Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Peter M. Gollwitzer
Universitdt Konstanz
When people encounter problems in translating their goals suggesting that good intentions are an effective self-regu-
into action (e.g., failing to get started, becoming distracted, latory tool is also unwarranted. What is needed is a theo-
or falling into bad habits), they may strategically call on retical and empirical analysis of how people's good inten-
automatic processes in an attempt to secure goal attain- tions can be made more effective. Once this is known,
ment. This can be achieved by plans in the form of imple- forming good intentions and effective ways to implement
mentation intentions that link anticipated critical situations them can be suggested to people who are motivated to
to goal-directed responses ("Whenever situation x arises, I change their behavior.
will initiate the goal-directed response y!"). Implementa- How good intentions can be implemented effectively
tion intentions delegate the control of goal-directed re- has been analyzed in recent research on goal striving (for a
sponses to anticipated situational cues, which (when actu- review, see Gollwitzer & Moskowitz, 1996). Forming good
ally encountered) elicit these responses automatically. A intentions or setting goals is understood as committing
program of research demonstrates that implementation oneself to reaching desired outcomes or to performing
intentions further the attainment of goals, and it reveals the desired behaviors. For various reasons, people may often
underlying processes. refrain from such binding goal commitments (e.g., Oettin-
Good resolutions are useless attempts to interfere with scientific gen, in press), but even if people make goal commitments,
laws. Their origin is pure vanity. Their result is absolutely nil. the distance between goal setting and goal attainment is
—Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray often long (Gollwitzer, 1990). Successful goal attainment
G
requires that problems associated with getting started and
ood intentions have a bad reputation. People who persisting until the goal is reached are effectively solved.
form New Year's resolutions earn at best a sym- The question of how goals, once set, can be made
pathetic smile when they announce their heroic more effective therefore boils down to asking for the vari-
intentions (e.g., exercising regularly, avoiding unhealthy ables that determine effective goal pursuit. Some answers
foods). Though the audience may concede that such reso- are suggested by recent research on goal striving. First, it
lutions are made with good will (Oscar Wilde is less matters how people frame their good intentions or goals.
trusting), they doubt their effectiveness. This suspicion is For instance, better performances are observed when peo-
deeply rooted. Folklore tells us that "the road to hell is ple set themselves challenging, specific goals as compared
paved with good intentions." with challenging but vague goals (so-called "do your best"
Do good intentions deserve this bad reputation? As the goals; Locke & Latham, 1990). This goal-specificity effect
many empirical studies based on Ajzen's (1985) theory of is based on feedback and self-monitoring advantages, as is
planned behavior demonstrate, there is no reason to assume also true for the goal-proximity effect (proximal goals lead
that good intentions have nil effects or even negative ef- to better performances than distal goals; Bandura &
fects on behavior. Quite to the contrary, strong intentions Schunk, 1981). Goal attainment is also more likely when
(e.g., "I strongly intend to do x") are reliably observed to be people frame their good intentions as learning goals (to
realized more often than weak intentions (see reviews by learn how to perform a given task) rather than performance
Ajzen, 1991; Conner & Armitage, in press; Godin & Kok, goals (to find out through task performance how capable
1996). However, the correlations between intentions and one is; Dweck, 1996) or when they frame their intentions as
behavior are modest; intentions account for only 20% to
30% of the variance in behavior. As well, the strength of
the intention-behavior relation varies drastically with the Editor's note. Denise C. Park served as action editor for this article.
type of behavior that is specified, and people's past behav-
ior commonly turns out to be a better predictor than their Author's note. Preparation of this article was supported by Research
intentions. Most interesting, the weak intention-behavior Grants GO387/5-3 and G0387/8-1 from the Deutsche Forschungsgemein-
relation is largely due to people having good intentions but schaft and the University of Konstanz (AFF). I am thankful to John Bargh,
failing to act on them (Orbell & Sheeran, 1998). Jeff Drugge, and Gabriele Oettingen for their helpful suggestions.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Peter
In light of these findings, it seems unjustified for M. Gollwitzer, Fachgruppe Psychologie, Universitat Konstanz, Fach D
applied psychologists to advise people who are motivated 39, D-79457 Konstanz, Germany. Electronic mail may be sent to
to do good to refrain from forming good intentions, but gollwitz@soz.psychologie.uni-konstanz.de.