t be too easy. Goals that are too simple may even cause us to give up. Goals should be challenging enough to motivate us without causing us undue stress.

Process of Acceptance : If we are continually given goals by other people, and we don’t truly accept them, we will most likely continue to fail. Accepting a goal and owning a goal is the key to success.

One way to do this on an organizational level is to bring team members together to discuss and set goals.

Feedback and evaluation : When a goal is accomplished, it makes us feel good. It gives us a sense of satisfaction. If we don’t get any feedback, this sense of pleasure will quickly go away and the accomplishment may even be meaningless.

In the workplace, continuous feedback helps give us a sense that our work and contributions matter. This goes beyond measuring a single goal.

When goals are used for performance evaluation, they are often much more effective.

Learning beyond our performance : While goals can be used as a means by which to give us feedback and evaluate our performance, the real beauty of goal setting is the fact that it helps us learn something new.

When we learn something new, we develop new skills and this helps us move up in the workplace.

Learning-oriented goals can also be very helpful when it comes to helping us discover life-meaning which can help increase productivity.

Performance-oriented goals, on the other hand, force an employee to prove what he or she can or cannot do, which is often counterproductive.

These types of goals are also less likely to produce a sense of meaning and pleasure. If we lack that sense of satisfaction, when it comes to setting and achieving a goal, we are less likely to learn and grow and explore.

Group goals : Setting group goals is also vitally important for companies. Just as individuals have goals, so too must groups and teams, and even committees. Group goals help bring people together and allow them to develop and work on the same goals.

This helps create a sense of community, as well as a deeper sense of meaning, and a greater feeling of belonging and satisfaction.

17 Tools To Increase Motivation and Goal Achievement

These 17 Motivation & Goal Achievement Exercises [PDF] contain all you need to help others set meaningful goals, increase self-drive, and experience greater accomplishment and life satisfaction.

Created by Experts. 100% Science-based.

A goal properly set is halfway reached.

Everybody has their own Mount Everest they were put on this earth to climb.

You cannot change your destination overnight, but you can change your direction overnight.

It’s better to be at the bottom of the ladder you want to climb than at the top of the one you don’t.

Stephen Kellogg

If you don’t design your own life plan, chances are you’ll fall into someone else’s plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much.

All who have accomplished great things have had a great aim, have fixed their gaze on a goal which was high, one which sometimes seemed impossible.

Orison Swett Marden

The greater danger for most of us isn’t that our aim is too high and miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.

Michelangelo

Give me a stock clerk with a goal and I’ll give you a man who will make history. Give me a man with no goals and I’ll give you a stock clerk.

J.C. Penney

Intention without action is an insult to those who expect the best from you.

Andy Andrews

This one step – choosing a goal and sticking to it – changes everything.

Setting goals can help us move forward in life. Goals give us a roadmap to follow. Goals are a great way to hold ourselves accountable, even if we fail. Setting goals and working to achieving them helps us define what we truly want in life.

Setting goals also helps us prioritize things. If we choose to simply wander through life, without a goal or a plan, that’s certainly our choice. However, setting goals can help us live the life we truly want to live.

Having said that, we don’t have to live every single moment of our lives planned out because we all need those days when we have nothing to accomplish.

However, those who have clearly defined goals might just enjoy their downtime even more than those who don’t set goals.

For more insightful reading, check out our selection of goal-setting books .

We hope you enjoyed reading this article. Don’t forget to download our three Goal Achievement Exercises for free .

To provide direction and focus, helping individuals clarify what they want to achieve and create a structured plan to reach their objectives. It serves as a roadmap, guiding actions and decisions, and helps maintain motivation and accountability.

Goal-setting boosts motivation by providing clear, tangible targets to strive for. It helps break larger tasks into manageable steps, making progress more visible and rewarding. Setting goals also increases commitment and persistence, as individuals are more likely to stay engaged when they have a specific purpose.

Goal-setting is successful because it helps structure efforts and resources towards specific outcomes, making it easier to measure and track progress. It also fosters a sense of purpose and accomplishment, which can enhance self-efficacy and encourage further effort. By setting SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) goals, individuals are more likely to achieve success.

• Elliot, A. J., & McGregor, H. A. (2001). A 2 x 2 achievement goal framework. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80 (3), 501-519. https://psycnet.apa.org/buy/2001-16719-011
• Locke, E. A. (1968). Toward a theory of task motivation and incentives.  Organizational Behavior and Human Performance ,  3 (2), 157-189. https://doi.org/10.1016/0030-5073(68)90004-4
• Locke, E. A., & Latham, G. P. (1991). A theory of goal setting & task performance. The Academy of Management Review, 16 (2), 212-247. https://doi.org/10.2307/258875
• Locke, E. A., & Latham, G. P. (2002). Building a practically useful theory of goal setting and task motivation. American Psychologist, 57 (9), 705-717. https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/0003-066X.57.9.705
• Lunenburg, F. C. (2011). Goal-setting theory of motivation. International Journal of Management, Business, and Administration, 15 (1), 1-6. https://www.nationalforum.com/Electronic%20Journal%20Volumes/Lunenburg,%20Fred%20C.%20Goal-Setting%20Theoryof%20Motivation%20IJMBA%20V15%20N1%202011.pdf
• Moeller, A. J., Theiler, J. M., & Wu, C. (2012). Goal setting and student achievement: A longitudinal study. The Modern Language Journal, 96 (2), 153-169. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4781.2011.01231.x
• Murphy, M. (2010). HARD goals: The secret to getting from where you are to where you want to be. New York, NY: McGraw Hill. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1265862850/
• Weinberger, M. I., Mateo, C., & Sirey, J. A. (2009). Perceived barriers to mental health care and goal setting among depressed, community-dwelling older adults. Patient Preference and Adherence, 3 , 145-149. https://doi.org/10.2147/ppa.s5722

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The Neuroscience of Goals and Behavior Change

Elliot t. berkman.

Department of Psychology, Center for Translational Neuroscience, University of Oregon, and Berkman Consultants, LLC

The ways that people set, pursue, and eventually succeed or fail in accomplishing their goals are central issues for consulting psychology. Goals and behavior change have long been the subject of empirical investigation in psychology, and have been adopted with enthusiasm by the cognitive and social neurosciences in the last few decades. Though relatively new, neuroscientific discoveries have substantially furthered the scientific understanding of goals and behavior change. This article reviews the emerging brain science on goals and behavior change, with particular emphasis on its relevance to consulting psychology. I begin by articulating a framework that parses behavior change into two dimensions, one motivational (the will ) and the other cognitive (the way ). A notable feature of complex behaviors is that they typically require both. Accordingly, I review neuroscience studies on cognitive factors, such as executive function, and motivational factors, such as reward learning and self-relevance, that contribute to goal attainment. Each section concludes with a summary of the practical lessons learned from neuroscience that are relevant to consulting psychology.

Setting goals is easy; achieving them is hard. Why? This question has long stumped humanity and will certainly not be answered in this article. A full explanation of why it is hard to accomplish a goal or change old habits may never be possible. However, all hope is not lost. Research at the interface of neuroscience and psychology has made significant strides in uncovering the machinery behind goal pursuit. This knowledge, in turn, provides clues about the various ways that behavior change can go wrong and how to improve it. In this article, I present a brain-based framework for understanding how goal pursuit works and how to facilitate behavior change. Along the way, I highlight specific and practical lessons learned that are relevant to the science and practice of consulting psychology.

Goals and the Four Types of Behavior

What do I mean by goals? Colloquially, a goal is any desired outcome that wouldn’t otherwise happen without some kind of intervention. In other words, a goal is a detour from the path of least resistance. Formally, a goal is a desired future state (an end) coupled with a set of antecedent acts that promote the attainment of that end state (means; see Kruglanski, Shah, Fishbach, Friedman, Chun, & Sleeth-Keppler, 2002 for a summary). I present the informal definition first because it captures something that is missing from the formal one: a sense of what people actually mean by the word “goals” and how we use them. Technically, according to the formal definition, going out with friends to celebrate someone’s birthday is goal; it is an imagined end state and one must deploy various means to make it happen. But most people wouldn’t think of planning to go to a party later tonight as a goal. In practice, we set goals in cases where we need to do something that hasn’t happened yet and isn’t likely to happen on its own.

The difference between the two definitions of goals highlights an important aspect of goals and the way it is often overlooked. Goals are usually things we want but have difficulty achieving even when we know they are achievable. Otherwise, we wouldn’t need a goal in the first place. That sense of struggle is also captured in the term behavior change , which I use interchangeably with goal pursuit here. It’s not engaging in behavior, per se, but rather new behavior that is hard. To pursue what most people call a goal involves doing something different than what has been done before. For example, a primary incentive underlying achievement motivation (i.e., the need for achievement) is to demonstrate one’s capability to perform well on a new or challenging task ( McClelland, 1985 ).

To understand why new behavior is so hard, it’s useful to think about two dimensions that give rise to behaviors. The first dimension captures the skills, capacities, and knowledge required to engage in a behavior. This includes mapping out the steps to take and having the skill to execute an action, as well as related cognitive processes such as attentional focus, inhibitory control, and working memory capacity. Because it reflects the means used to achieve a goal, I refer to the first dimension as the way . The second dimension captures the desire for and importance of a behavior. This includes wanting to achieve a goal and prioritizing it over other goals, as well as related motivational processes such as volition, intention, and the nature and strength of the drive for achievement. Because it relates to the motivation to engage in a behavior, I refer to the second dimension as the will .

As shown in Figure 1 , these two dimensions give rise to four broad types of action. Complex-Routine behavior, in the top-left quadrant, requires some level of skill or knowledge but little motivation. Habitual behaviors reside in this quadrant: they can be quite complex yet are often triggered by external cues without motivation. For example, many drivers have piloted their car somewhere familiar, such as a child’s school, without thinking and despite an intention to go elsewhere. Indeed, a hallmark of habitual behavior is engaging in it even (or especially) in the absence of a conscious goal to do so ( Wood & Neal, 2007 ). Simple-Routine behavior, in the bottom-left quadrant, requires little skill and motivation. For example, walking, eating, and other behaviors related to primary rewards reside in this quadrant. These behaviors are so easy and effortless that we hardly think of them as goals at all. Because they are located in the same place on the horizontal axis and on different places on the vertical axis, the key difference between the first two types of behaviors is the level of skill they require. Simple-Novel behavior, in the bottom-right quadrant, requires high motivation but low skill to accomplish. Simple but new (and at times unpleasant) tasks such as changing a diaper belong in this quadrant. The most interesting kind of behavior is in the fourth quadrant: Complex-Novel behavior that requires high skill and high motivation. The goals that people care about most reside there.

Behavior can be divided into four broad categories defined by the level of motivation they demand (horizontal axis) and the level of skill or ability they require (vertical axis). Behavior change typically involves moving from left-to-right, from bottom-to-top, or both. Moving from left-to-right increases the motivational demand ( why ) of an action, whereas moving from bottom-to-top increases the skill level ( how ). It is useful to identify the vector of change required during goal pursuit and to target motivational (horizontal) and cognitive (vertical) processes as necessary.

Differences between adjacent quadrants within this space are instructive. The key distinction between a rote, unpleasant task (bottom-right) and a complex, hard one (top-right) is skill- and knowledge-oriented. Changing one diaper doesn’t take much ability, but building a machine to do the task for you would require decades of schooling. Both require high levels of motivation. The lesson is that moving up and down in this space is a matter of skill-building. In contrast, the distinction between a complex task that happens easily (top-left) and one that requires effort (top-right) is motivational. Driving to your child’s school is easy because you’ve done it so many times that it has become a matter of habit. In contrast, driving for the first time in a new country relies on the same skillset but feels much harder because it forces you to focus and apply the driving and navigation skills you already have. As you do it more it becomes easier, of course, but you can still do it on the first attempt as long as you try hard enough. Moving from left to right in this space, therefore, is a matter of effort more than one of skill or knowledge. Once a person possesses the capacity and knowledge to accomplish a difficult task, the missing piece is motivation.

Lessons learned for consulting psychology

In light of this framework, the first step to facilitating behavior change is to diagnose the source of the difficulty. Consultants and coaches can do foundational work with their clients early in the behavior change process to pinpoint the nature of the behavior change and identify how the new behavior is different from old patterns. The first step to helping a client with behavior change can involve answering these questions:

• Does the client already have the skills required for the new task?
• Is the barrier to change a lack of a way or a lack of a will?
• Is the person trying to move up, to the right, or both on the axes in Figure 1 ?

Once the most relevant dimension of change is identified, the second step is to drill down to learn more about the specific nature of the motivation or skills/capacities that will be the target. For example, consider the questions:

• If motivation, is the client lacking motivation to approach a desirable outcome or to avoid an undesirable one (e.g., Berkman & Lieberman, 2010 )?
• If motivation, is the client generally unmotivated, or highly motivated to a different goal besides than the behavior change goal?
• If skills, are they related to interpersonal abilities (e.g., empathy and perspective taking) or executive functioning (e.g., inhibition and attentional control)?
• If skills, is it possible that the client already possesses the skills but is stuck in a closed mindset and overly focused on one aspect of the behavior, such that a broadening of perspective might open new avenues for progress using other skills?

The relevant neuroscience will be quite different depending on the answer to these questions. In the following sections, I summarize the neuroscientific literatures on the will and the way with an emphasis on practical lessons for consulting psychology.

The neuroscience of the “way”: Executive function and cognitive control

Research on “the way” of goals and behavior change has mostly focused on constructs such as attention, working memory, inhibitory control, and planning – collectively known as executive function. A great deal of knowledge has been gained from neuroscientific studies about executive function, mostly about the neural systems and circuits that implement executive function (sometimes referred to as the task-positive network; Fox et al., 2005 ), and also about how disruptions to those circuits can cause alternately specific or broad impairment depending on the precise location and nature of the damage ( Alvarez & Emory, 2006 ; Stuss & Knight, 2012 ). Recent work has even begun to explore the bidirectional relationship between central and peripheral nervous system functioning in the context of goals, such as how activation of the sympathetic nervous system and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis during stress can influence executive function ( Roos et al., 2017 ). Together, imaging and lesion studies have illuminated many of the mechanistic elements and processes involved in complex goal pursuit ( Stuss, 2011 ). This information, in turn, contains some important lessons for consulting psychology about the capabilities and limits of executive function that are directly relevant to goals.

Despite substantial progress in knowledge of how executive function operate at the level of the brain, there is only sparse neuroscience research about how executive function might be improved. What little research there is suggests that executive function is more fixed than malleable by intervention, but there are some hints that targeted improvement might be possible. In this section, I review recent neuroscientific studies on executive function with respect to three questions that are pertinent to goals and behavior change: What is the nature of executive function? Is executive function a limited resource? And can executive function be improved with practice?

What is the nature of executive function?

Executive function refers to a suite of higher-level cognitive skills and capacities that generally promote successful human functioning. Attention, task switching, working memory, and inhibitory control are usually described as executive functions, though there is debate about the precise definition of the term ( Banich, 2009 ). Executive function involves some degree of updating information, shifting focus between targets or mental sets, and inhibiting irrelevant or distracting information ( Miyake, Friedman, Emerson, Witzki, Howerter, & Wager, 2000 ). Rather than enter that debate, I will describe broad features of executive function that are shared across most definitions. These features are useful for providing clarity and context for the subsequent questions regarding the limits and improvability of executive functions.

Executive function has three characteristic features: it is effortful , operates consciously , and engaged in service of novel goals as opposed to rote or overlearned ones (e.g., Miyake & Friedman, 2012). Effortful means that they feel hard and must be completed serially. In fact, emerging evidence suggests that one function of the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC; Figure 2 ), among several others, is to efficiently allocate cognitive resources by tracking the amount of mental work a task will require ( Shenhav, Cohen, & Botvinick, 2016 ). For example, activity in the dACC scales with the upcoming demand for control and also the potential payoff of that control ( Kouneiher, Charron, & Koechlin, 2009 ). It appears that the brain has dedicated regions not only to executing control but also allocating that control to various tasks.

Regions implicated in the will and the way. Left: Lateral view featuring the lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC) and the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC), premotor cortex (pMC) and motor cortex (MC), and the temporalparietal junction (TPJ) and supramarginal gyrus (SMG). Top Right: Medial view featuring the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) and ventral striatum (vS), and the dorsomedial (dmPFC), medial (mPFC) and ventromedial (vmPFC) aspects of the prefrontal cortex. Bottom Right: Coronal view featuring the ventral (vS) and dorsolateral (dlS) aspects of the striatum.

