The effects of motivation and progress framing on goal pursuit

Will different progress types of reports lead to goal commitment or digression? Does progress feedback focused on past progress, such as, "you have completed 50%" affect behavior differently than feedback focused on what remains to be done, such as, "you have 50% remaining"? People can feel achievement and discontinue goal pursuit when one step toward a goal is perceived as progress, not as commitment (Fishbach & Dhar, 2005). The primary goal of this research was to examine whether the extent to which people engage in goal-consistent activities after receiving different types of progress information depends on the nature of their motivation. The study employed a 2 (Motivation: Intrinsic/ Extrinsic) × 2 (Progress Framing: To-Date/ To-Go) between-participants experimental design. The results showed that participants who were given the different motivational components were similar in their choice and persistence. Motivation affected performance, such that extrinsically motivated participants performed better than intrinsically motivated participants. There was a main effect of progress framing on perceived pressure and on negative mood, such that participants exposed to a "to-go" progress message felt more anxiety and more negative mood. The implications of these findings and the direction of future studies are discussed