Executive function is conscious, which means that it occurs within awareness and requires conscious attention. People know when they are engaging in executive function because it becomes the center of attention in a given moment. A classic example of executive function is mental math, such as multiplying 13 by 17. In contrast to things such as breathing or adding 1+1, you know when it happens because it occupies all of your attention, and it is generally voluntary. The steps involved in solving that problem recruit a host of executive functions surrounding attention: focusing attention on the appropriate column, swapping information in and out of attention, and restricting attention to the desired part of the operation to the exclusion of others. These short-term memory and attentional processes are supported by complex interactions among lateral prefrontal and parietal cortices including aspects of all three frontal gyri, the superior frontal sulcus and precentral gyrus, and the supramarginal gyrus and temporalparietal junction ( Figure 2 ; Nee, Brown, Askren, Berman, Demiralp, Krawitz, & Jonides, 2012 ). The role of these regions is not just to maintain information, but also to disengage attention from irrelevant or previously-relevant information as appropriate to the task ( Shipstead, Harrison, & Engle, 2016 ). The importance of redirecting attention underscores the limited-capacity nature of working memory and executive function more generally. Extensive cognitive processes and neural resources are dedicated to gating which information enjoys the focus of attention and which must be ignored. In this way, executive function generally, and attention specifically, play a key role in how open or closed we are to new ideas and perspectives during goal setting and goal striving.

In addition to feeling effortful and occupying conscious attention, a third characteristic property of executive function is that it specializes in novel tasks. It enables humans to do things that we’ve never done before. In fact, the basic role of the entire prefrontal cortex has been described broadly as coordinating behavior to achieve novel goals ( Miller & Cohen, 2001 ). The ability of our prefrontal cortex to plan and execute novel behaviors is one of the defining characteristics of humans and one that sets us apart from nearly all other animals. However, this ability is not unlimited. In light of the limited capacity of attention and working memory, the prefrontal cortex has a second function that is nearly as critical: to learn to automate novel behaviors to the point that they no longer take up precious space in consciousness. Research on this process of habit formation shows that as a particular behavior in a particular behavior is repeatedly rewarded, the systems that control it shift from the dorsomedial to the ventral and dorsolateral aspects of the striatum ( Figure 2 ; Yin, Mulcare, Kilario, Clouse, Holloway, Davis, et al., 2009 ). This shift is in part supported by the differential connectivity in these parts of the striatum, with the dorsomedial more strongly connected to the prefrontal and parietal cortices (involved in attention and working memory) and the other two parts of the striatum more strongly connected to the sensory and motor cortices ( Liljeholm & O’Doherty, 2012 ). That the process of routinizing behavior has a robust pathway embedded within some of the oldest structures in the brain speaks to the evolutionary importance of offloading effortful mental activities from the cortex as early and efficiently as possible. Thus, these regions are key for habit formation.

Is executive function a limited resource?

The answer to this question is both yes and no. Many readers will be familiar with the concept of ego depletion, or the idea that the “active self” that implements executive functions draws upon a finite resource that exhausts over time with repeated use, not unlike a fuel tank ( Baumeister, Bratlavsky, Muraven, & Tice, 1998 ). Though there are literally hundreds of published studies showing the effect ( Hagger, Wood, Stiff, & Chatzisarants, 2010 ), it is likely that many of those studies are false positives or unreliable ( Hagger, Chatzisarantis, Alberts, Anggono, Batailler, Birt, et al., 2016 ). A large, highly powered, preregistered study recently failed to replicate the ego depletion effect ( Lurquin, Michaelson, Barker, Gustavson, von Bastian, Carruth, et al., 2016 ), and a meta-analysis uncovered evidence of publication bias in the ego depletion field such that studies finding the effect are much more likely to appear in print than those that do not ( Carter & McCullough, 2014 ).

On a deeper level, there is strong counter-evidence to the basic ego depletion effect, for example that taking a short break, watching a fun film clip, or even smoking a cigarette can reverse the effect (see Inzlicht & Berkman, 2015 for a summary). Active-self processes such as executive function are unlikely to draw upon a limited physiological resource if simple psychological manipulations can replenish it. Even more suggestive, there is strong physiological evidence that the neuronal processes involved in executive function demand no more energy than simpler functions or even than the brain at rest (see Kurzban, 2010 , for a review). There is simply no special physiological resource for executive function to deplete. The bottom line is that people get tired when they work hard – which is nothing new – but that, contrary to popular belief about ego depletion, that sense of fatigue is mostly psychological and can be short circuited by a short rest and a variety of positive experiences.

But what about the experience of depletion? Everyone has the intuition that some mental activities – certainly including executive function – feel hard and seem to drain our energy. The answer may be found by adjusting our understanding what exactly the limited resource is. The original formulation of ego depletion hypothesized a physiological resource, likely centered in the brain. That prediction is no longer tenable given the data. Newer models focus on the contributions of psychological and motivational factors to depletion instead beyond strictly physiological ones. For example, a shift in priorities from effortful, obligation-based, and prevention-focused “have-to” goals to enjoyable, desire-based, promotion-focused “want-to” goals could explain the decline in performance on tough cognitive tasks ( Inzlicht, Schmeichel, & Macrae, 2014 ); perhaps the “resource” is prioritization. Another possibility is that depletion results from an interaction between psychological processes, such as perceptions of upcoming task demands and available resources, and physiological factors including the peripheral nervous system, hormones, and afferent inputs ( Evans, Boggero, & Segerstrom, 2016 ).

A psychological model that fits particularly well with the characterization of executive function above focuses on its opportunity cost ( Kurzban, Duckworth, Kable, & Myers, 2013 ). Because we can only focus our executive function capacity on one task at a time, then any time we engage in one executive function task we are likely forgoing others. The cost of what we’re giving up is reflected in the sense of effort that comes along with executive function. The feeling of depletion, therefore, reflects the tipping point when the cost of putting off alternative tasks begins to outweigh the benefit of continuing on the current course of action ( Berkman, Kahn, & Livingston, 2016 ).

The evidence at this point indicates that executive function is limited in terms of bandwidth – how much can be done or stored or attended to in a given moment – but not in terms of duration in the ego depletion sense. That limit stems directly from the properties of the executive function system: the facts that only a small amount of information can be consciously accessible and operated upon in a given moment ( Unsworth, Fukuda, Awh, & Vogel, 2015 ), and that we actively track the processing costs of potential cognitive operations with respect to ongoing goals ( Westbrook & Braver, 2015 ). For precisely this reason, executive function was likened by the mathematician and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead to cavalry in an army, “Operations of thought are like cavalry charges in a battle – they are strictly limited in number, they require fresh horses, and must only be made at decisive moments.” (pp. 61; Whitehead, 1911 ).

Can executive function be improved with practice?

There is naturally great interest in the question of whether executive function can be improved, expanded, or strengthened with practice given its bandwidth limitations. Study of this kind of “brain training” is an active research area and a controversial one. Some researchers make claims about the ability to improve executive function with training ( Jaeggi, Buschkuehl, Jonides, & Shah, 2011 ), though these claims have been tempered by compelling counter-evidence ( Redick, Shipstead, Harrison, Hicks, Fried, Hambrick, et al., 2013 ). A fair characterization of the research to date is that people can certainly improve on a given executive function task with practice, but there is no evidence that practice generalizes to other, even closely related tasks, and task-specific improvements are unlikely to endure over time ( Berkman, 2016 ).

The core issue in executive function training is transfer , or whether the improvements on a training task generalize to other tasks. In some theories such as the Strength Model, on which the ego depletion hypothesis is based, executive function is a common resource that is shared across many discrete capacities (e.g., working memory and self-control), so expanding that common resource should improve a range of executive abilities ( Muraven, 2010 ). However, counter-evidence to ego depletion specifically and the Strength Model generally have raised the question about whether a common underlying resource even exists ( Inzlicht et al., 2014 ). A recent meta-analysis of studies attempting to train one form of executive function, self-control, revealed a negligible transfer effect ( Inzlicht & Berkman, 2015 ). Additionally, at least two highly-powered studies have failed to find generalizable training effects on executive function despite showing practice effects on the training task ( Miles, Sheeran, Baird, Macdonald, Webb, & Harris, in press ; Redick et al., 2013 ).

What is happening? Neuroscientific investigations provide some clues. A series of training studies on inhibitory control, an executive function involving the prevention of ongoing or prepotent behavior, found that performance on an inhibitory control task improves with practice and does not transfer to other tasks. Interestingly, to the degree that performance on the training task improved, activity in the lateral prefrontal regions and dACC that is associated with successful inhibitory control shifted earlier in time, peaking in anticipation of the need for control ( Beauchamp, Kahn, & Berkman, 2016 ; Berkman, Kahn, & Merchant, 2014 ). This effect can be characterized as a reactive-to-proactive shift in the neural activation involved in inhibitory control, and is akin to gently applying a car’s brakes when a light turns yellow instead of slamming on the brakes only upon a red light.

The observed shift in brain activity from later to earlier in time fits well with the general characteristics of executive function described earlier. Inhibitory control feels hard and occupies attention, so it is beneficial to the individual to automate the operation when possible. With enough practice and exposure, the habit learning system discovers regularities in the environment that allow the need for inhibitory control to be anticipated using contextual cues. Just as the frequent association of a yellow light with a red light teaches experienced drivers to automatically move their foot to the brake when seeing a yellow, so too do participants in inhibitory control training studies learn the specific task cues that anticipate the need for control. This cue-learning effect in training occurs automatically ( Lenartowicz, Verbruggen, Logan, & Poldrack, 2011 ), suggesting that performance improvements during inhibitory control training studies are a result of the transfer of at least some effortful behavior to the habit system. Habits increase efficiency during goal striving.

This habit learning process also explains the lack of transfer to new tasks. The advantages of executive function are mirrored in the limitations of the habit learning system. Specifically, while executive function evolved to deal with novel challenges, habit learning evolved for routine ones. Habits create efficiency by shrinking the range of responses in a situation down to one behavior. By function, they forestall new and creative behaviors in that situation. Habitual behaviors are triggered by specific contextual cues, which is why habits do not require vigilant and costly monitoring; that work is offloaded to more efficient stimulus-response mappings. The tradeoff is that habitual behaviors are necessarily tied to a particular context. If the cues that had been associated with a response change, then the habitual response will no longer emerge. For example, the ease of slowing on a yellow would be lost if the cue that preceded a red light suddenly became blue instead. In the case of executive function, training doesn’t transfer to new contexts (or tasks) because the cues are different. The brain treats the tests of transfer as novel tasks, which is exactly what executive function evolved to deal with in the first place.

Lessons learned from neuroscience about “the way”

The neuroscience literature on executive function offers some practical if not entirely hopeful advice about the “way” of behavior change. The first lesson is that executive function feels hard for a reason. It is a serial process, so the sense of effort that accompanies executive function is a signal that working on a difficult task necessarily means losing out on other opportunities. In other words, effort reflects an opportunity cost. In this view, effort also signals one’s internal priorities; the more important the alternatives are, the harder a focal task will feel. The inverse is also true: a given task will feel relatively easy when it is more important to a person than the alternative choices. Consultants and coaches can work with clients to reflect on their priorities and make them explicit, which can explain why some goals feel harder than others.

The mental processes related to the “way” operate sequentially, not in parallel. Executive functions can only be performed one at a time, so the most important ones should come first even if executive processing will not exhaust over time with use. Based on the portrait of executive function drawn here, the factors that influence the capacity for executive function most directly are other concurrent cognitive operations and the relative importance of the task compared to other possibilities. Together, this suggests that it is optimal to carve out dedicated, distraction-free time to work on important novel tasks and challenges ( Berkman & Rock, 2014 ). Our cognitive bandwidth is precious and operates most efficiently in (mental) solitude. Licensing clients to reserve work time specifically for new tasks can help.

Our executive function abilities evolved to help us deal with novel challenges. So, the precious resource of executive function should be brought to bear on any and all aspects of behavior change, such as goal setting, that benefit from openness to new ideas, broadened attention, and a wide survey of possibilities. In contrast, habit formation evolved to create efficiency by rigidly attaching one behavior to one cue. Habits can be formed to aid in other aspects of behavior change, such as goal striving, that benefit from a narrower focus and relatively consistent, fixed behaviors in a given situation.

Finally, there is not much evidence that executive function can be improved broadly by focused interventions (e.g., Lumosity; Redick et al., 2013 ; Shute, Ventura, & Ke, 2015 ), and some compelling counter-evidence. However, complex mental operations can become routinized by leveraging the habit learning system ( Foerde, Knowlton, & Poldrack, 2006 ). Habit learning is facilitated when the new behavior is consistently preceded by specific cues and then rewarded. This procedure can be particularly useful for behavior change if the new behavior will occur repeatedly in similar contexts. Research is underway to test whether a highly variable set of cues used in training can broaden the range of contexts to which training effects generalize. Nonetheless, some executive functions such as working memory may simply be fixed capacities for neuroarchitectural reasons ( Zhange & Luck, 2008 ). Rather than attempting to improve executive function generally, consultants and coaches should help their clients focus on improving specifically the skillsets relevant to the goal or new behavior. These will improve with practice and, with some proper motivation, become habitual in time.

The neuroscience of the “will”: Motivation, Reward, and Subjective Value

The question of what motivates behavior, in a general sense, runs at least back to the Greeks, with Plato’s famous analogy of the charioteer and his horses, through William James and Abraham Maslow, and continues to this day. In contrast, the question of what motivates behavior change has received considerably less attention. Psychologists have developed taxonomies of different “stages of change” to capture individual variability in readiness to engage in sustained behavior change (Transtheoretical Model; Prochaska, DiClemente, & Norcross, 1992 ), and of different types of behaviors within a person to capture relatively self-motivated, “intrinsic” versus more externally-motivated, “extrinsic” types of goals (Self-Determination Theory; Deci & Ryan, 2000 ). Much of this work is descriptive rather than prescriptive – it says what motivation is but does not indicate how to increase it. A person can be confidently described as in the precontemplation stage, but there is not much evidence-backed knowledge about moving him or her to the contemplation stage; likewise, some behaviors are clearly extrinsically motivated, though there is a lack of prescriptive advice about how one can transform them into intrinsically motivated ones.

As it did with studies on the “way,” neuroimaging research provides some clues about how to increase motivation to change a specific behavior. In this section, I review neuroscientific insights into the “way” of behavior change surrounding three questions that are relevant to consulting psychology. Which brain systems are involved in motivational processes? How do those systems interact with other networks in the brain? And what does neuroscience indicate about motivating behavior change?

How and where is motivation represented in the brain?

Motivation is conceptualized here as the strength of the desire to attain a particular outcome, irrespective of how pleasant or unpleasant the experience of actually attaining it is. This distinction between the motivational component of a reward – “wanting” – and the hedonic component of consuming it – “liking” – is maintained with remarkable evolutionary consistency in the brains of both humans and animals ( Berridge & Robinson, 2003 ). I focus here on the “wanting” side because of its direct bearing on behavior and behavior change. Wanting a reward is closely tied with activity of mesolimbic dopaminergic neurons, particularly within the ventral striatum and ventromedial prefrontal cortex ( Berridge, 2006 ; Figure 2 ), which is sometimes also called the orbitofrontal cortex ( Wallis, 2007 ). Of course, there are many other regions and interactions involved in reward learning, but I focus on these because they are the best characterized in terms of human functional neuroanatomy to date.

The dopaminergic reward system has been conserved evolutionarily because it plays a critical role in the reinforcement learning cycle. When a particular behavior in a given context it is rewarded, that behavior and context are paired and tagged with reward value for later repetition ( Rescorla & Wagner, 1972 ). Reinforcement learning is why behaviors that are rewarded are likely to be repeated in the future. (This is also why the dopamine system is implicated in addictive behavior.) The amount of cumulative, learned reward value of a behavior is its expected value, sometimes referred to as subjective value ( Rangel & Hare, 2010 ). In short, subjective value represents the amount of reward that an actor expects to receive for a given action, largely based on past learning. This learning cycle is one of the key impediments to behavior change: old behavior has been rewarded and new behavior has not. A protein called brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) is important for maintaining new behaviors after engaging in them initially because of its critical role in memory consolidation ( Bekinschtein et al., 2008 ). As described in the following sections, the key to launching this reward learning and consolidation cycle is finding ways to increase the subjective value of new behavior.

A notable feature of activity in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex is that it represents the subjective values of diverse types of actions, presumably to facilitate “apples to oranges” decisions between qualitatively different behaviors ( Levy & Glimcher, 2011 ). For example, activity in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex tracks the value of approach appetitive and avoiding aversive stimuli ( Tom, Fox, Trepel, & Poldrack, 2007 ), and also the subjective value of a range of stimulus types, including food, money, gains for the self and others, charitable decisions, and emotional and utilitarian benefits of moral actions ( Hare, Camerer, Knoepfle, O’Doherty, & Rangel, 2010 ; Hutcherson, Montaser-Kouhsari, Woodward, & Rangel, 2015 ; Lebreton, Jorge, Michel, Thirion, & Pessiglione, 2009 ; Zaki, Lopez, & Mitchell, 2014 ). These findings converge on the idea that the ventromedial prefrontal cortex plays a central role in tracking the subjective value of different kinds of actions during choice, which strongly implicates that region in motivational processing during behavior change.

How do motivation regions interact with other brain systems?

One way to approach the deeper issue of where motivation originates is to examine the connectivity of its neural systems. In the same way that it is adaptive to humans and informative to scientists that sensory and motor regions in the brain are adjacent and highly interconnected, the regions involved in motivation are themselves intertwined with several other brain networks. Those interrelations contain insights about how motivation operates and how it might be increased in the service of behavior change.

As Self-Determination Theory suggests, autonomously choosing to engage in a behavior (relative to being forced) increases performance on that behavior because autonomy is an intrinsic motive. At the neural level, autonomy also prevents a reduction in reward system activity in the face of negative feedback, particularly in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex ( Murayama, Matsumoto, Izuma, Sugiura, Ryan, Deci, et al., 2013 ). Interestingly, the ventromedial prefrontal cortex has also been found to be active in studies of self-processing and particularly of self-affirmation , such as considering one’s core personal values ( Cascio, O’Donnell, Tinney, Lieberman, Taylor, Strecher, et al., 2016 ). Brain activation related to self-affirmation during health messaging has even been shown to predict the eventual degree of health behavior change that would follow ( Falk, O’Donnell, Cascio, Tinney, Kang, Lieberman, et al., 2015 ). Finally, a meta-analysis using the Neurosynth study database ( Yarkoni, Poldrack, Nichols, Van Essen, & Wager, 2011 ) found that the ventromedial prefrontal cortex was one of the largest regions of overlap between 812 studies on identity (“self” and “self-referential” terms in the database) and 324 subjective value and reward (“value” term in the database). The meta-analysis contained several regions along the medial cortical wall including the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, the posterior cingulate cortex, and the mid-cingulate. The ventromedial prefrontal cortex was the single largest cluster to be consistently associated with both identity and value.

The overlap between intrinsic goals, core values, and subjective value has several implications for consulting psychology. First, identity (e.g., self-concept) and subjective value are closely functionally connected to one another. This is not a surprise given the extensive evidence from social psychology and other fields that people have disproportionate positive regard for themselves (and behaviors related to the self) compared to others ( Greenwald, 1980 ; Pelham & Swann, 1989 ). We want, and perhaps need, to see our selves as good ( Rosenberg, 1979 ). Second, the value derived from identity and other self-related processes may have a special status compared to other sources of value (e.g., monetary) because of the high degree of overlap in the neural systems and conceptual representation of identity and value. It may even be that identity and value are inseparable, leading one researcher to hypothesize that the defining function of the self is to organize and prioritize the world by assigning it motivational significance ( Northoff & Hayes, 2011 ). By this definition, the self-concept is exactly the set of places, things, and actions in the world that hold value.

It is important to note that the valuation process subserved by the vmPFC reflects not only positive value, but negative value as well. For example, just as social affiliation holds positive value, the threat of social rejection can be highly negative in value. The experience of social rejection invokes similar brain networks as physical pain ( Lieberman & Eisenberger, 2015 ). Beyond its unpleasantness, this experience can enhance defensiveness and facilitate a stress response that detracts from other ongoing goals because it narrows attentional focus on the social threat ( Muscatell et al., 2016 ).

The ventromedial prefrontal cortex and related dopaminergic motivational structures also interact with cognitive networks, including those related to executive function ( Botvinick & Braver, 2015 ). The ventromedial prefrontal cortex appears to be a point of convergence where the motivational value of various options in a choice are integrated, notably including both effortful actions that require cognitive control and also easier, more hedonic ones ( Bartra, McGuire, & Kable, 2013 ). For example, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is functionally connected with the ventromedial prefrontal cortex when higher-order goals such as health concerns or social factors are made salient ( Hare et al., 2010 ; Hutcherson, Plassman, Gross, & Rangel, 2012 ). There is also evidence that the value of potential actions are reflected in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex before any specific action plans is selected ( Wunderlich, Rangel, & O’Doherty, 2010 ), but that value signals provide input to downstream brain regions that are responsible for selecting and implementing behavior ( Hare, Schultz, Camerer, O’Doherty, & Rangel, 2011 ). Taken together, then, the emergent view from the neuroscience literature is that the ventromedial prefrontal cortex receives a variety of value signals relevant to decisions about behavior, and its activation reflects a dynamic value integration process that subsequently biases behavior toward higher-valued actions. A promising route to increasing motivation, then, is identifying the value inputs to a new behavior (i.e., the reasons why the behavior is or is not valued) and learning ways to modulate them. I address this possibility in the next section.

How can motivation be increased?

The neurally-informed model described above suggests that motivation is guided by an integration of the value of features of the behavioral options. Behavior change can be accomplished by amplifying the value of the new (goal-related) behavior, reducing the value of old (goal-counter or goal-unrelated) behaviors, or some combination of the two. A clear example of the effectiveness of the first approach is contingency management treatment for substance use disorders ( Bigelow & Silverman, 1999 ), in which the value of drug abstinence is increased with monetary incentives. A meta-analysis found this approach to have an effect size d = 0.42 on treatment for alcohol, tobacco, and illicit drugs, which was larger than therapy (d = 0.25) and outpatient treatment (d = 0.37), and comparable to methadone treatment for opiate use ( Prendergast, Podus, Finney, Greenwell, & Roll, 2006 ). Similarly, “precommitting” to buy more healthy foods at the risk of losing financial incentives is more effective than having the incentives alone ( Schwartz, Mochon, Wyper, Maroba, Patel, & Ariely, 2014 ). Monetary incentives also increase persistence at exercise ( Cabanac, 1986 ), endurance on a cold-pressor task ( Baker & Kirsch, 1991 ), and performance on a difficult cognitive task ( Boksem, Meijman, & Lorist, 2006 ). Simple monetary payments are an effective way to motivate behavior change.

“Money walks,” as the saying goes, but its scarcity makes it a less than ideal option for many goal pursuit contexts. Above, I noted the deep connections between identity and motivation. Other researchers have, too, and are now beginning to deploy identity interventions to increase motivation. For example, one study leveraged the fact that most people consider willpower to be a desirable trait ( Magen & Gross, 2007 ). The participants in that study completed an executive function task twice, and in between were randomly assigned to reconstrue the task itself as a measure of their own willpower or not. Performance improved from the first to the second run only among participants whose perceptions of the task were changed from non-diagnostic to diagnostic of willpower. Similarly, noting that identity is somewhat susceptible to cognitive shifts such as framing, construal, or priming effects, other researchers used a simple “noun-verb” manipulation to increase motivation for behavior change, presumably through a subtle shift in the extent to which the new behavior is construed as identity-relevant. For example, phrasing questions about voting intentions in terms of identity (noun: “being a voter”) instead of an action (verb: “voting”) increased voting intentions and actual turnout in statewide elections ( Bryan, Walton, Rogers, & Dweck, 2011 ). In another study, participants were less likely to cheat by claiming money they were not entitled to if that behavior was described as a (negative) identity (noun: “being a cheater”) instead of an action (verb: “cheating”; Bryan, Adams, & Monin, 2013 ). Each of these results is consistent with the idea that identity can influence motivation, presumably by highlighting the subjective value of desired (e.g., “voter”, “willpower”) or undesired (e.g., “cheater”) identity. This path is a promising future direction for motivation interventions because it is low-cost, modest in scope, and easily scalable to a broad range of populations and types of desired identities.

Finally, merely highlighting certain attributes of a behavior can alter the value placed on that behavior. After all, our attentional bandwidth is fairly narrow, so not all relevant properties will be equally salient at all times. For example, people’s motivation to act on a choice option increases as attention is allocated to it ( Krajbich, Armel, & Rangel, 2010 ). In another study ( Hare et al., 2011 ), participants were presented with health-versus-taste decisions with or without reminders about health. As expected, health reminders increased the likelihood of healthy choices. Tellingly, the healthiness rating of the foods (assessed earlier, and separate from the tastiness) was strongly correlated with activity in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex at the moment of decision, which in turn predicted the food choice. In contrast, when unhealthy foods were selected, the earlier tastiness ratings were correlated with ventromedial prefrontal cortex activity during choice. The results of these studies are broadly consistent with psychological framing effects (e.g., gain vs. loss frame; Kahneman & Tversky, 1984 ), whereby altering the relative salience of the features of a decision can dramatically change it. Though they are most often applied to decision-making, the neuroscientific evidence presented here suggests that motivation may also be susceptible to framing effects.

In light of the present framework, I focused on ways to increase motivation that are grounded in valuation. But there are other ways to increase motivation from complementary lines of research that nonetheless may be connected to subjective value. For example, Higgins has argued that people experience “value from fit” when their regulatory style (promotion versus prevention focus) matches the particular means through which goals are pursued ( Higgins, Idson, Freitas, Spiegel, & Molden, 2003 ). A similar “matching” effect on motivation has been observed with achievement motivation and performance goals: people high in achievement motivation experience greater intrinsic motivation when provided with performance (vs. mastery) goals, whereas people low in achievement motivation experience greater intrinsic motivation with mastery (vs. performance) goals ( Elliot & Harackiewicz, 1994 ). A plausible cause of these kinds of “matching” effects, which can be tested in future research, is that there is subjective value in experiencing fit between one’s dispositional tendencies and the nature of the goal at hand.

Lessons learned from neuroscience about “the will”

Neuroscientific investigations of motivation have established the major brain systems for motivation and identified ways that those systems interact with other parts of the brain. This knowledge, in turn, contains clues about how motivation works and how to increase it on the psychological level. Two are particularly relevant to consulting psychology.

The first lesson surrounds the extent to which motivation is tied to the past. The neural mechanisms of reinforcement learning are some of the most basic and ancient parts of our brains. For good reason, we evolved to be highly sensitive to learn where we receive rewards and to work hard to recreate the situations that brought them about. Attempting to change behavior in a systematic way by engaging in new behaviors, which have never been reinforced, often means working against this powerful system. Thus, wise advice for clients that is grounded in the neuroscience of motivation and reinforcement learning is to start behavior change with modest goals and reward even the smallest steps toward them. New behaviors emerge slowly because they are usually working against the power of prior reinforcement. Consultants and coaches can help clients anticipate and understand the difficulty of behavior change by explaining the neuroscience of reinforcement learning. Being cognizant of the challenges of behavior change can prevent frustration on both sides.

The second lesson is to leverage the intrinsic connections between the motivation system and other parts of the brain, particularly self and identity. The elaborated web of memories, beliefs, values, objects, and relationships that comprise our sense of self is paralleled perhaps only by executive function in its distinctiveness to humans. And it may offer a pathway to behavior change and goal achievement that is just as potent. A behavior will hold greater subjective value to the degree that it is related to one’s core values and sense of self. Identity-linked goals are more likely to be successful than identity-irrelevant or identity-counter ones. Consultants and coaches can be particularly helpful to clients in this arena by helping them discover core aspects of their self-concepts and the ways those aspects are linked to the behavior change at hand. And remember that identity is not a fixed construct, but rather is susceptible to framing, reconstrual, and other kinds of subtle influences. To some extent, motivation can be gained by finding ways to think about goals that makes their connection to important parts of one’s identity salient. Sometimes it is easier for other people to make these connections than for us because they have more distance from them ( Berkman & Rock, 2014 ); coaches can be particularly helpful in this regard. Paying people works, too, but connecting goals to the self-concept in various ways may be a more sustainable and accessible approach to increasing motivation.

Pursing goals and changing behavior is hard. Neuroscience will never change that fact, but it can provide some brain-level explanations for the difficulty as well as some new insights about how to mitigate it. This article reviewed the neuroscientific literatures on the “way” of goal pursuit – the set of cognitive skills, capacities, and abilities collectively known as executive function – and the “will” – the motivational factors that propel behavior. Although parts of the “way” are limited by constraints that may be difficult to change, the “will” can be influenced by incentives both within the person and without. Though neuroscientific investigations into long-term behavior change are only just starting to emerge they have already begun to contribute to the body of practical scientific knowledge about goals. The science and practice of consulting psychology will benefit directly from this research in the coming years.

Functional neuroanatomy of key networks

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by grants AG048840, CA175241, and DA035763 from the National Institutes of Health to ETB, as well as support from the Bezos Family Foundation and the Center for the Developing Child at Harvard University.

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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Goal missed, self hit: goal-setting, goal-failure, and their affective, motivational, and behavioral consequences.

• Department of Psychology, Technical University of Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany

Setting high and specific goals is one of the best-established management tools to increase performance and motivation. However, in recent years, potential downsides of goal-setting are being discussed. One possible downside is the high risk of failing the goal. In an approach to integrate research on the consequences of goal-failure and the basic assumptions of goal-setting theory, we investigated whether failure of a high and specific goal has detrimental effects on a person’s affect, self-esteem, and motivation. In Experiment 1, 185 participants received fictitious feedback about attaining or failing an assigned high and specific goal. In Experiment 2 with 86 participants, we manipulated goal-failure through task-difficulty and we included task choice as a behavioral measure of motivation. In both experiments, participants who failed the high and specific goal showed a decrease in affect, self-esteem, and motivation compared to participants who attained that goal. Results indicate that failing a high and specific goal can be damaging for self-related factors that may be crucial for organizational long-term outcomes. We advise organizations to consider potential undesirable effects when using goal-setting interventions.

Introduction

Over 1,000 studies have consistently shown that setting high and specific goals is linked to increased task performance, persistence, and motivation, compared to vague or easy goals ( Locke and Latham, 2002 , 2006 ). Given this empirical evidence, setting high (which means a high difficulty that only a certain percentage of individuals can reach) and specific (which means tangible information on what needs to be attained) goals has become a highly recommended motivational and leadership tool in organizations. However, in recent years, more and more studies raised concerns about possible undesirable effects of goal-setting. For example, goals can narrow the attention focus on goal-related actions, so that other important issues are missed ( Ordóñez et al., 2009 ), goals may increase risk-taking and unethical behavior ( Neale and Bazerman, 1985 ; Knight et al., 2001 ; Schweitzer et al., 2004 ), inhibit learning ( Earley et al., 1989 ; Cervone et al., 1991 ), or create an overly competitive environment ( Mitchell and Silver, 1990 ).

The current research seeks to shed light on another possible downside of setting high and specific goals: the possibility of goal-failure and the associated negative consequences. Locke and Latham (1990 , p. 349) advocated that (at least in laboratory settings) a high and specific goal “that only 10% of the subjects can reach” should be set to achieve maximum individual performance (see, e.g., Locke et al., 1989 ; Latham and Locke, 1991 ; Latham and Seijts, 1999 ; Welsh and Ordóñez, 2014 ; Welsh et al., 2019 ). However, this implies that only 10% of individuals are able to attain the high and specific goal and 90% will fail the goal. What happens to those who fail the high and specific goal? Several theories have discussed possible processes induced by goal-failure in general ( Dweck and Leggett, 1988 ; Carver and Scheier, 1990 ; Judge and Kammeyer-Mueller, 2004 ), but there is a dearth of empirical research on the consequences of failure of a high and specific goal.

We argue that failing a high and specific goal induces several processes that can harm a person’s affect, self-esteem, and motivation. Reducing such self-related factors can have serious consequences for the person as well as the organizations, for example reduced extrarole performance ( Judge and Kammeyer-Mueller, 2008 ), reduced organizational citizenship behavior ( Welsh et al., 2020 ), or increased absenteeism ( Shi et al., 2013 ). Decreased motivation may also lead to disengagement from challenging tasks ( Seo and Ilies, 2009 ) or choosing tasks with low difficulty ( Nichols et al., 1991 ).

While there is some evidence on the effects of goal-failure on affect (e.g., Martin et al., 1993 ; Grieve et al., 1994 ), to our knowledge there are little to no studies that integrate research of failure with the basic assumptions of goal-setting theory. Hence, the present research seeks to close this research gap, first, by replicating known effects of goal-failure on affect while using a high and specific goal and, second, by investigating the effects on additional self-related factors such as self-esteem and motivation that are also crucial for organizational outcomes. In the next sections, we will outline the underlying theories and potential processes that may lead to negative consequences after goal-failure of a high and specific goal. We will describe in detail the expected effects of goal-failure for affect, self-esteem, and motivation. We will then describe two experimental studies we conducted to examine those effects.

Theory and Hypotheses

Setting high and specific goals is the basic recommendation by goal-setting theory to increase performance ( Locke and Latham, 1990 , 2002 , 2006 ); however, failing these goals may induce processes that are damaging for one’s self. Goals can be described as objects of a person’s ambition that direct attention to goal-relevant activities, mobilize effort, and motivate to develop task-relevant strategies for goal-attainment ( Locke et al., 1981 ). In over 35years of research, Locke and Latham (2002) developed goal-setting theory to influence, predict, and explain performance on organizational tasks through goals. Their core findings were that high and specific goals increased performance, persistence, and motivation compared to vague or so-called “do-your-best” goals ( Locke and Latham, 1990 ).

However, most past research focused on these core findings and increasing performance as the main outcome, while ignoring potential detrimental effects on intrapersonal and self-related factors, especially when the high and specific goal is failed. Some evidence was found that high and specific goals lead to a decrease in affect, because individuals evaluate their performance relatively to a reference point ( Oliver et al., 1994 ; Thompson, 1995 ; Galinsky et al., 2002 ). Even individuals who had objectively good outcomes felt worse when they had a high and specific goal as their reference point ( Thompson, 1995 ; Galinsky et al., 2002 ). What happens when individuals fall under their reference point? Surprisingly, there is a lack of research on the consequences of failing a high and specific goal. It is important to examine the consequences of goal-failure of a high and specific goal since they are the key element of goal-setting interventions in organizations. We propose that failing the high and specific goal may induce detrimental processes for several intrapersonal and self-related factors. We chose intrapersonal factors that have been consistently demonstrated to be strongly connected with organizational outcomes and hence impairing those has the potential to harm the employee and the organization in the long-run.

First, we propose that goal-failure of a high and specific goal can damage a person’s affect. A person’s affect, which is a common indicator for well-being ( Sonnentag, 2015 ), refers to the positive or negative personal reactions to experiences ( Lazarus, 1982 ). Affect is often used as an umbrella term for mood, emotions, and evaluations. One can experience pleasant emotions or unpleasant ones ( Diener, 2000 ). Several theories support the notion that goal-failure can be harmful for a person’s affect. First, self-regulation theory suggests that behavior is meta-monitored by the individual and people seek to reduce discrepancy between their present actions and a reference value. If their progress toward that reference value is sub-standard, they experience negative affect ( Carver and Scheier, 1990 ; Moberly and Watkins, 2010 ). Second, achievement goal theory suggests that individuals with a focus on an externally-set standard view their skillset as fixed and unchangeable ( Dweck and Leggett, 1988 ). Failing the standard for them then implies that their skills are insufficient and they view the failure as a negative judgement of their competence. Thus, when individuals fail a high and specific goal, they experience a discrepancy between their skills and the goal and will experience negative affect. Negative affect can lead to severe consequences like reduced performance ( Seo and Ilies, 2009 ), exhaustion ( Halbesleben and Wheeler, 2011 ), counterproductive work behavior ( Scott and Barnes, 2011 ), and in the long-run even to burnout, which is related to increased absenteeism ( Ybema et al., 2010 ).

A number of studies have examined the consequences of goal-failure for a person’s affect. However, these studies do not directly relate to goal-setting theory. For example, in one experiment, goal level (primary vs. subgoals) and feedback of success or failure were manipulated. Participants who received a primary goal and feedback of goal-failure showed highest negative affect and decreased expectancy for future performance ( Houser-Marko and Sheldon, 2008 ). In another study, participants reported their negative affect; their ruminative self-focus, as well as their current goal and the importance of that goal eight times daily over 7 days ( Moberly and Watkins, 2010 ). It was found that low goal-success and high goal-importance were associated with high negative affect. Rumination after experiences of failure was also examined in another investigation, in which failure to attain prevention or promotion goals was manipulated by letting participants recall past failure experiences ( Jones et al., 2013 ). It was found that failure experiences lead to increased rumination and intensified negative affect, especially for promotion goal failures. In a summary on goals and affect, Plemmons and Weiss (2013) gathered previous findings on the effects of goal-failure on subsequent affect. They concluded that goal-attainment has positive effects on affect, whereas goal-failure has negative effects on affect (see Plemmons and Weiss, 2013 , pp. 121). None of these studies involved high and specific goals. We found two exceptions where high goals according to goal-setting theory were used. In one study, goal-success and goal-failure were used as mood-inducing method ( Henkel and Hinsz, 2004 ). In another investigation, goal-difficulty, goal source, and failure tolerance were manipulated in a scenario experiment in which participants were confronted with a character who fails his fictitious exam ( Kim and Clifford, 1988 ). It was found that for very difficult goals that were assigned by someone else, feelings after failure tended to be more negative. However, the authors did not find unambiguous support for the relationship between goal-difficulty and responses to goal-failure, and the goal only was presented as an item on the scenario booklet; participants did not have to complete the goal themselves.

Hence, there is some empirical evidence that goal-failure may have detrimental effects for an individual’s affect; however, research is needed to test this effect for high and specific goals that are the basic recommendation of goal-setting theory. We propose that:

H1 : Individuals who fail their high and specific goal will show a more negative affect than individuals who attain their high and specific goal.

Second, we propose that goal-failure of a high and specific goal can damage a person’s self-esteem. A person’s self-esteem reflects their evaluation of themselves and their abilities ( Rosenberg, 1965 ). Identity theory describes self-esteem as an outcome of the ratio between successes and goals ( Stets and Burke, 2000 ; Stryker and Burke, 2000 ), meaning the degree to which individuals are able to match their identity goal with their actual performance. If their identity goal matches with their actual performance, self-verification is successful. Successful self-verification leads to higher self-esteem. In contrast, disruption of the self-verification process, for example goal-failure, can have negative consequences for a person’s self-esteem. Reduced self-esteem can have severe long-term consequences, for the individual as well as for the organization, for example increased turnover cognitions/intentions ( Gardner and Pierce, 2001 ), decreased citizenship behavior ( Lee, 2003 ), and lower organizational commitment ( Van Dyne and Pierce, 2004 ). Hence, it is crucial to examine the consequences of goal-failure for self-esteem.

There is only a small body of research on the consequences of failure for a person’s self-esteem. In one study, it was found that participants who received poor exam scores showed reduced self-esteem ( Heatherton and Polivy, 1991 ). The same was found when failure was manipulated by assigning a puzzle task that was impossible to solve in the given time. Participants in the failure condition showed reduced self-esteem after the task. However, in both studies, there was no assigned high and specific goal. Both studies examined perceived failure on self-esteem and did not measure whether participants had a goal prior to the exam or the task. In another series of experiments, achievement goals were unconsciously activated with several methods ( Bongers et al., 2010 ). Participants then performed different tasks that were either easy or difficult to solve. Participants primed with achievement goals reported lower levels of self-esteem after the difficult tasks throughout all experiments. However, there were no assigned high and specific goals and success and failure were not manipulated, but depended on task difficulty condition, meaning that all participants in the difficult task condition were classified as having failed the goal, even though the goal to achieve was only unconscious and neither high nor specific.

Considering these previous findings, it becomes obvious that there are some indications that failure and more specifically goal-failure may have detrimental effects for a person’s self-esteem. The present research seeks to examine these effects when using high and specific goals. We propose that:

H2 : Individuals who fail their high and specific goal show lower self-esteem than individuals who attain their high and specific goal.

Third, we propose that goal-failure of a high and specific goal can reduce motivation for future tasks. Work-related motivation is one of the most common topics in organizational psychology and is described as “an umbrella term meant to capture the dense network of concepts and their interrelations that underlie observable changes in the initiations, direction, intensity, and persistence of voluntary action” ( Kanfer et al., 2017 , p. 339). Hence, we base our conceptualization of work motivation on the voluntarily change of intensity and persistence of an action toward any work-related activity. Work motivation affects how individuals develop their skills, the careers that they pursue, how they allocate their resources, and also affects how activities during work are tackled ( Kanfer et al., 2017 ). Setting high and specific goals is one of the best-known methods to increase work motivation. If the goal is failed, however, we propose that several other processes can be activated that are detrimental to motivation.

According to achievement goal theory, individuals with performance goals avoid challenges when confronted with obstacles, independently of their initial ability ( Dweck and Leggett, 1988 ). While trying to attain a performance goal, individuals feel that their abilities are measured. When goal-failure occurs, individuals perceive their abilities as inadequate and themselves as incompetent ( Dweck and Leggett, 1988 ). Individuals who view themselves as competent will react more positively to responsibilities than individuals who see themselves as incompetent ( Judge et al., 1997 ). Accordingly, individuals who perceive themselves as incompetent will react negatively to responsibilities and view themselves as less likely to succeed ( Judge et al., 1998 ). These individuals will react to failure with withdrawal of effort and reduced persistence ( Judge and Kammeyer-Mueller, 2004 ; Yeo and Neal, 2004 ). Considering the described definition of motivation as changes of intensity and persistence of voluntary actions, we conclude that goal-failure has the potential to reduce a person’s subsequent motivation.

There are few studies which have investigated the effects of goal-failure on subsequent motivation. Two studies manipulated goal type (learning vs. performance goals) and then used fictitious feedback of goal-failure to investigate the effects on subsequent motivation. In one study, students with a performance goal who received feedback of goal-failure performed worse in a subsequent task ( Cianci et al., 2010 ). In this study, subsequent performance was used as an indicator for changes in motivation. In another research, subjects with a performance goal avoided more difficult subsequent tasks after goal-failure ( Nichols et al., 1991 ). In this investigation, subsequent task choice after failure was used as an indicator of changes in motivation. In one study, participants completed a cycling task and received manipulated performance feedback about attaining or failing their assigned goal before completing a subsequent cognitive task ( Healy et al., 2015 ). There were no differences in subsequent performance between goal-failure and goal-attainment conditions. The authors concluded that a physical task may not have been suitable to manipulate goal-failure and that a physical task may enhance cognitive functioning, which could mask the detrimental effects of goal-failure. Again, these studies did not integrate high and specific goals. There is one exception, in which participants actually received a high goal prior to the task ( Vohs et al., 2013 ), but in this experiment, the goal was set so high that it was actually unattainable and thus, again, did not match the basic assumptions of goal-setting theory. It was found that after goal-failure, expectancy for future performance and interest in performing similar tasks, which were used as indicators of motivation, were lower.

Taken together, there is some evidence that goal-failure of performance goals can have undesirable effects on subsequent motivation. We seek to examine these effects when using high and specific goals that are the key element of goal-setting interventions. We propose that:

H3 : Individuals who fail their high and specific goal show lower motivation than individuals who attain their high and specific goal.

Overview of Studies

We conducted two experiments in which we manipulated goal-failure to examine the consequences of failure of a high and specific goal. To manipulate goal-failure, we used fictitious feedback in Study 1 and varied task difficulty in Study 2, so that goal-failure is independent from a person’s skill-level. In Study 1, we focused on the person’s affect, self-esteem, and subsequent self-reported motivation after receiving feedback of goal-failure compared to feedback of goal-attainment or no feedback. Study 2 aimed at replicating the effects found in Study 1 and examined motivation more objectively by using task choice after initial failure as a behavioral measure of motivation.

Study 1 Method

Study 1 was an online-experiment with a one-factor between-subjects design. The between-subjects factor was feedback type with three conditions: goal attained vs. goal failed vs. no feedback (control condition). Participants all received the same high and specific goal in an intelligence test and afterward a fictitious feedback whether they attained that goal or not (or no feedback at all in the control condition; the feedback is pictured in Table 1 ). As dependent variables, we measured affect, self-esteem, and subsequent motivation. The same variables were assessed before the task (baseline) and after receiving the feedback.

Table 1 . Fictitious feedback of goal-attainment/goal-failure in Study 1.

Participants and Procedure

We computed our required sample size with G * Power, optimal sample size is 111 (for between-subjects ANOVAs with three groups of Cohen’s f =0.3, type-I error probability α =0.05, and power 1-β=0.80, according to G * Power; Faul et al., 2007 ). Participants were 185 volunteers (93.5% female). Participants were randomly recruited on different online-platforms and were told that they would have the chance to test intelligence-test questions that can appear in assessment-centers. Participation was completely voluntarily; there was no payment involved. Majority of participants were employees (62.4%) of various professions (16.8% public service). Participants were not paid for participation; however, students (30.3%) received course credit if needed (only applicable to psychology students). Mean age was 28.01years ( SD =7.0). All participants were randomly assigned to experimental conditions by using a programmed randomization filter, resulting in 67 subjects in the goal-attainment condition [34.6% female; 27.73 ( SD =7.75) years old; 13.0% high school absolvent or higher; 17.3% employees; and 9.7% students], 53 subjects in the goal-failure condition [25.4% female; 28.58 ( SD =6.90) years old; 11.9% high school absolvent or higher; 16.2% employees; and 7.0% students], and 65 subjects in the no-feedback control condition [33.5% female; 27.83 ( SD =6.73) years old; 14.1% high school absolvent or higher; 17.9% employees; and 13.5% students].

After giving their consent and confirming that they are of legal age, participants answered an online-questionnaire. In this questionnaire, we assessed demographics, covariates, and baseline data for affect, self-esteem, and motivation. Participants then all received the high and specific goal to solve seven out of 10 upcoming intelligence test items. We asked how committed participants were to that goal. Participants then solved the 10 intelligence test items. After completion, participants received fictitious feedback (or no feedback in the control condition) depending on their experimental condition. Afterwards, we assessed the post-measures for affect, self-esteem, and motivation as well as perception of the goal and the feedback as manipulation checks. All study variables were assessed immediately before or after the tasks, there were no breaks in between. Finally, participants were debriefed and dismissed.

Intelligence Test Task

In Study 1, we used 10 intelligence test items from the freely available General Intelligence-Test by Satow (2017) . These 10 items included five matrices that test spatial imagination and five number sequences that test mathematical-logical abilities. We used this task because the items all have a medium difficulty of around 0.5 (which means an item difficulty of around 50%) and participants cannot unambiguously tell if they correctly solved an item. For that reason, participants cannot be sure whether they solved the items correctly or not, which is essential for using fictitious feedback.

Dependent Variables

All scales that were originally in English were translated into German and then back-translated into English. Exact Cronbach’s α for all conditions and measurement times are listed in Table 2 .

Table 2 . Cronbach’s α for feedback type conditions and measurement times.

Affect was assessed with a short-scale version ( Wilhelm and Schoebi, 2007 ) of the Multidimensional Mood State Questionnaire (MDMQ) by Steyer et al. (1997) . The short-scale consists of six bipolar items (e.g., “tired – awake,” “tense – relaxed,” and Cronbach’s α ranged from 0.88 to 0.89) with a seven-point scale, both endpoints labeled with “ very .”

Self-Esteem

State self-esteem was assessed with the subscale performance of the State-Self-Esteem Scale by Heatherton and Polivy (1991) consisting of five items. For example, one item was “I feel confident about my abilities.” Cronbach’s α ranged from 0.80 to 0.85. The response scale ranged from 1 ( strongly disagree ) to 5 ( strongly agree ).

Motivation was assessed with three self-developed items that are based on common scales for measuring motivation. Items were “I approach even difficult tasks with motivation,” “I try everything to attain my goals,” and “When I cannot solve difficult tasks immediately, I lose interest.” Cronbach’s α ranged from 0.71 to 0.74. The response scale ranged from 1 ( strongly disagree ) to 5 ( strongly agree ).

Control Variable

We measured goal-commitment as a control variable. Goal-commitment is one of the most influential moderators of the goal-performance relationship ( Locke and Latham, 1990 ) and thus may affect the consequences of failure of a high and specific goal.

Goal-Commitment

Goal-commitment was assessed with three items by Hollenbeck et al. (1989) that were most appropriate for the goal-setting context. For example, one item was “I am strongly committed to this goal.” Cronbach’s α was 0.84. The response scale ranged from 1 ( strongly disagree ) to 7 ( strongly agree ). There were no pre-experimental differences between the groups in goal-commitment, F (2,182)=1.46, p =0.24, and η 2 =0.02.

Manipulation Checks

We used several manipulation checks to make sure participants adopted the assigned high and specific goal and also to test whether the manipulation of feedback type was successful. We asked participants to repeat their assigned goal directly after the task. One hundred seventy-two participants correctly identified the assigned goal (93%). We also asked participants to rate the assigned goal on a five-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (not at all) to 5 (very). Participants perceived the assigned goal as medium to high ( M =3.62, SD =0.83), difficult ( M =3.61, SD =0.91), reasonable ( M =3.46, SD =0.98), and fair ( M =3.56, SD =0.93). We kept participants who did not correctly identify the goal in our analyses, because further ratings indicated that all participants perceived the goal as intended. Additionally, we checked whether the fictitious feedback was perceived as credible. Participants rated the feedback as credible ( M =3.81, SD =1.96). There were no significant differences between the groups, F (2,144) =0.62, p =0.54, and η 2 =0.01 (goal-failure condition: M =3.66, SD =1.87; goal-attainment condition: M =3.72, SD =2.03).

Study 1 Results and Discussion

Descriptive statistics and intercorrelations of study variables.

Table 3 lists the means, SDs, and correlations of all study variables. All study variables correlated in an expected manner, for example, the baseline measures correlated highly with the post-measures. In preliminary analyses, we made sure that there were no baseline differences in any of the study variables, including affect [ F (2,182)=0.08, p =0.92, and η 2 =0.001], self-esteem [ F (2,182)=0.02, p =0.98, and η 2 =0.00], motivation [ F (2,182)=0.14, p =0.87, and η 2 =0.002], or goal-commitment [ F (2,182)=1.46, p =0.24, and η 2 =0.02]. We also centered and included goal-commitment, gender, and age in our analyses. These variables did not change our results when included as covariates. We, therefore, report results of analyses without these covariates.

Table 3 . Descriptive statistics and bivariate correlations Study 1.

Main Effects of Goal-Failure on Affect, Self-Esteem, and Motivation

We tested hypotheses using separate one-way ANCOVAs with centered baseline measures included as a covariate and with the between-subjects factor feedback type (three levels: goal attained, goal failed, and no feedback) for each dependent variable. We used post-hoc tests to compare the goal-failure condition with the goal-attainment condition as this comparison reflects our hypotheses.

Hypothesis 1 predicted that individuals who fail the high and specific goal will show a more negative affect than individuals who attain the high and specific goal. An ANCOVA showed a significant main effect of feedback type on affect, F (2,181)=13.44, p <0.001, and η 2 =0.13. As planned comparisons indicated, in line with what we predicted, affect was more negative for participants who failed the goal than for participants who attained the goal. There was a statistically significant difference in affect between the goal-failure condition ( M =3.78, SD =1.47) and the goal-attainment condition ( M =4.46, SD =1.40) of 0.67 ( SE =0.15), t (2,181)=4.47, p <0.001, and d =0.48. Thus, Hypothesis 1 was supported. The effect is depicted in Figure 1A . As illustrated, affect increased for participants who attained the goal, while it decreased for participants who failed the goal. Participants in the control condition showed a pattern similar to that of participants who failed the goal.

Figure 1 . Effects of feedback type on affect (A) , self-esteem (B) , and motivation (C) in Study 1.

Hypothesis 2 assumed that individuals who fail the high and specific goal will show lower self-esteem than individuals who attain the high and specific goal. An ANCOVA showed that there was no significant main effect of feedback type on self-esteem, F (2,181)=2.35, p =0.10, and η 2 =0.03. However, as planned comparisons indicated, in line with what we predicted, self-esteem was lower for participants who failed the goal than for participants who attained the goal. There was a statistically significant difference in self-esteem between the goal-failure condition ( M =3.49, SD =1.01) and the goal-attainment condition ( M =3.70, SD =0.90) of 0.22 ( SE =0.10), t (2,181)=2.16, p <0.05, d =0.22. Hypothesis 2 was supported. The effect is depicted in Figure 1B . As illustrated, self-esteem stayed at the same level for participants who attained the goal, while it was reduced for participants who failed the goal. Self-esteem levels for participants in the control conditions were in between the other two groups.

Hypothesis 3 assumed that individuals who fail the high and specific goal will show lower motivation than individuals who attain the high and specific goal. An ANCOVA showed that there was no significant main effect of feedback type on motivation, F (2,181)=2.32, p =0.10, and η 2 =0.03. However, planned comparisons indicated, in line with what we predicted that motivation was lower for participants who failed the assigned goal than for participants who attained the assigned goal. There was a statistically significant difference in motivation between the goal-failure condition ( M =3.41, SD =1.03) and the goal-attainment condition ( M =3.62, SD =0.92) of 0.21 ( SE =0.10), t (2,181)=2.11, p <0.05, d =0.22. Thus, Hypothesis 3 was supported. The effect is depicted in Figure 1C . As illustrated, motivation stayed at the same level for participants who attained the goal, while it was reduced for participants who failed the goal. Motivation levels for participants in the control conditions were in between the other two groups.

In sum, all hypotheses were supported. As predicted, affect was more negative and self-esteem and motivation were reduced when the high and specific goal was failed. Interestingly, participants who received no feedback at all showed similar tendencies throughout all dependent variables as participants who failed the goal. We assume that since we chose task items with medium difficulty, participants in the no-feedback condition were not sure about their performance and assumed that they did not attain the high and specific goal; hence, they showed similar tendencies as the participants who failed the goal. We conclude that the task we used was indeed ambiguous as we intended and the uncertainty about their own performance lead to participants’ conclusion. However, to avoid uncertainty of their performance and also being dependent of the credibility of the fictitious feedback, we sought to manipulate actual performance in a second study, rather than just manipulating the feedback about the performance. Moreover, feedback in day-to-day life reflects actual performance and is not fictitious. To manipulate actual performance, we manipulated task difficulty in Study 2, so that participants can unambiguously tell how they performed and whether they attained or failed the goal. Furthermore, we sought to test the immediate behavioral effects after failure of a high and specific goal. For that reason, we used a behavioral measure of motivation in Study 2. We will describe Study 2 in detail in the following section.

Study 2 Method

Study 2 was a laboratory experiment with a one-factor between subjects design. Between-subjects factor was goal-failure with two conditions: goal attained vs. goal failed. Participants all received a high and specific goal how many matrices they should solve in a first round. Goal-failure was manipulated through task difficulty. In a second round, participants then were asked to choose between two alternatives of the task with different difficulties. Dependent variables were motivation (task choice) in the second round as well as affect and self-esteem. Affect and self-esteem were assessed before the first round (baseline) and after the second round.

We computed our required sample size with G * Power, optimal sample size is 90 (for between-subjects ANOVAs with two groups of Cohen’s f =0.3, type-I error probability α =0.05, and power 1-β=0.80, according to G * Power; Faul et al., 2007 ). Participants were 86 volunteers (67.4% female; 61.2% employees; and 55.4% high school graduation or higher) who were recruited at several public places throughout the city at which the authors’ university is located. Participants were not paid for participation, but were able to win chocolate chips depending on their performance. Mean age was 36.70 years ( SD =15.12). All participants were randomly assigned to experimental conditions by using a common randomization table, resulting in 41 subjects in the goal-attainment condition and 45 subjects in the goal-failure condition.

After giving their consent and confirming that they are of legal age, participants answered a first paper-pencil questionnaire. In this questionnaire, we assessed demographics, covariates, and baseline data for affect and self-esteem. Participants then all received the high and specific goal to solve four out of five matrices in the upcoming “adding-to-ten” task. Participants then tried to solve the five matrices. Participants in the goal-attainment condition received matrices that were so easy that any individual with a basic skill-level in arithmetic can solve them in the given amount of time to make sure that they all attain the assigned goal. Participants in the goal-failure condition received matrices that were so difficult that it was impossible to solve them in the given amount of time to make sure that they all fail the assigned goal. We tested whether the respective task-difficulty would lead to attaining or failing the goal in pilot studies and adjusted it accordingly. Hence, goal-failure was manipulated independently from an individual’s skill-level and solely based on our experimental manipulation of task difficulty. As intended, all participants attained or failed the assigned goal corresponding to our manipulation. After that first round, participants were asked to choose between two alternatives of the previous task with different levels of difficulty (medium vs. high, connected with different rewards). After completing that second round, we assessed the post-measures for affect and self-esteem and the manipulation check. Finally, participants received their reward of their respective amount of chocolate chips (depending on how many matrices they had solved in the second round), were debriefed and dismissed.

Adding-to-Ten Task

In Study 2, we used the “adding-to-ten” task which has been used in several other studies (on the effects of goal-setting on unethical behavior) before (e.g., Mazar et al., 2008 ; Welsh and Ordóñez, 2014 ; Keith, 2018 ). The original task consists of matrices with 12 numbers with two decimal places of which two numbers sum up to 10. We used this task because it allows the respondents to unambiguously evaluate if they had solved the question correctly and because it is not viewed as one reflecting math ability ( Mazar et al., 2008 ). In this task, participants recognize their actual performance and are not dependent on our feedback. For this study, we developed three different levels of difficulty. We varied the level of difficulty by adding more columns or more decimal places. We conducted a preliminary study to test our matrices for difficulty. The final matrices had nine numbers with one decimal place for the very easy matrices, 12 numbers with two decimal places (as in the original) for the medium difficult matrices, and 36 numbers with three decimal places for the very difficult matrices (for an example, see Figure 2 ). We also measured the time it took participants to solve the very easy matrices in a preliminary study. Since participants solved five very easy matrices in less than 2min, we set the high and specific goal at four out of five matrices in 2min in the goal-attainment condition. The same goal applied to the very difficult matrices in the goal-failure condition because we expected it to be impossible to solve those in 2min. In the second round, participants had another 2min to solve as many matrices as possible.

Figure 2 . Examples for easy (top panel), medium (middle panel), and difficult (bottom panel) matrices in the “adding-to-ten” task.

All Scales that were originally in English were translated into German and then back-translated into English. Exact Cronbach’s α for all conditions and measurement times is listed in Table 4 .

Table 4 . Cronbach’s α for goal-failure conditions and measurement times.

Motivaton (Task Choice)

Motivation was measured by task choice in the second round. Participants were asked to choose between two alternatives: To solve medium difficult matrices, receiving one chocolate for every correctly solved matrix; or to solve very difficult matrices, receiving three chocolates for every correctly solved matrix. Hence, the difficult matrices were connected with a large reward, while the medium difficult matrices were connected with a small reward. We included this payoff to have an incentive to choose the difficult matrices. Choosing the difficult matrices indicated higher motivation. Task choice was measured as choice for medium difficult matrices (0=medium difficulty) or choice for difficult matrices (1=high difficulty).

Affect was assessed with the same scale used in Study 1. Cronbach’s α ranged from 0.65 to 0.75.

State self-esteem was assessed with the same scale used in Study 1. Cronbach’s α was 0.70 at both times.

Control Variables

We measured self-efficacy, risk-taking, and perceived mental arithmetic ability as control variables. Self-efficacy is, besides self-esteem, considered as one of the four core traits that constitute core self-evaluations ( Bono and Judge, 2003 ). Hence, self-efficacy is expected to correlate substantially with self-esteem and as a trait may affect the consequences of goal-failure. Risk-taking was measured because it may affect which task participants choose in the second round. Mental arithmetic ability may affect how well participants perform in the “adding-to-ten” task. There were no pre-experimental differences between the groups in any of the control variables.

Self-Efficacy

Self-efficacy was assessed with the German version of the General Self-Efficacy Short Scale (ASKU) by Beierlein et al. (2012) . The scale consists of three items, for example, “I can rely on my own abilities in difficult situations.” Cronbach’s α was 0.81. The response scale ranged from 1 ( strongly disagree ) to 5 ( strongly agree ).

Willingness for Risk-Taking

Willingness for risk-taking was assessed with the subscale “risk-taking” from the TCU Adolescent Social Functioning Form by the TCU Institute of Behavioral Research (2010) , consisting of seven items. For example, one item was “You like taking risks.” Cronbach’s α was 0.84. The response scale ranged from 1 ( strongly disagree ) to 5 ( strongly agree ).

Perceived Mental Arithmetic

Perceived mental arithmetic ability was assessed with the subscale “attitude to fast mental arithmetic” from the “Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study” (TIMSS) student questionnaire by Wendt et al. (2017) , consisting of six items. For example, one item was “Usually, I am very good at fast mental arithmetic.” Cronbach’s α was 0.88. The response scale ranged from 1 ( strongly disagree ) to 4 ( strongly agree ).

We used two manipulation checks to make sure that participants had adopted the assigned high and specific goal and that the manipulation of goal-failure was successful. We asked participants to repeat their assigned goal directly after the task. Seventy-four participants correctly identified the assigned goal (86%). We also asked participants if they attained or failed the assigned goal. All 86 participants correctly indicated that they attained the goal in the goal-attainment condition or failed the goal in the goal-failure condition. Hence, manipulation of goal-failure was successful.

Study 2 Results and Discussion

Table 5 lists the means, SDs, and correlations of all study variables. All study variables correlated in an expected manner. Experimental condition correlated highly with motivation (task choice), affect, and also with self-esteem. In preliminary analyses, we made sure that there were no baseline differences in any of the study variables, including affect [ t (84)=1.72, p =0.09, and d =0.37], self-esteem [ t (84)=0.09, p =0.93, and d =0.03], self-efficacy [ t (84)=1.67, p =0.10, and d =0.36], risk-taking [ t (84)=−1.12, p =0.27, and d =0.24], or perceived mental arithmetic ability [ t (84)=−0.43, p =0.67, and d =0.09]. Some covariates seemed to correlate highly with the dependent variables, for example perceived mental arithmetic ability with motivation (task choice) or self-efficacy with self-esteem. For that reason, we centered and included these covariates in our analyses. These variables did not change our results when included as covariates. We, therefore, report results of analyses without these covariates.

Table 5 . Descriptive statistics and bivariate correlations Study 2.

Main Effects of Goal-Failure on Affect, Self-Esteem, and Motivation (Task Choice)

We tested Hypotheses 1 and 2 using separate one-way ANCOVAs with centered baseline measure included as a covariate and with the between-subjects factor goal-failure for each dependent variable. We tested Hypothesis 3 using logistic regression with goal-failure (two levels: goal attained, goal failed) as the between-subjects factor and (motivation) task choice as dependent variable since logistic regression is recommended for dichotomous dependent variables ( Mood, 2010 ).

Hypothesis 1 assumed that individuals who fail their assigned high and specific goal will show a more negative affect than individuals who attain their assigned high and specific goal. An ANCOVA showed a significant main effect of goal-failure on affect, F (1,83)=5.64, p <0.05, η 2 =0.06, and d =0.37. Participants who failed their goal ( M =3.49, SD =1.18) showed a significantly more negative affect than participants who attained their goal ( M =3.94, SD =1.24). Hence, Hypothesis 1 was supported. The effect is depicted in Figure 3A . As illustrated, affect increased for participants who attained the goal, while it decreased for participants who failed the goal.

Figure 3 . Effects of goal-failure on affect (A) , self-esteem (B) , and motivation task choice (C) in Study 2.

Hypothesis 2 assumed that individuals who fail their assigned high and specific goal will show lower self-esteem than individuals who attain their assigned high and specific goal. An ANCOVA showed a significant main effect of goal-failure on self-esteem, F (1,83)=7.10, p <0.01, η 2 =0.08, and d =0.42. Participants who failed their goal ( M =3.77, SD =0.58) showed significantly lower self-esteem than participants who attained their goal ( M =4.02, SD =0.61). Hence, Hypothesis 2 was supported. The effect is depicted in Figure 3B . As illustrated, self-esteem stayed at the same level for participants who attained the goal, while it decreased for participants who failed the goal.

Hypothesis 3 assumed that individuals who fail their assigned high and specific goal will show lower motivation than individuals who attain their assigned high and specific goal. We used task choice as a behavioral indicator of motivation. A logistic regression showed that goal-failure is a significant predictor of task choice, χ 2 (1)=27.19, p <0.001, OR=13.87, d =1.45, 95%-CI(4.5, 42.76)], with a regression coefficient of −0.26. The model explained 37.2% (Nagelkerke R 2 ) of the variance in task choice and correctly classified 76.7% of cases. Goal-failure was associated with a decreased likelihood of choosing the more difficult task. In the goal-attainment condition, 15 participants (36.6%) chose the medium difficult task and 26 participants (63.4%) chose the highly difficult task. In the goal-failure condition, 40 participants (88.9%) chose the medium difficult task and only five participants (11.1%) chose the highly difficult task. Hence, Hypothesis 3 was supported. The results are depicted in Figure 3C .

In sum, the results of Study 2 replicate and extend the findings of our previous study. Specifically, we found support for the harmful effect of goal-failure on affect and self-esteem. As expected, after goal-failure participants showed decreased affect and self-esteem, while after goal-attainment participants showed the same or slightly higher levels of affect and self-esteem. Furthermore, we demonstrated that goal-failure affects subsequent motivation in terms of task choice. After goal-failure, the majority of participants chose the easier task and avoided the challenging task.

General Discussion

Setting high and specific goals has long been recommended as one of the most effective motivational and leadership tools. Yet, setting high performance goals naturally leads to a considerable group of individuals who will fail that goal. Past research on goal-failure indicates that it can cause a variety of undesirable and potentially harmful effects, for the individual as well as for organizations; however, to our knowledge, there is little to no research that combines research on failure with high and specific goals that are the focus of goal-setting theory. Our research aimed at shedding light on this important topic by examining the effects of failing a high and specific goal on affect, self-esteem, and motivation; factors which may have crucial implications for organizations.

We conducted two studies to test for the expected detrimental effects of failure of a high and specific goal on affect, self-esteem, and motivation. Study 1 showed goal-failure of the assigned high and specific goal lead to a decrease in affect, self-esteem, and motivation. We replicated these effects in Study 2 and were able to show the behavioral consequences of the decreased motivation through task choice. In sum, we were able to show that the failure of a high and specific goal can trigger potentially harmful consequences for self-related factors and can hinder a person from tackling new challenges. We discuss theoretical and practical implications, limitations, and future directions of all the findings in the following sections.

Theoretical and Practical Implications

Our findings are an important contribution to research on goal-setting theory by combining basic assumptions of achievement goal theory with goal-setting theory. Goal-setting theory focuses on those who attain the high and specific goal and states a so-called “high performance cycle” in which individuals are satisfied with their performance and enter an ever-increasing cycle of increased motivation and performance ( Locke and Latham, 1990 , 2002 ). Even though cautionary remarks have always been made about potential pitfalls when applying goal-setting ( Locke and Latham, 2002 ), the high risk of failing that goal is widely overlooked. One theory that takes the possibility of goal-failure into account is achievement goal theory. Achievement goal theory states that goals can be framed as performance goals or learning goals. According to achievement goal theory, performance goals set an external standard. Individuals who fail that standard perceive their skills as fixed, thus, failing implies that their abilities are insufficient ( Dweck and Leggett, 1988 ). Hence, failing of a performance goal poses a threat for the self. Individuals will perceive themselves as incapable after failing a performance goal, which can be damaging for their self-image. The high and specific goals used in goal-setting interventions are usually framed as performance goals, for example, to produce a certain amount of products, to sell a certain amount, or to enroll a certain number of customers. Combining the assumptions of both theories, one can conclude that failure of a high and specific goal has the potential to pose a threat for a person’s self. We were able to confirm this notion and found that failing a high and specific goal indeed harmed self-related factors.

Our results imply that when using goal-setting interventions in organizations, potentially harmful long-term effects should be considered. Setting high and specific goals is a very commonly used motivational tool because organizations often solely focus on the immediate results, especially on performance. However, setting high and specific goals can have serious detrimental consequences. In recent years, several undesirable effects of high and specific goals have been discussed. For example, a number of studies have explored the effects of goal-setting on unethical behavior (e.g., lying and cheating). The assumption is that individual’s attention focus is narrowed on attaining the goal, so that moral standards are ignored ( Schweitzer et al., 2004 ; Ordóñez et al., 2009 ; Welsh and Ordóñez, 2014 ). Unethical behaviors may be particularly likely when attaining the goal is tied to monetary rewards ( Jensen, 2003 ). Furthermore, some researchers argue that high and specific goals make destructive leadership more likely by increasing leaders’ stress to meet deadlines ( Bardes and Piccolo, 2010 ).

Our findings show that failure of a high and specific goal can harm a person’s self and motivation. These consequences have the potential to harm not only the employee but also the organization’s results in the long-run. Our results also implicate that failure of a high and specific goal can have immediate behavioral consequences and can discourage employees from engaging in new challenges; something employees face daily in their everyday life. We recommend that organizations should find ways to sensitize supervisors and employees for the potential undesirable effects when setting high and specific goals and find ways to counteract them.

Limitations and Future Research

A first limitation of this research is that we did not test the effects of goal-failure in an actual work-setting. Hence, we cannot be sure about the external validity of the findings. However, Study 2 was conducted in the field, at several public places with a rather heterogeneous sample of mainly working adults. Study 2 also allowed a face-to-face setting, which increases psychological realism. Given the large body of converging findings across experimental laboratory and field research on goal-setting, we assume that the used experimental designs should be suited for our investigations. Still, our experimental research should be complemented by field studies in actual work-settings, preferably by longitudinal studies that investigate long-term effects of goal-setting and goal-failure.

A second limitation of our research is that we solely used self-reports to measure the person’s affect and self-esteem. To generalize the found effects, other components of a person’s well-being should be examined, for example an individual’s physical well-being and somatic health. Research showed that the fulfillment of one’s goals plays an important role when coping with stressful events ( Emmons and Kaiser, 1996 ). If a person is repeatedly faced with obstacles blocking the attainment of their goals, the person may be particularly susceptible to experiences of helplessness, which are associated with health risks ( Brunstein et al., 1998 ). Future research is needed to examine the consequences of goal-failure for a person’s physical and mental health. In addition, we only measured participants’ general affect rather than discrete emotions. It is possible that discrete emotions, like anger, anxiety, or depression, provide more information on the outcomes of the goal process than generalized affect ( Plemmons and Weiss, 2013 ). We suggest that future research examines the role of discrete emotions for processes induced by goal-failure.

Another limitation of our research is that we used a self-developed scale for measuring motivation in Study 1. Therefore, we have no information about the validity of our scale. However, we used this scale because the common validated motivation scales usually measure a more general attitude towards work, while we sought to measure motivational change toward certain work tasks. In Study 2, we included a behavioral measure of that motivational change by measuring task-choice, which is a common behavioral measure of work motivation ( Thomas and Ward, 1983 ; Nicholls, 1984 ). Thereby, we were able to combine attitudinal and behavioral measures of motivation. We suggest that these findings should be complemented by a field study with an actual work task.

An additional limitation is that we were not able to examine long-term effects of failure of high and specific goals. In organizations, individuals are confronted with new goals constantly, even if they were not able to attain previous goals. Consecutive failure of high and specific goals might induce a downward spiral of harmful consequences which, in the long-run, damage the organizational outcomes, for example, reduced OCB, increased absenteeism, and disengagement from challenging tasks and burnout ( Seo and Ilies, 2009 ; Ybema et al., 2010 ; Shi et al., 2013 ; Welsh et al., 2020 ). There are few studies which have investigated the effects of setting high and specific goals consecutively ( Welsh and Ordóñez, 2014 ; Keith, 2018 ). For example, it was found that consecutive goal-setting can have detrimental effects on an individual’s goal-commitment and perceived fairness ( Keith, 2018 ). In another study, consecutive performance goals increased unethical behavior by depleting self-regulatory resources ( Welsh and Ordóñez, 2014 ). Future research should investigate the long-term consequences of failure of a high and specific goal or consecutive failure.

Furthermore, it has to be noted that our sample in Study 1 consisted mainly of female participants (93.5%). Past research found that in an experiment, after failure, male participants chose more difficult goals in a subsequent task than did female participants ( Levy and Baumgardner, 1991 ). Additionally, it was found that individuals higher in self-esteem chose more difficult goals. We were able to control for confounding effects of base self-esteem and self-efficacy and both variables did not affect our results, which is consistent with other research on self-esteem and goal-choice ( Hollenbeck and Brief, 1987 ). We cannot be certain that our results also apply to male individuals; however, gender did not affect our results in Study 2 and past research suggests that unambiguous feedback to insure clear failure or success on a task eliminates gender differences in future success expectancies ( Feather and Simon, 1973 ; McMahon, 1973 ; Lenney, 1977 ). Nevertheless, future research should replicate our findings with male individuals to rule out possible gender differences.

Lastly, future research should explore methods to counteract the found undesirable effects. Drawing from achievement goal theory, one possible method may be goal-framing. While performance goals emphasize the attainment of an externally-set standard, learning goals emphasize increasing the own competence or mastering something new. When individuals fail a learning goal, they do not blame the failure on themselves, since they view their skills as changeable ( Dweck and Leggett, 1988 ; Welsh et al., 2019 ). Thus, failure of a high and specific learning goal should not pose a threat for a person’s self and framing the goal as a learning goal may counteract the found undesirable effects.

A second possible method to counteract these undesirable effects is to let employees experience success. Past research found that success on previous tasks may breed success on subsequent tasks ( Fan et al., 2020 ). When employees attain easy goals on previous tasks, goal-commitment increases through enactive mastery. As a result, employees increase their personally-set goals and are able to self-motivate for upcoming tasks. Hence, organizations could increase employee’s confidence and enable mastery by setting easy goals first, to create experiences of success.

A third possible method for counteracting the undesirable effects is to use self-regulatory strategies to increase one’s self-control to engage in aversive tasks. Research on the topic found that individuals who focused on the positive consequences of an aversive activity or the negative consequences for not performing it, increased their perceived self-regulatory success. Furthermore, setting goals for the activity and emotion regulation also increased self-control ( Hennecke et al., 2019 ). Hence, when failure experiences harm an employee’s motivation and well-being, self-regulatory strategies may be used to restore those resources for subsequent tasks. Especially evocation of negative affect can increase and prolong rumination after failure experiences, which in turn can increase negative affect ( Jones et al., 2013 ). There are various strategies that can be used to prevent detrimental effects on one’s affect. For example, an employee might use attentional deployment or focus on other aspects. After the affective state is already affected, an employee might regulate their emotions by reappraisal ( Boss and Sims Jr., 2008 ). Thus, we recommend the use of self-regulatory and emotion regulation strategies to replenish those resources, stay persistent, and counteract effects after goal-failure.

A final strategy for counteracting undesirable effects after goal-failure might be to positively affect goal striving as well as goal revision. It has been shown that high self-efficacy and confidence in the own abilities can facilitate successful goal striving ( Wolf et al., 2018 ). Furthermore, research found that individuals use performance-goal discrepancies to make their goal revision decisions. It was found that large discrepancies, especially over a longer period of time, led to a downward revision of their goal ( Donovan and Williams, 2003 ). Accordingly, experiences of success lead to an upward revision of their goal. Considering the previously mentioned methods to enable mastery and to create experiences of success, we assume that these methods are also suitable to positively affect goal striving and goal revision and in turn have the potential to counteract detrimental effects after goal-failure.

Our research contributes to research and practice of goal-setting by explicitly integrating research on failure with the basic recommendation of goal-setting theory and achievement goal theory. We were able to elucidate a highly possible downside of goal-setting interventions by showing that the failure of a high and specific goal can damage self-related factors like affect, self-esteem, and motivation and can also have subsequent behavioral consequences. These short-term consequences may lead to serious long-term consequences, especially when goals are failed consecutively and the person has no resources to counteract the effects. For that reason, employers need to be sensitized for the high possibility of failing a high and specific goal when using goal-setting as a motivational and leadership tool and need to take actions to counteract these undesirable effects, for example with self-regulatory or emotion regulation strategies or by experiences of success.

Data Availability Statement

The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.

Ethics Statement

Study 1 involving human participants was reviewed and approved by the Ethics committee of the Technical University of Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany. Study 2 followed the same guidelines. The participants provided their written informed consent to participate in the studies.

Author Contributions

JH will have first authorship of this manuscript, and will also be serving as the corresponding author. The author listed in the byline has agreed to the byline order and to the submission of the manuscript in this form. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

This research was supported by grant from the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, grant no. KE 1377/5–1).

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher’s Note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Acknowledgments

We thank Anabela Dubravac, Paula Lanz and Lea Strutt for data collection.

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Keywords: goal-setting theory, goal-failure, affect, self-esteem, motivation, task choice

Citation: Höpfner J and Keith N (2021) Goal Missed, Self Hit: Goal-Setting, Goal-Failure, and Their Affective, Motivational, and Behavioral Consequences. Front. Psychol . 12:704790. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.704790

Received: 03 May 2021; Accepted: 19 August 2021; Published: 21 September 2021.

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Copyright © 2021 Höpfner and Keith. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Jessica Höpfner, [email protected]

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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Article contents

Goal setting in sport and performance.

• Laura Healy , Laura Healy Department of Sports Science, Nottingham Trent University
• Alison Tincknell-Smith Alison Tincknell-Smith Department for Health, University of Bath
• , and  Nikos Ntoumanis Nikos Ntoumanis School of Psychology, Curtin University
• https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190236557.013.152
• Published online: 20 December 2018

Within sporting contexts, goal setting is a commonly used technique that can lead to enhanced performance. Recommendations for goal setting have been widely embraced in sport and performance settings by researchers, practitioners, athletes, and coaches. However, it could be argued that these recommendations are overly simplistic, and that a lack of critical commentary in the sporting literature fails to acknowledge the complexity of goal setting in practice. For example, there has been limited acknowledgement within the applied recommendations of important factors such as personal differences with those individuals setting goals, contextual and environmental factors, and the characteristics of goals being pursed. Equally, the focus of goal setting research and practice has predominantly been on goal progress or goal attainment, thus overlooking the wider benefits of effective goal pursuit on additional aspects such as well-being. Similarly, the interactions between these factors has gained little attention with the academic literature or applied recommendations. This may result in diminished effectiveness of goal setting for athletes, and ultimately lead to sub-optimal performance and well-being.

Critical and comprehensive reviews of the literature are timely and necessary, in order to develop a deeper understanding of goal setting in sport and performance. Combining research from both within sport and from theorists examining goals within other contexts can enhance our understanding of how to promote and support adaptive goal pursuit within sport and performance. Overall, this may lead to more appropriate and useful recommendations for researchers, athletes, coaches, and applied practitioners, ensuring that goal setting can be an effective technique for a range of individuals within sport and performance contexts.

• goal setting
• goal pursuit
• goal motives
• goal self-regulation
• goal difficulty
• individual differences
• sport psychology
• goal disengagement

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How To Write A Powerful Essay On Achieving Goals (+ Example)

Goal setting is a useful strategy to get the most out of life and set yourself up for success. However, there are many things to remember regarding proper goal setting and achievement. When writing a blm argumentative essay , it’s important to provide context on the history of the Black Lives Matter movement and the issues it seeks to address. This can help the reader understand the significance of the essay’s thesis and arguments. Let’s get to grips with the process of goal setting and come up with a powerful essay on achieving goals.

Structuring Your Essay on Achieving Goals:

How to write an introduction, how to write the main body of your essay, how to write a conclusion, example of an essay about achieving your goals, the basics of setting and achieving goals.

A goal should be measurable because you need to keep your finger on the pulse and know where you’re at. For instance, a test or assessment score can provide evidence that you have reached your goal.

Ready to write an essay about achieving goals?

Hopefully, the information in the article has given you the basics to help you write a powerful essay on achieving goals. I also hope that this article has helped you think about how you can work toward achieving your own goals. There are many great books about the science of goal achievement. I especially recommend ones written by Brian Tracy , as they have helped me a great deal in my pursuit of happiness . You can also create an engaging presentation about achieving goals and objectives using this  goal presentation template . Next up, you may want to explore an ultimate guide to writing expository essays .

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Purdue Online Writing Lab Purdue OWL® College of Liberal Arts

Setting Goals & Staying Motivated 

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This vidcast talks about how to set goals and how to maintain motivation for long writing tasks. When setting goals for a writing project, it is important to think about goals for the entire project and also goals for specific writing times. These latter goals should be specific, measurable, and manageable within the time allotted for writing. The section on motivation shares ideas for boosting motivation over the course of a long writing project. The handouts on goal-setting and staying productive, as well as the scholarly writing inventory, complement the material in this vidcast and should be used in conjunction with it. 

Note: Closed-captioning and a full  transcript  are available for this vidcast. 

Handouts 

Goal-Setting for your Personal Intensive Writing Experience (IWE) | [PDF]

This handout guides writers through the important process of goal-setting for the personal Intensive Writing Experience. Specifically, it talks about how to (1) formulate specific, measurable, and reasonable writing goals, (2) set an overall IWE goal, (3) break up the overall goal into smaller, daily goals, and (4) break up daily goals into smaller goals for individual writing sessions. Writers are prompted to clear their head of distracting thoughts before each writing session and, after each session, to debrief on their progress and recalibrate goals as needed. 

Scholarly Writing Inventory (PDF) 

This questionnaire helps writers identify and inventory their personal strengths and weaknesses as scholarly writers. Specifically, writers are prompted to answer questions pertaining to (1) the emotional/psychological aspects of writing, (2) writing routines, (3) research, (4) organization, (5) citation, (6) mechanics, (7) social support, and (8) access to help. By completing this questionnaire, scholarly writers will find themselves in a better position to build upon their strengths and address their weaknesses. 

Stay ing Productive for Long Writing Tasks (PDF)

This resource offers some practical tips and tools to assist writers in staying productive for extended periods of time in the face of common challenges like procrastination. It discusses how the process of writing is more than putting words on a page and offers suggestions for addressing negative emotions towards writing, such as anxiety. The handout also lays out helpful methods for staying productive for long writing tasks: (1) time-based methods, (2) social-based methods, (3) output-based methods, (4) reward-based methods, and (5) mixed methods. 

Essay on Goal Setting Is Important For Success

Students are often asked to write an essay on Goal Setting Is Important For Success in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Goal Setting Is Important For Success

Why set goals.

Setting goals is like drawing a map for a trip. It guides you to where you want to go. Without goals, you can get lost. Goals help you focus on what is important and track your progress.

Goals Help With Motivation

When you have a goal, it’s easier to stay excited and keep working hard. Think of it like a video game. Each level you beat gets you closer to the final boss.

Goals and Learning

Goals are not just about winning. They help you learn and get better. If you aim to read more books, you become a better reader. Goals turn hard work into skills.

Reaching Bigger Dreams

Small goals are steps to big dreams. If you dream of being a scientist, start by aiming to ace your science class. Every small goal you meet gets you closer to your big dream.

250 Words Essay on Goal Setting Is Important For Success

Goals keep you motivated.

Imagine you are on a soccer team and want to win a trophy. If you set this as your goal, it will push you to practice harder. Goals give you a reason to wake up every morning and work towards something. They keep your energy up because you want to achieve something important to you.

Goals Help You Measure Success

When you have goals, you can tell if you are moving in the right direction. For example, if your goal is to read 20 books in a year, you can count how many books you have read to know if you are close to your goal. This helps you understand how well you are doing.

Goals Encourage You to Take Action

Goals make you do things. If you want to be the best speller in your class, you will start learning new words and practicing spelling. Without a clear goal, you might not feel the need to start, and you won’t see as much improvement.

In short, setting goals is important for success because it guides you, keeps you motivated, lets you know if you’re succeeding, and gets you to act. Whether you are a student or an adult, goals help you grow and achieve great things.

500 Words Essay on Goal Setting Is Important For Success

Setting goals is like drawing a map for a journey. If you want to reach success, you need to know where you are going. Goals give us a clear picture of our destination. They are targets we aim to hit. Imagine playing soccer without a goalpost; how would you score? Goals in life work the same way; they help us score our dreams.

Goals Give Direction

Goals are also like a coach that keeps you going. When you feel lazy or want to give up, remembering your goal can give you a push. It’s like when you are running a race and you see the finish line. Knowing what you are working toward makes you want to keep going, even when it gets tough.

Goals Help You Measure Progress

Another important thing about goals is that they let you see how far you’ve come. If your goal is to save money for a new bike, each time you put money away, you are getting closer to your goal. You can see your progress, like watching the bike get closer each time you save. This makes you feel good and want to keep saving.

Goals Can Be Big or Small

How to set good goals.

Good goals are clear and possible to achieve. They are not too easy but not too hard either. A goal should be something like, “I will read for 20 minutes every day,” not just “I will read more.” When you know exactly what to do, it’s easier to make it happen.

Sticking to Your Goals

Sticking to your goals can be hard, but there are tricks to help. One way is to tell other people about your goals. They can encourage you and help you stay on track. Another way is to reward yourself when you reach a goal. If you finish a big project, you could celebrate with your favorite treat.

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• Open access
• Published: 26 September 2024

Inspiring nurses’ sustainability mindset: Exploring the Mediating Role of Organizational Culture on the relationship between Pro-social Leader behaviors and nurses’ sustainability consciousness

• Amal Diab Ghanem Atalla 1 ,
• Wafaa Hassan Mostafa 2 &
• Mohamed Saad Saleh Ali 1  

BMC Nursing volume  23 , Article number:  675 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

79 Accesses

Metrics details

Since nurses are at the frontline of healthcare delivery, their actions and understanding of the environment have a big impact on how long healthcare systems can last. It is essential to comprehend the elements that impact nurses’ sustainability consciousness to encourage ecologically conscious actions in the healthcare industry.

This study aimed to explore the relationship between pro-social leader behaviors and nurses’ sustainability consciousness and testify to the mediating role of organizational culture in this relationship.

A cross-sectional descriptive correlational design by STROBE criteria was used.

Methods and tools

An approach to a judgmental non-probability sampling technique was employed to obtain data from 350 nurses in an Egyptian hospital. Three measurement surveys were employed: Organizational Culture Survey, Prosociality Scale, and, Sustainability Consciousness Questionnaire (SCQ-S). Relationships were shown using structural equation modeling and descriptive and inferential statistics.

53.4% of nurses have high perceptions of organizational culture, and the majority of nurses (85.7%) have high perceptions of prosocial leader behaviors. Furthermore, 60.9% of nurses have high perceptions of sustainability consciousness. Additionally, Prosocial leader behaviors positively correlated with organizational culture ( r  = 0.129) and nurses’ sustainability consciousness ( r  = 0.274). The indirect effect of prosocial leader behaviors on nurses’ sustainability consciousness through organizational culture is calculated by multiplying the coefficients of both direct effects (0.129 * 0.159 = 0.811). This means that for each unit increase in prosocial leader behaviors, we would expect a 0.811 unit increase in nurses’ sustainability consciousness through the mediating effect of organizational culture. The model appears to match the data well based on the model fit parameters (CFI = 1.000, IFI = 1.000, RMSEA = 0.114).

Conclusions

The study highlights the impact of pro-social leader behaviors on nurses’ sustainability consciousness through the organizational culture as a mediating factor. Nursing Implications : Findings from this research can promote environmental stewardship and sustainable practices in the healthcare sector by illuminating the elements that can encourage and support a sustainability-oriented mindset among nurses. To promote a more sustainable future for the nursing profession, the findings can guide activities in nursing education, corporate culture transformation, and leadership development.

Peer Review reports

For healthcare organizations, leadership has become crucial, and a leader is required to set an example for others of positive social behaviors for nurses [ 1 ]. Pro-social behaviors focus on “giving something up” for the benefit of others without any personal benefit [ 2 ].

A roadmap for developing midwifery and nursing globally can be found in the World Health Organization’s “Global Strategic Directions for Nursing and Midwifery 2021–2025” publication. The purpose of this statement is to enhance access to healthcare worldwide by promoting the advancement of the nursing profession, actively influencing global health policy, and increasing competency development [ 3 ]. Global health policy is significantly influenced by the World Health Organization’s “State of the World’s Nursing 2020” report, which advocates for support for nursing leadership, employment, and education. By supporting fundamental competencies, solidifying the nursing profession, and forming nursing care paradigms, this study seeks to develop nursing and improve healthcare access on a worldwide scale [ 4 ].

The World Health Organization’s “Nursing and Midwifery” (2022) resource demonstrates the active involvement of nurses in the formulation of global health policy. By encouraging the development of important nursing and midwifery skills, supporting the advancement of these professions, and influencing the design of nursing care models, the ultimate purpose of this statement is to improve healthcare access and outcomes internationally [ 5 ]. Furthermore, the “Recover to Rebuild: Investing in the Nursing Workforce for Health System Effectiveness” (2023) report from the International Council of Nurses emphasizes the critical role that nurses play in strengthening and reconstructing healthcare systems. This report directly influences global health policy by arguing for increased funding for nursing education, employment, and leadership roles. Ultimately, it aims to improve healthcare outcomes and accessibility on a worldwide scale by promoting the advancement of the nursing profession and crucial nursing competency development [ 6 ].

Literature review

Pro-social leadership behaviors.

Pro-social leadership behaviors are “a positive, effective influence, with constructive goals that serve the common good. Leaders are driven, and empathetic, and act to promote the welfare of people they have sworn to serve, regardless of the consequences or rewards they may get. Pro-social leadership behaviors include two main dimensions namely: pro-social actions and pro-social feelings. Pro-social behaviors come in many forms (e.g., sharing, caring, assisting, contributing, cooperating, assisting proactively, responding to requests for help, and protecting the organization) which stand for a broad behavioral dimension as opposed to the feeling dimension, or empathic feelings, which frequently drive other-oriented pro-social behaviors. Pro-social leadership behaviors concept in healthcare is becoming increasingly important because it contributes to staff and organizational development. Extra-role pro-social leader behaviors have been shown to improve social interactions’ reciprocity, cooperation, and solidarity, advance nurses’ well-being, and meet their needs by focusing on their career development, promoting nurses` growth and sustainability consciousness by sharing leaders’ views, establishing organization value, and encouraging mutual awareness [ 7 ].

Nurses’ sustainability consciousness

The environmental, social, and economic facets of sustainability are integrated by nurses, highlighting the significance of sustainability knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors [ 8 , 9 ]. Nurses’ awareness of ecological issues is measured by the environmental sustainability consciousness dimension. The long-term financial and personal welfare of nurses is a conscious concern in the economic dimension. The process of creating vibrant, long-lasting environments that promote wellness by understanding what people require from their lives and jobs is known as the social dimension. Furthermore, having a sustainable attitude means caring about sustainability, which leads to sustainable behaviors, but having a sustainable knowingness means being aware of the theoretical underpinnings of sustainable development. Behaviors that promote and aid in sustainable development are referred to as sustainability behaviors [ 10 ]. Educating nurses about sustainability can encourage them to implement sustainable practices in the clinical setting which decreases costs and wastes. Also, it plays an important role in organizational growth, financial sustainability, and competitive advantage; leading toward environmental protection, social welfare, and economic growth [ 11 , 12 , 13 ]. The pathway for the adoption of sustainability awareness leads via organizational culture where it is essential to building a sustainable, well-balanced workplace in today’s challenging contexts [ 14 ].

• Organizational culture

An organization’s management style and procedures are derived from its organizational culture, which is a collection of values and beliefs [ 15 ]. According to Quinn et al. (2020), an organization’s culture is a collective knowledge that employees recognize as what sets one organization apart from another. It influences behavior and the structure of management within the organization [ 16 ]. The four components of organizational culture are involvement, consistency, adaptation, and mission. Developing human capabilities at all levels, organizing around teams, and empowering employees are all examples of involvement. Consistency: refers to an organization’s well-coordinated and integrated activities and behavior that are based on a set of basic beliefs. Adaptability is the ability to take chances, learn from failures, and translate organizational environment expectations into action. It also refers to prior experience implementing change. A mission statement conveys the organization’s purpose and direction, identifies its aims and strategic objectives, and paints a picture of its future state [ 17 ]. Members are more cohesive and have a greater understanding of one another when they have the same culture. Organizational culture is essential to creating a safe healthcare system in the context of healthcare, hence it must exist [ 18 ].

The underpinning of Batson’s theory

According to Batson’s theory, which maintains that empathy plays a significant part in forming a leader’s personality, prosocial leaders are driven by two ideals to act in ways that genuinely help society: empathy and altruism. When someone sees somebody in need, they have to respond to it or suppress their empathy. There are two parts to the ordinary leader development procedure. The term “expected representation” is the first item. It is an individual’s objectives, ideal future self, or sense of self. The construction of goals, the use of personal identity in the building of personal meaning, and the development of the moral self are all dependent on it. “Integration” is the second section. Through a dialectical process of thought, an individual compares their ultimate aims; such as being an agent with their current personal goals, which were established in reaction to empathy. the idealized appearance or moral persona they aspire to [ 19 ].

From the aforementioned conceptualizations, we planned a conceptual model for this study (Fig.  1 ). Assumed that pro-social leader behavior is the independent variable, nurses’ sustainability consciousness is the dependent variable, and organizational culture acts as a mediating role, the following conceptual framework is postulated:

The researchers’ proposed conceptual framework of the study

Significance of the study

This study has significant implications for Egypt’s nursing workforce. It fills a significant void in the body of current literature. There is a paucity of research exploring the factors that influence the development of sustainability consciousness among nurses. This research fills this void by examining the intricate interactions between prosocial leadership behaviors, organizational culture, and nurses’ sustainability mindset.

Additionally, since nurses are at the forefront of healthcare delivery and have a critical role in putting sustainable practices into practice, this study contributes to promoting sustainable healthcare practices. The study’s understanding of the factors influencing nurses’ sustainability consciousness can help develop tactics that will enable them to take the lead in promoting environmental stewardship in hospital settings. The study on the mutually beneficial association between leader prosocial behaviors and sustainability consciousness in the success of nurses is immediately very important in the presence of Egyptian organizational culture. It offers insightful information on how to better the nation’s nursing profession and healthcare outcomes through modifying treatments, improving nursing practice, encouraging organizational development, and influencing legislative decisions.

Specifically, this study supports the larger global initiative to accomplish the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations, especially SDG 13 (Climate Action) and SDG 3 (Good Health and Well-Being). By promoting sustainable practices in nursing, the study contributes to the healthcare sector’s efforts to address environmental sustainability and social responsibility.

In inference, this study has numerous imperative theoretical implications as extending current leadership theories beyond typical performance-based outcomes by including pro-social leadership behaviors as antecedents of sustainability-related outcomes, such as nurses’ sustainability consciousness. This is in line with requests to investigate how leadership contributes to sustainability. Also, Analyzing organizational culture as a mediating mechanism brings to light how contextual elements shape how leadership influences outcomes connected to sustainability. This lends credence to the idea that the organizational environment influences how effective a leader’s actions are. Integrating sustainability-related concepts into the literature on organizational behavior involves positioning nurses’ consciousness of sustainability as a crucial outcome variable. This facilitates the communication between conventional organizational phenomena and sustainability. The suggested model takes a multilevel approach by considering the relationships between individual sustainability consciousness, company culture, and leader actions. This is in line with requests for additional multidimensional research in the fields of sustainability and leadership.

Study design

As per STROBE principles, a cross-sectional descriptive correlational research design was chosen.

The study was carried out in the Ministry of Health and Population (MOHP)-affiliated Itay El Baroud General Hospital, which has 220 beds in total capacity. This covered all inpatient medical and surgical care units as well as Intensive Care Units (ICUs) ( n  = 16). These included: (1) medical units ( n  = 8), which included obstetric, pediatric, neurosurgical, dialysis, orthopedic, and poison units; (2) surgical units ( n  = 3), which included general surgical (Male and Female) and operation units; and (3) ICUs ( n  = 5), which included general, neonatal, pediatric, coronary care, and emergency units. This hospital began taking significant action to meet the patient safety requirements set forth by the General Authority for Health Accreditation and Regulation (GAHAR).

This is a judgmental non-probability sampling technique and not all nurses are included then, those who fulfill the criteria only. (we opt to look at the total population that meets a certain set of conditions: inclusion criteria). A total of 350 nurses who had worked in the aforementioned units for at least a year comprised the study group to familiarize them with the hospital’s administrative policies, procedures, and rules. When the information was being obtained, the nurses also needed to be there. The following criteria were fulfilled by nurses who were selected to take part in the study: The following requirements had to be met by them: (1) they had to remain on the working unit for a minimum of a year, and (2) they had to be directly giving patients with nursing care. The Raosoft sample size calculator was used to determine the appropriate sample size for a population of 660 people, with a 5-unit margin of error and a significance level of p  ≤ 0.05. The recommended minimum sample size was calculated to be 244, and to ensure an adequate sample, 400 nurses were surveyed, with 350 nurses completing and returning the questionnaire, which met the target sample size.

Ethical considerations

The research protocol was authorized by the Damanhour University Research Ethics Committee, which is a division of the College of Nursing. Nurses were informed of the aim of the study before providing their signed consent. To safeguard identity and secrecy, a code number was given to each questionnaire. The data was only used for research, as was assured to the nurses. The ability to leave the study has been confirmed.

Study tools

A structured questionnaire was employed to gather the data. The questionnaire comprised of four sections , as follows :

Sociodemographic characteristics

The study participants’ years of service, years in the work unit, gender, age, education, and nursing experience were among the items the researchers questioned.

Organizational culture survey

Closed-ended surveys that were provided to the hospitals and tailored for staff were used to gather data. Items about organizational culture were included in the employee surveys, which were modified versions of Denison’s (1990) [ 20 ] organizational culture survey and validated by (Ashley & Brijball, 2024) [ 21 ]. Furthermore, nine measures are utilized to assess each of the four elements of corporate culture—involvement, consistency, flexibility, and mission—for a total of 36 questions. On a five-point Likert scale, respondents may select the option that most accurately expresses their viewpoint. A Likert scale, with numbers ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree), was employed in this investigation. Moreover, the Likert scale encompasses the entire spectrum of possible responses by ranking items based on agreement or disagreement. In addition, factor analysis was used to evaluate the validity of the questionnaire, and Cronbach’s coefficient alpha was used to evaluate its reliability. The findings demonstrate the extremely high degree of inter-item consistency reflected by the organizational culture questionnaire’s coefficient alpha (0.939), indicating the questionnaire’s reliability.

The Organizational Culture Survey has a mean score range of 36 to 180 overall. Cronbach’s alpha for the current investigation was 0.92. This was more significant than 0.35 and accounted for 82.151% of the variance in total. With a sampling adequacy of 0.923 according to Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin, the data was deemed appropriate for factor analysis. Furthermore, Bartlett’s test of sphericity achieved statistical significance ( P  = 0.000), confirming the correlation matrix’s factor capacity. As a result, the scale’s items were kept.

Prosociality scale

This scale was created and measures a variety of prosocial activities, such as sharing, lending a hand, and showing compassion, as well as sympathetic and empathetic responses. The scale compromised two main dimensions namely; prosocial actions (12 items) and prosocial feelings (4- items). Participants assessed their propensity to engage in prosocial behaviors (1 = never/nearly never true; 2 = occasionally true; 3 = sometimes true; 4 = often true; and 5 = almost always/always true) on a 16-item measure developed by Caprara et al. (2005a) [ 22 ] and validated by Luengo, et al., 2021) [ 23 ]. In the Caprara et al., (2005a) [ 22 ] investigation, the total Cronbach’s alpha for the scale was 0.94.

The total score falls between 16 and 80. The current study’s Cronbach alpha was 0.93. With a sampling adequacy of 0.923 according to Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin, the data was deemed appropriate for factor analysis. Furthermore, Bartlett’s test of sphericity achieved statistical significance ( P  = 0.000), confirming the correlation matrix’s factor capacity. As a result, the scale’s items were kept.

Sustainability consciousness questionnaire (SCQ-S)

This questionnaire was developed by (Gericke, et al., 2019) [ 24 ], validated by (Bacci, et al., 2024) [ 25 ], and created in two versions, people’s attitudes, behavior, and knowledge of the environment, society, and economy can be assessed using the 49-item long version (SCQ-L) (nine valid and reliable subscales). The 27-item abbreviated form, or SCQ-S is useful for measuring Sustainability Consciousness. The scale exhibits outstanding psychometric quality in both versions. The results of analyses conducted with raw data and latent estimates, respectively, indicate a strong correlation between the short versions of all the measures, thus the short version was used in this study. The short version (SCQ-S) consists of three main dimensions: Knowingness, Attitudes, and Behaviour with three sub-dimensions in each main dimension. Three elements in each of the three sub-dimensions—environmental, social, and economic—make up a total of 27 items on the scale. The total score falls between 24 and 120. Cronbach’s alpha for the current investigation was 82. With a sample adequacy of 0.903, the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure showed that the data could be used for factor analysis. Furthermore, Bartlett’s test of sphericity achieved statistical significance ( P  = 0.000), confirming the correlation matrix’s factor capacity. As a result, the scale’s items were kept.

Pilot study

The pilot study was approved by 10% of the nurses ( n  = 35) to preserve the goods’ usefulness and simplicity and to spot any possible obstacles or problems during the data collection process. Nothing had to be changed. The main study did not involve any of the pilot study participants. The accuracy and inclusivity of the surveys were verified by the researchers.

Data collection

To gather a sample list of all nurses and to get permission to meet them according to their schedules and break times, the researchers first visited the nurse managers of the units. After providing a thorough briefing and necessary instructions at the prearranged time, the researchers gave the questionnaires to each nurse who gave their agreement to participate in the study. Each nurse was given a two-minute explanation of the study’s goal before being asked to return it to the researcher. These scales were completed in front of the researcher to confirm the respondents’ objectivity, the coherence of their thoughts, and the completion of all questions. Completing the questions should take fifteen to twenty minutes. Three months passed between the first of January 2024 to the first of April 2024 to gather the data. All of the nurses’ questions were answered, and explanations were given.

Data analysis

IBM SPSS AMOS (Version 23) and IBM SPSS Statistics (Version 23) were used to analyze the data. Frequency and percentage were used to describe the participant demographics. Means and standard deviations were used to describe the three primary study variables: pro-social leader behaviors, organizational culture, and nurses’ sustainability consciousness. Based on demographic features, changes in the research variable were found using an independent sample t-test and a one-way analysis of variance. The correlation between the key research variables was ascertained using Pearson’s correlation analysis. Regression models were used to ascertain the direct effect of pro-social leader behaviors on nurses’ sustainability consciousness. The indirect effect of pro-social leader behaviors on nurses’ sustainability consciousness as mediated by organizational culture was investigated using a structural equation model. To confirm the validity of the scale items, the study used composite reliability (CR) and Cronbach’s alpha. In addition, several confirmatory factor analyses were carried out to guarantee the accuracy of the study’s constituent parts.

Table  1 reveals that 83.7% of nurses are female, and 54.6% of nurses are from 40 to 50 years old. Furthermore, 78.0% of nurses are single. Moreover, 10%, 12.9%, and 37.1% are employed in internal medicine, surgery, and critical care units. 50.6% are technical nurses. The average number of years spent as a nurse is 7.76 ± 3.77. Additionally, 55.1% of nurses have worked in their hospital for 5 to 10 years.

Table  2 clarifies that most nurses (53.4%) have high perceptions of organizational culture, and most nurses (85.7%) have high perceptions of prosocial leader behaviors. Furthermore, most nurses (60.9%) have high perceptions of sustainability consciousness. Finally, prosocial leader behaviors had the highest mean score (Mean ± SD = 80.56 ± 14.42).

Table  3 provides a correlation matrix of the relationships between prosocial leader behaviors, organizational culture, and nurses’ sustainability consciousness based on a sample size of 350. All correlations were statistically significant at p  = 0.05, according to the data. Prosocial leader behaviors positively correlated with organizational culture ( r  = 0.129) and nurses’ sustainability consciousness ( r  = 0.274). This suggests that improvements in prosocial leader behaviors are associated with improvements in organizational culture and nurses’ sustainability consciousness. Organizational culture, and nurses’ sustainability consciousness also positively correlated ( r  = 0.192), indicating that they tend to improve together.

Table  4 ; Fig.  2 present the direct and indirect effects of prosocial leader behaviors, sustainability consciousness, and organizational culture. Prosocial leader behaviors (independent variable) directly affect organizational culture (mediator). This is represented by the path coefficient of 0.129 (p 0.015). Organizational culture (mediator) directly affects nurses’ sustainability consciousness (dependent variable). This is represented by the path coefficient of 0.159 ( p  = 0.002). Prosocial leader behaviors (independent variable) directly affect nurses’ sustainability consciousness (dependent variable). This is represented by the path coefficient of 0.253 ( p  < 0.001). The indirect effect of prosocial leader behaviors on nurses’ sustainability consciousness through organizational culture is calculated by multiplying the coefficients of both direct effects (0.129 * 0.159 = 0.811). This means that for each unit increase in prosocial leader behaviors, we would expect a 0.811 unit increase in nurses’ sustainability consciousness through the mediating effect of organizational culture. The model appears to match the data well based on the model fit parameters (CFI = 1.000, IFI = 1.000, RMSEA = 0.114). In terms of degrees of freedom, the Chi-square value (X2/df = 14.209/3) represents the difference between the model and the data. A better fit is indicated by a smaller value. There is a perfect fit when both the incremental fit index (IFI) and comparative fit index (CFI) equal 1.000. A fair approximation error is shown by the Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) of 0.114, which is less than the generally accepted criterion of.08. All of these indicators point to a good representation of the observed data by the model.

Path analysis of the direct and indirect effect of Prosociality Scale Instrument on Sustainability consciousness: Organizational Culture Instrument as a mediator

The idea of prosocial leadership behaviors is becoming more and more significant in the healthcare industry since it supports organizational and staff growth. By sharing leaders’ perspectives on the environment, developing organizational values, and fostering mutual awareness, extra-role prosocial leader behaviors have been demonstrated to improve nurses’ growth and sustainability consciousness [ 14 , 26 ]. The process by which organizational culture adopts sustainability awareness, whereby becomes essential for managing and advancing sustainable growth in today’s demanding environments [ 11 ].

Perceived level of pro-social leader behaviors, nurses’ sustainability consciousness and organizational culture among nurses

The study outcomes confirmed that most nurses perceived that their managers have a high level of prosocial leadership behaviors. This could be explained by the nurses’ perception that the managers serve as an example of positive social behaviors; they are upbeat, effective at influencing staff nurses, capable of enacting change, and focused on the needs of the larger group rather than their interests. They also protect the healthcare organization and offer proactive assistance in response to requests for assistance. The results of this study are consistent with those of (El-sawah and El-kholy, 2024) [ 7 ], (Mekawy, 2023) [ 27 ] , (Luthufi, et al., 2021) [ 28 ] and (Feather, et al., 2018) [ 29 ], who reported that there was a high level of responsiveness from staff nurses to overall prosocial leadership.

This study also discovered that most nurses have high perceptions of sustainability consciousness. This might be attributed to that staff nurses are conscious of and concerned about sustainable development, which translates into sustainable development behaviors such as cutting back on water use in hospitals, learning how to safeguard hospitals from natural disasters, abiding by the rules and laws about the preservation of the hospital’s environment, using less packaging and disposable items, and managing waste. The findings of this study are in line with those of (El-sawah and El-kholy, 2024) [ 7 ], (Frostenson, et al. 2022) [ 30 ], (Afzal and Lim, 2022) [ 31 ], and (Elg, et al. 2021) [ 32 ], who discovered that the overall organizational sustainability levels were highly rated by staff nurses.

Furthermore, the study results revealed that most nurses have high perceptions of organizational culture. This could be explained by the notion that nurses possess several key attributes, including empowerment, teamwork, shared values, well-coordinated and integrated activities, risk-taking, learning from errors, and change-making experience. They also have a distinct direction and goal that includes a future vision for the company as well as organizational goals and strategic objectives. The present study’s results align with the findings of (Ashley & Brijball, 2024) [ 21 ] and (Budi & Abidin, 2021) [ 33 ], which indicated that nurses exhibited a high degree of involvement, consistency, adaptability, and mission within their organizational culture.

Relationship among pro-social leader behaviors, nurses’ sustainability consciousness and organizational culture among nurses

The findings of this study revealed that nurses’ sustainability consciousness was correlated with prosocial leader behaviors. This finding implies that prosocial leader behavior is one of the leading indicators of nurses’ sustainability consciousness. This can be explained by the fact that prosocial leadership behaviors encourage nurses to be conscious of sustainability through exchanging perspectives on the healthcare environment, defining organizational values, and supporting sustainability consciousness as a means of ensuring patient safety and high-quality care. This finding is consistent with a study by (El-sawah & El-kholy, 2024) [ 7 ], (Nisar, et al., 2021) [ 34 ], and (Kim, et al., 2019) [ 12 ], who claimed that prosocial leadership and organizational sustainability had a statistically significant positive association.

Furthermore, the findings of this study displayed organizational culture as a mediator between prosocial leader behaviors and nurses’ sustainability consciousness. This outcome can be explained by the way that prosocial leaders have an impact on the attitudes and beliefs of staff nurses, which creates a positive organizational culture and raises staff nurses’ awareness of sustainability. This, in turn, encourages staff nurses to adopt sustainable practices in the healthcare setting, which reduces costs and waste and promotes social welfare, environmental protection, and economic growth. The study’s results are consistent with those of (El-sawah & El-kholy, 2024) [ 7 ], (Alvarez & Medina, 2023) [ 35 ], (Assoratgoon & Kantabutra, 2023) [ 36 ], and (Nisar, et al., 2021) [ 34 ], who revealed that prosocial leadership behaviors shape nurses’ attitudes and beliefs, creating a healthy organizational culture that raises nurses’ consciousness of sustainability.

Standardized regression coefficient weights among pro-social leader behaviors, and nurses’ sustainability consciousness with the mediating role of organizational culture

Similarly, organizational culture and nurses’ sustainability consciousness were favorably correlated with prosocial leader behaviors. Organizational culture (mediator) directly affects nurses’ sustainability consciousness (dependent variable). The reason for this outcome could be that the adoption of sustainability consciousness in healthcare organizations is facilitated by organizational culture, which establishes shared values and attitudes among staff nurses on sustainability awareness and sustainable development in the face of today’s complex circumstances. This result is in line with the findings of (Macagnan & Seibert, 2022) [ 37 ], (Kantaburta, 2021) [ 38 ], and (Isensee, 2020) [ 39 ], who claimed that organizational culture positively correlated with nurses’ sustainability consciousness.

Strengths and limitations

This study includes return estimations. Accurate information in case series and reports is less susceptible to biases because the cross-sectional methodology made it possible to evaluate multiple characteristics in the sample at once. The study extends our knowledge of the influence of pro-social leader behaviors on nurses’ sustainability consciousness, an issue that gets little attention in the healthcare sector by utilizing organizational culture as a mediating factor as viewed by nurses.

There are certain limitations, though. First, the nurses were selected through convenience sampling or from a single healthcare organization thus, the results may not be representative of the broader nursing population. Additionally, the study was conducted in a specific geographical area or setting, which could also limit the generalizability of the findings to nurses in different cultural or organizational contexts. There is a need for further research to validate the findings in more diverse samples and settings. Second, the only dependent variable in this study was the relationship between pro-social leader behaviors and nurses’ sustainability consciousness, with organizational culture serving as a mediating factor. Thirdly, the study’s unclear statement on the impact of control factors could make it more difficult to evaluate the findings. Subsequent research endeavors may evaluate supplementary factors that influence nurses’ awareness of sustainability. Also, the data entry and clearing process for the paper-based questionnaire was very labor-intensive. Finally, there is no evidence linking any of the study’s components to a causal relationship. After all, the goal was to investigate the relationship between the variables.

This study adds to the expanding corpus of research on sustainability in healthcare, particularly in the nursing context It provides empirical evidence on the interplay between prosocial leadership behaviors, organizational culture, and nurses’ sustainability mindset, which can inform future research and practical applications. The human-centeredness and caring amenities of the nursing profession make it stand out. Only nurses adhere to certain values when interacting with patients and their families [ 40 ]. Healthcare leaders should recognize the interplay between leaders’ prosocial behaviors and organizational aspects such as organizational culture, and nurses’ sustainability mindset [ 41 ]. This means that fostering a culture of support and continual learning and skill development should be a top priority for healthcare companies. Hospital administrators should encourage organized networks of communication between nursing leaders and subordinates, encouraging nurses to participate in committee meetings and decision-making [ 42 ]. Overall, this study aims to shed light on the factors that can inspire and nurture a sustainability-oriented mindset among nurses, with the ultimate goal of promoting sustainable practices and environmental stewardship in the healthcare industry. The findings can inform leadership development, organizational culture change, and nursing education initiatives to foster a more sustainable future in the nursing profession.

The present study’s results suggest that pro-social behaviors, sustainability consciousness, and organizational culture are positively correlated. Specifically, there is a statistically significant positive correlation between pro-social behaviors and sustainability consciousness. Additionally, there is a statistically significant positive relationship between organizational culture and pro-social behavior. Additionally, a statistically significant positive association between organizational culture and sustainability consciousness. There is an impact of pro-social behaviors on sustainability consciousness through the organizational culture as a mediating factor.

Implications for nursing practice, education and policy

The practice of nursing will be significantly impacted by these findings. They recommend that healthcare institutions give pro-social leadership behavior development top priority and cultivate an environment that supports and encourages nurses’ awareness of sustainability. This could result in several advantages, including enhanced environmental sustainability procedures in healthcare environments, which help lower waste, energy use, and carbon emissions. Increased involvement and job satisfaction among nurses because they feel encouraged to advocate for sustainable practices. Better patient outcomes because nurses who are more environmentally sensitive may be more aware of how environmental elements can affect a patient’s health and well-being.

This study focuses on understanding how the organizational context and culture can shape the impact of prosocial leadership behaviors on nurses’ development of a sustainability mindset. The adoption of environmentally responsible practices by nurses who are motivated by pro-social leadership and have a heightened understanding of sustainability is likely to contribute to the overall sustainability of the healthcare system. An organizational culture that values sustainability and pro-social leadership In the face of environmental difficulties, consciousness can improve healthcare organizations’ resilience and adaptation. Nurses can develop a sense of sustainability consciousness by pro-social leaders developing organizational ideals around sustainability, sharing their perspectives, and fostering mutual knowledge. Enhanced nurse well-being, job satisfaction, and engagement can result from pro-social leader behaviors that prioritize attending to nurses’ needs and fostering their professional development. By understanding the mechanisms that influence nurses’ sustainability consciousness, healthcare organizations can better support and empower nurses to become champions of sustainable healthcare.

The findings inform that programs for nursing education should include modules or courses that address sustainability consciousness, pro-social leadership practices, and how these affect individual, group, and organizational outcomes. Opportunities for experiential learning, such as case studies, role-plays, and simulations, should be made available to nursing students so they can acquire pro-social leadership techniques and comprehend how they might be used in actual healthcare settings. To serve as role models for aspiring nurses, nursing faculty should be prepared and taught to exhibit pro-social leadership behaviors in their mentorship and instruction.

In addition, healthcare organizations should create and put into effect activities that raise nurses’ awareness of sustainability as well as policies that reward and encourage pro-social leadership among nursing leaders. Programs for nurses’ professional growth and continuing education should cover pro-social leadership techniques, sustainability, and how to incorporate these into nursing practice. Pro-social leadership skills and a focus on sustainability should be included in the criteria and guidelines that nursing regulatory organizations and accreditation agencies develop for nursing practice and education. To guarantee a comprehensive strategy for fostering pro-social leadership and sustainability consciousness throughout the healthcare system, nursing policy should encourage multidisciplinary collaboration with other healthcare professions.

Data availability

The corresponding author can provide the datasets created and analyzed for this study upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

We sincerely thank the hospital director and the first-level nurse managers of the clinical units at Itay El Baroud General Hospital for their vital assistance and inspiration. Furthermore, we would like to sincerely thank the nurses who actively engaged in this study, as their help was crucial to our ability to complete this research.

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Open access funding provided by The Science, Technology & Innovation Funding Authority (STDF) in cooperation with The Egyptian Knowledge Bank (EKB).

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Amal Diab Ghanem Atalla: The ideation, approach, research, first draft composition, and manuscript editing and review. Conceptualization, data collecting, statistical analysis, data curation, original draft writing, review, and editing were performed by Amal Diab Ghanem Atalla & Mohamed Saad Saleh Ali. Data collection, methodology, investigation, manuscript review, and editing were done by Amal Diab Ghanem Atalla &Wafaa Hassan Mostafa. After reviewing the manuscript, each author gave their approval.

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Every technique used in this research closely followed the relevant guidelines provided in the Declaration of Helsinki (DoH-Oct2008). Under reference code 96 D, the Research Ethics Committee of the Faculty of Nursing at Damanhour University in Egypt formally approved and granted authorization to perform the study. Furthermore, nursing faculty staff who voluntarily consented to engage in the research provided written informed consent before they participated in the study.

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Atalla, A.D.G., Mostafa, W.H. & Ali, M.S.S. Inspiring nurses’ sustainability mindset: Exploring the Mediating Role of Organizational Culture on the relationship between Pro-social Leader behaviors and nurses’ sustainability consciousness. BMC Nurs 23 , 675 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12912-024-02314-z

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s12912-024-02314-z

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